Tangled Webcke halts pulping of book
Glenn Jackson | March 26, 2009
SO THE pulp is fiction. Back-tracking like he never did in 254 matches in the front row for Brisbane, retired international Shane Webcke yesterday admitted he had performed a remarkable about-face by overturning his decision to pulp his controversial book, and then apologised to the public - as well as the three players he singled out for criticism in its pages - for doing so.
After the storm that was created yesterday over his plans to buy out the copyright for his book, Hard Road: Tough Thoughts on a Tough Game, potentially forking out more than $150,000 to do so, Webcke opted yesterday to have the full version released as originally planned. Before that, he will apologise personally to two players - Karmichael Hunt and Sam Thaiday - on the training paddock, and to former Bronco Darius Boyd, now at the Dragons, by phone for "dredging up" an incident in which they were allegedly involving last year.
"I left a message with Sam Thaiday and I will speak with all of them," Webcke said. "I'm a man, I'm going to go straight to them. I do owe them an apology. What more could I have done though? I was busy trying to stop it, and I've made it a lot worse - I've got to live with that.
"Looking at it now, I made a mistake, but it was a mistake made for the right reasons."
Webcke vehemently denied the pulping of the pulping was a publicity stunt, saying he only had second thoughts about publication of the book on Monday afternoon, and "panicked" after seeing it in hard copy for the first time. Webcke finished the manuscript last year, but is now employed by the Broncos as an assistant coach and feared a backlash for criticising the club's handling of the scandal involving the players.
Webcke said he did not sleep at all on Monday night before phoning the publishers the next day. "I just didn't want to bring all that up again," he said. "The players have paid their dues on this. They'll be filthy on me, and I don't blame them. If they want to tell me to go and get stuffed and never want to talk to me again
I'll deal with it.
"The club weathered that storm. I'm not worried about what I said. They know I thought that. It's just that it's being dredged up again."
Webcke told the Herald last night he had spoken to his former coach Wayne Bennett about his fears about the book's publication, and showed Brisbane chief executive Bruno Cullen the finished product on Tuesday. Cullen later phoned to tell him not to have the book pulped.
Webcke, a former Queensland and Australian representative who retired following a grand final win in 2006, conceded he was also concerned about chapters detailing why former Newcastle halfback Andrew Johns should not have been chosen in last year's Team of the Century.
He said he had told Johns - through the former Blues star's biographer Neil Cadigan - to phone him should he have any issue with what he wrote. "He's a mate of mine," Webcke said. "He's my sort of bloke. He enjoys a drink
and I never set out to actually put sh*t on anybody."
He added that he was no "paragon of virtue" and that, "I didn't want to put myself in some exultant position in running judgments on people."
Webcke said he simply thought he could "ring up, flick a book and everyone would respect that", but admitted he was "naive".
He maintained he was prepared to pay for the pulping of the book, but reversed the decision after newspapers published excerpts of it, saying he had "lost control of my work".
"I had the money organised," he said. "I still would have gone ahead with it had the material not made the paper. People will think I've just gone, 'Bugger this, I'll save some money,' but that's just sh*t.
"People will see it as a backflip, and it is. I'll take the medicine. I thought it was for the right reasons. Anyone who knows me knows my life doesn't hinge on whether I sell 10 million copies of of this book. I'm still feeling crook in the guts about this, what I've put them through. I'm a member of the coaching staff now. Put yourself in my shoes.
"As for a publicity stunt, I defy anyone to live with what I've been through. It isn't worth it, and I really think a lot of people will be turned off buying it."
