Wallabies star quits – aged 45
Dual Australian rugby union and rugby league international Andrew Walker hopes he won’t be ‘‘dragged off in an ambulance’’ when he faces Argentina’s World Cup team in Sydney tomorrow.
Walker will retire after playing for the Randwick club – where he made his senior rugby debut 28 years ago – against the Pumas.
‘‘I call this Mother Earth, this is where it all started,’’ Walker told The Daily Telegraph newspaper. ‘‘I’m probably going to finish it here – hopefully walking off, not getting dragged off in an ambulance.’’
It’s fitting that Walker will play his final match at Coogee Oval because he watched Randwick play the All Blacks there in 1988.
The self-styled ‘‘leaguie from the bush’’, from a family of 13, who ‘‘didn’t go to a private school’’, was a gobsmacked 15-year-old in awe as the Randwick’s Aboriginal backline stars Glen Ella and Lloyd Walker joined with current World Cup coaches Eddie Jones and Michael Cheika and David Campese to take on the might of Buck Shelford’s All Blacks.
It was the first live game of rugby union Walker had seen. Three years later, he was playing for Randwick alongside some of his heroes.
Walker switched codes to the NRL in 1992 with the St George Dragons and later the Sydney Roosters.
He won his sole Kangaroos cap in 1996 against Papua New Guinea and returned to rugby union with the Brumbies in 2000. Walker won a Super 12 title with the Brumbies in 2001, kicking 21 points in a 36-6 grand final rout of the Sharks.
He made his Wallabies debut in 2000.
Three of his seven test appearances came against the All Blacks with Walker celebrating two wins over New Zealand.
Walker continued to code hop, returning to the NRL with Manly in 2004 before a rugby union stint in France, followed by a Super Rugby switch to the Reds, where he ended his professional career in 2008.