Cowboy from Sunshine Coast turned superstar
Melbourne Storm fullback Billy Slater has had a glittering career and is widely considered one of league’s very best players. But you don’t get to the heart of the man by reviewing just the high points . . . there are some low points to discuss too, even
It’s precisely 19 minutes and 30 seconds into our chat that Billy Slater decides he’s had enough. “Jeez, it’s a negative interview innit? You are going down the negative path, mate,” he says, with just a touch of exasperation.
He’s probably right. Slater has achieved so much in his glittering league career that we could spend weeks discussing his finer moments without needing to veer on to topics such as the Storm salary cap scandal, THAT pass to Benji Marshall in the 2008 World Cup final, or great mate Cameron Smith’s on-field reaction to the tackle that left Alex McKinnon a quadriplegic.
Thing is, we probably wouldn’t learn much about a guy who will go down as one of the sport’s all-time greats by yacking about the high points of a career that has garnered club, state, country and individual accolades with such remarkable regularity that the pool room at chateaux Slater must be a sizeable structure indeed.
Slater’s legend status is beyond question, his 13-year domination of a sporting code populated by musclebound giants made even more remarkable by a physique of entirely average proportions (Slater stands just 1.78m and seldom tops the scales at more than 85kg).
He’s won everything there is to win and then, often enough, gone and won it again.
But most of us know what it feels like to win something, even if it is a chook raffle at the pub or the Manukau Senior B cricket championship.
What we don’t know is what it feels like to stuff up and lose with the eyes of the world upon us; to have our life’s worked ripped away in an instant; to have our actions and character publicly scrutinised and debated; or how to bear the weight of expectation that comes with being a hero to thousands. So, why not ask? Two-and-a-half weeks removed from season-ending shoulder surgery, Slater is in town to promote next February’s Dick Smith NRL Nines. He’s doing one print interview, which is offered to the Herald on the condition we mention the words Dick Smith NRL Nines a couple of times. Check.
It’s an ask-all interview — not always the case with a star of Slater’s standing — but that doesn’t make it a tell-all, as Slater points out somewhat forthrightly at the 1170-second mark. The question that proves his breaking point seems innocuous enough, particularly as we’ve segued from the two tries he scored in the 2013 World Cup final after beating the medical odds to recover from a knee injury to play in the 34-2 thrashing of the Kiwis at Old Trafford.
“Tell me about oh-six?” the Herald asks. Oh dear — 2006 was not a vintage Slater year. But it was a vital one, both personally and professionally. Always a fierce competitor, but seldom one to cross the line, Slater somehow managed to get himself suspended in three straight matches. The first ban was for kicking an opponent, an act viewed extremely dimly by footy folk. Slater copped it from the mob.
“That was certainly an extremely tough period in my career,” he says, the agitation at the question receding. “But having come through that shaped me as a person, probably a lot more than what I’d learned on the football field.
“It shaped my personality, who I was and what I focused on as well. I don’t think anyone has gone through their career and it has been plain sailing.”
And that’s the thing about Slater — it’s easy to view his career (which, he insists, at 32, is still a good couple of years away from closing) as an uninterrupted string of successes; the happy-go-lucky cowboy from the Sunshine Coast hinterland turned sporting superstar and universally-admired human. But it hasn’t been all beer and skittles. Slater followed up his annus horribilis by celebrating a first premiership victory with the Storm in 2007. The following year he won the golden boot trophy that goes to the best player on the planet, and in 2009 the Storm claimed another premiership. With Queensland having embarked on an unprecedented period of Origin dominance, the Kangaroos’ 2008 World Cup final loss to the Kiwis was merely a blip. But in April 2010, the walls caved in on the Storm’s systemic salary cap cheating. Revelations the club had channelled $3.17 million in off-books payments to a group of star players invoked sanctions including the stripping of its 07 and 09 titles. Overnight, Slater was no longer a premiership winner.
“Everyone is going to have a different opinion on this,” he says. “Look, we’ve moved on. And to be honest, going through that period made you a better person and made you appreciate things. It happened. Do we think we won the premierships? Probably. Are they in the books? No, they are not. It is what it is. I don’t lie awake in my bed worrying about these things.”
Setting his sights firmly forward is how Slater approaches every setback.
“You take the bad with the good. You learn from your mistakes and be the best that you can be for the future, not worrying about how good you played last week, or how good you did last year or what you did back in 2000-and-whatever. That is my main mentality when it comes to football.”
Football, for Slater, is both a compartmentalised and integrated part of his life. His artist wife Nicole and kids — Tyla Rose, 6, and Jake, 4 — share fully in the joy of his work, even if it’s not how he defines himself.
“One hundred per cent I see myself as a husband and father. Kids and
family put everything in perspective. I’d have no trouble walking away from the game tomorrow if it was for my family.
“They take priority in whatever I do in my life. The kids are fully a part of my life and fully a part of my preparation. They come to the game and support me as much as they can. They run on the field after the game and come into the sheds. And to be honest, we have got a pretty good job. I play the game I’ve loved since I was a 4-year-old boy for a living. I get to have my family come into my work, which is accepted at the Melbourne Storm. I’m pretty fortunate.”
Walking away is not something Slater has yet seriously considered. He’s in the process of finalising a new contract with the Storm and believes he could have three more seasons in him. The shoulder injury that has relegated him to unofficial coaching duties has driven home how much he wants to continue competing.
His appearance in the Queensland coaching box during the first half of Origin III was viewed as an indication of his suitability for a tracksuit and clipboard job but, while coaching comes naturally, he doesn’t see himself as an NRL head coach any time soon. Observing the famously diligent — and some might say obsessive — Storm supremo Craig Bellamy on a daily basis is a stark lesson in what is required to succeed at that level.
“I understand how many hours and how much it takes out of you to be a coach and I don’t think I’d be able to put myself all-in. I don’t think I’m prepared to put, not just myself, but my family through that directly after football.”
That’s well down the road, in any case. Accolades and achievements aren’t what drives him — “I didn’t sit down at the start of my career and have a big checklist of what I wanted to achieve, I was just a kid growing up that loved playing football” — but he does have things he wants to do. One of those things, he says — perhaps a touch surprisingly — is to have a crack at the Dick Smith NRL Nines (one more mention for good measure) over Waitangi weekend next year.
While the tournament has had buy-in from most quarters of the game, Slater’s Storm club has remained opposed to the concept.
The main concern, as oft-voiced by his close friend and team-mate, Australian captain Smith, is the additional workload on the game’s premier players.
There is no doubt the toll on elite players is extreme. Slater will typically shed 3kg of muscle as the brutal play-recover-play 30-plus week season takes its toll. Tack on an end of year representative tour and off-season surgeries and playing in the Nines can be a stretch.
Next year, however, the stars appear likely to align. The tournament has been shifted to a more favourable early February date and Slater’s seven-month recovery from shoulder surgery will be complete. He’ll be champing at the bit for a game. He’s happy to lend his profile to the event and fully appreciates the impact his presence would have. He might not possess the same level of appreciation for the Herald’s line of questioning, but by the time he is whisked away he has moved on.
The next challenge — eating a hamburger with one hand — awaits. As you’d expect, he handles it with aplomb. Then he’s gone. But he will, he insists, be back soon.