Joker's Wild
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DANNY Buderus is lying on a concrete floor out in the middle of nowhere, his clothes saturated, trying to catch a few hours sleep.
He has just run 12km through the bush in "flogging down" rain carrying a 20kg bar and a backpack.
Before the night is out, he and his Newcastle Knights teammates will be woken up two or three times and sent on a couple more 2km runs just for good measure. All this with only a can of spaghetti and meatballs in their stomachs.
You know the ones. Those cans you might have stored at the back of the pantry for a hunger emergency when there's absolutely nothing else left to eat in the house. The ones you end up donating to the Smith Family.
"We ate 'em cold too. Not real flash," Buderus recalls.
He can smile about it now.
At the time, though, Wayne Bennett's pre-Christmas boot camp torture test in a state forest near Singleton was no laughing matter. "We did a 20km run the next day and a few blokes started to flip out," says Buderus.
"I was close.
"Kevy Naiqama was virtually asleep while he was running and we pretty much had to hold him up to get him through it."
Very little food. Hardly any sleep. A physical nightmare designed to break players mentally.
But even at 34, Buderus was never going to break. A small part of him loved it. Loved the challenge. Most of all though, he just loved being back home at the Knights.
Back at a club he found hard to leave in the first place. No torture test was going to change that.
To understand where Buderus is right now and why mentally, he is in such a good place, you have to go back. Back to 2007 when the start of the Brian Smith reign at the Knights caused massive player upheaval.
Buderus, as captain, was in the thick of it as he watched a host of teammates shown the door at the end of that season. He publicly questioned Smith's firing squad approach to player retention. By the end of the following year, he was gone too. Headed to England.
"I was mentally and physically worn out by then," he says of the drama at the club.
"There was no future here for me. I went over there to get out of a pressurised situation here. To refresh myself."
While he was pushed out of the club he loved, going to England for those three years turned out to be the best decision he's ever made. It literally saved his career.
"I wouldn't be still playing if I'd stayed. I'd be retired for sure," he says.
"I met all these new people that will be friends for life over there. I found out a whole new aspect of the game. It controls probably 20 per cent of your life in England. Over here, it's probably 80 per cent and I found that refreshing."I've come back here with a new lease of life."
Any bitterness he carried from the Smith years at the Knights have long gone.
"The game's too hard to carry around all that stuff," he says.
"I didn't allow myself to think about it. I thought about the club more than what went on personally when I had to leave.
"Things happen for a reason and as it's turned out, I had an experience over there I will never forget with the (Leeds) Rhinos. I never thought I'd ever play with a Jamie Peacock or a Kevin Sinfield - those English superstars - and win competitions and be involved in Challenge Cup finals and play in those great stadiums.
"I know I'll always have those great memories and I'll always have a family in the Rhinos over there when I'm finished back here."
He had a season to run on his contract when Bennett came calling towards the end of last year. Leeds didn't want to let him go.
"When the chance came up to come home, someone I really respect over there told me you never go back, you should always keep going forward," Buderus said.
"I just said this is the Newcastle Knights you're talking about here and I'd do anything for that place. They could see my passion for the club and the city. They were involved at the Rhinos and they could see how much coming home meant to me.
"In the end, although the negotiations dragged on a bit, that's what made it an easier decision for them to give me a release."
Buderus admits he didn't know what he would be in for or exactly where his game was at from an NRL point of view when he turned up for pre-season training after three years away.
The English game, he says, is different. The emphasis on attack more pronounced.
"In a sense, it's quicker over there because there's not as much wrestling at the ruck," he says.
"In attack, they push, they support. Players are always around the ball expecting to score tries, wanting to score tries. You could make 50 tackles including a couple of try-savers but if your winger scores a couple of tries, he's the one that's spoken about.
"Here, it's about laying a defensive platform first and foremost and working your attack off that."
The increased technology here has also been an eye-opener for the veteran hooker.
"It's full-on here now," he says. "You don't go out of the dressingroom without a GPS on now. All the stuff to give you a bit of a map of what you've done and where you are going is fantastic."
One thing that hasn't changed is Buderus' influence on games and the teammates around him.
His form in the opening six rounds for the Knights has been a revelation. So much so, talk of him returning to the Origin cauldron for the Blues is growing louder as the series gets closer and he is enjoying his return to the NRL so much, he is certain to commit to another season in 2013.
But his focus right now is squarely on the Knights.
"All the rivalries I used to have in the past with guys like Cam (Smith), Robbie Farah and I guess now with Mick Ennis - I used to work myself up and judge myself against those guys," he says.
"I don't do that anymore. Mick had a bit to say and was trying to bait me when we played against them (the Bulldogs) a couple of weeks ago which is probably his way and that's fine.
"I probably knew it was coming because he is such a competitor and there was all this Origin talk but I wasn't going to get involved in that.
"I just want to go out there now and challenge myself to make sure I don't let myself or my teammates down. We've got big things happening here at the Knights under Wayne and it's going to take a little bit of time.
"I just want to make sure I do everything I can to play my part. That's my real focus."
linkidink
Thought this was an interesting insight into how the boys were prepped for this season. May go a long way to explaining how the team has gone a long way towards stopping that 2nd half fade out
