Off in a puff: Why Reg Gasnier was one of the greats
May 14, 2014 - 6:23PM
Look, if the TV stations can replay all that grainy black and white footage of Reg Gasnier at his best, may I not be indulged too?
When I met him all of 18 years ago, working quietly at a Meadowbank packaging company, the most surprising thing was just how normal the man they called the Prince of Centres and Puff the Magic Dragon was. Sometimes, when you meet famous sportspeople long retired, they retain a certain swagger about them, an aura.
But not Reg Gasnier. Bar that last name, there was nothing about him that bespoke the glory of his past. Ah, but glorious it was!
The prince of centres: Reg Gasnier finds himself in another gap for the Dragons.
Photo: Fairfax Archive
For you see Gasnier was from a time when sport was more Camelot than Corporate.
Born close enough to Jubilee Oval that he took the crowds roar with his mothers milk, he was like all the boys at Mortdale Primary, in that he had only one dream to play for the mighty Dragons.
But there was a key difference between Reggie and the others. He demonstrated extraordinary talent from the first, and they didnt.
See, it just so happened that his natural game was
the game, the one others would try to emulate, without ever quite getting there. He had speed, he had swerve, he had verve, he had an acceleration that would leave others standing and a particular capacity to pull off massive side-steps without losing pace.
He scored so many tries as a schoolboy that in 1957, the Dragons asked Reg to play grade, even though he was still only 17 something that he was
desperate to do. "Not on your Nelly," said Regs dad, and not even the next year when the Dragons were
begging.
Young Reg, in his view was not ready for it yet, and needed to continue develop his natural game, unstomped upon by full grown men.
In 1959 though, Dad Gasnier allowed Reg to play and it all came together. Gasnier had graduated to playing reserve grade, and when the centre in Firsts hurt his leg at training, Reg got the call. Get your boots laced, son, youre on.
And off and running. And swerving, and accelerating and decelerating, stepping off both feet, and picking gaps that others didn't even know were there. So began for Gasnier, the season to end reason. From a standing start in reserve grade, he became a regular first grader, and then made the NSW team!
Not that he was allowed to get a big head. Down St George way, it was always the club first, and after returning from rep training with NSW, the Saints coach, Killer Kearney, would growl, You're with St George now, get your head out of the clouds ... Don't get carried away with yourself, son, you're part of a
team....
And not just any team, dammit, but the ST GEORGE team.
A Saints team, in fact, that won the grand final that year, as they did every year in that era. That night, Gasnier was picked for his first Kangaroo tour. Praise the Lord, and pass me a jersey. A Kangaroo jersey.
Though he was really just taken for experience more than anything else, Gasnier was so outstanding in the lead up games he was selected for the first Test. He scored three tries in a famous Australian victory. England came back to win the second Test by a sole point, setting up a classic showdown in the final Test.
With 20 minutes to go in the Test. Australia were down 13-2, with only the slimmest of all slim hopes that they could pull the game out of the fire.
I remember a wide pass from Harry Wells, he told me, with a momentarily far-away look, and it opened up a gap that you could have driven a truck through.
Gasnier didn't have a truck, but by God he had his very own Maserati, and as he was wont to do threw it into gear and burned rubber from the blocks. As always, it was his extraordinary acceleration that got him through the gap before the defence had time to close it, and suddenly he was in space, heading downfield with the wind in his hair and both the Australian and English sides scrambling to re-position themselves as the crowd roared.
I was really flying, Gasnier recalled, and I started to look for my support.
And there it is! Just out of the corner of his eye, he sees Kangaroo winger Brian Carlson. And now he can
hear him: Keep it going Gaz, Keep it going Gaz ....
BANDIT at 12 o'clock! Up ahead, the English fullback, Gerry Round, picks a bead on him, but the Pom is momentarily uncertain of his course of action. Who should he tackle?
Gasnier, dummies, Round picks Carlson, and suddenly, theyre BOTH through!
Good ol Carlso is still on the young centres left, as the sound of the thundering hooves of the English cover defence come to them. Gasnier, wise beyond his years, trusts to Carlsons directives.
"Steady Gaz, steady ... keep it goin...
Gasnier keeps it goin. And now, just a split second before the defence wipes him out, Carlso gives the word:
NOW!
Gasnier unloads, just before being cut down himself and, by the time he lifts his head, Carlson has put the pill between the sticks. It is hailed in both the English and Australian press as one of the greatest tries ever scored, and the Gasnier legend becomes set in stone.
I get goosebumps thinking about it now, Gasnier told me simply, suddenly looking young again. After retiring eight years later with 36 more Tests to his credit, he was highly regarded enough in the game to become one of the four initial Immortals.
And yet even Immortals must head off in the end. Reg Gasniers funeral service is at 2pm on Thursday at Woronora Cemetery's South Chapel.
Vale, Reg Gasnier. One of the greatest of the rugby league greats.
