Rooster laughs off NZ banana drama
BANANAS can be expensive, but one sending an NRL footballer broke?
‘‘Everyone gives me crap for it,’’ laughed Roosters third-gamer Chris Smith of his brush with New Zealand customs officials earlier this year.
‘‘I forgot I even had it in my bag and I was walking through and didn’t declare it. Then the dogs are jumping all over me.
‘‘The border person took me in and gave us the whole rundown while getting into us. Corey Waddell got done as well. I went in there and I knew him from Penrith and I said, ‘what? Don’t tell me you got done as well’.’’
Which is why when the Roosters won the Auckland Nines a few days later there was no man more relieved than the Northern Territory-raised Smith, who trains and buses his way to Bondi HQ from Penrith each day for training. That $400 fine was more than a drop in the ocean.
‘‘I paid the fine straight away,’’ Smith said. ‘‘I’m glad we won because it must have been a bit of an omen.’’
A good omen at that. A week after barely being able to utter a word when stung by the sniffer dogs, Smith was equally mute with a call-up to the Indigenous All-Stars side. And just sponged as much as he could from Johnathan Thurston, Greg Inglis and the like which was then an honour for a man who had played just one time each for the Panthers and Roosters.
‘‘I was a bit quiet to be honest,’’ Smith said.
‘‘I didn’t want to bug them too much. They’re great fellas and are pretty cruisy.
‘‘It was a bit surreal. You’re in camp with all those once-ina-generation players and to not only go out there with him, but to be around them for a week and be involved in the community was awesome.’’
And so is the fact Smith will play his third NRL game in as many seasons when the depleted Roosters travel to the nation’s capital to take on the Raiders on Sunday missing Boyd Cordner, Mitchell Pearce, Blake Ferguson, Dylan Napa and Aidan Guerra.
On his Roosters debut last year ... well, we don’t speak much about that anymore. No-one speaks much about 2016 at the tricolours. But just getting a chance for 80 minutes meant a lot. And this week too.
For a kid who used to play league in the winter and AFL in summer, every NRL game at this stage is like gold – a shop window he rarely gets to parade himself in having flirted with a career in the national code.
‘‘It’s all AFL up there,’’ he said. ‘‘There’s a good rugby league following, but you grow up playing both throughout the year. It gets to the stage where I went better at rugby league so I pursued that.
‘‘I think it’s the only place in Australia where the AFL is not in winter. You can balance both and play both, but it gets to the stage where you have to choose one.
‘‘All of us young fellas mark it down [the Origin period] in the diary and with the good players we’ve got they’re always a chance of playing in the representative football so it’s a good opportunity for us to get our taste of football throughout the year and push our case to get a spot.
‘‘This weekend I can push the case and we’ll see what else comes from it.’’
The border person took me in and gave us the whole rundown while getting into us. CHRIS SMITH
The Sun-Herald