Joey agrees to be the Messenger
By Steve Mascord and Roy Masters
August 18, 2005
Andrew Johns last night said he would bring down the curtain on his representative career by accepting the role of Dally Messenger in a re-enactment of rugby league's first international tour.
In a gesture that would assure the 31-year-old's place in the game's history as the player of his generation, New Zealand Rugby League chairman Selwyn Pearson confirmed he wanted Johns to play on the Kiwis' 2007 tour of Great Britain. The trek marks the 100th anniversary of the pioneering All Golds, who took Messenger, the father of Australian rugby league, with them.
Johns is due to retire from representative football at the end of next year's Origin series, but said: "I would be honoured if invited to travel to Great Britain with the side in 2007.
"To think that, 100 years after rugby league's first international tour, they would pick me to fill such a historic role is absolutely incredible."
The 1907 "professional All Blacks", dubbed the All Golds by The Sydney Morning Herald because they were accepting money, introduced rugby league to Australia when they stopped here on the way to Britain.
Secretly assembled by promoter A. H. Baskiville and including four defecting All Blacks, they set up games with the internationally isolated Northern Union, which had broken away from English rugby union 12 years before.
League was born in Australia when a team was assembled to play against them en route. Messenger then joined the tourists and was such a phenomenon in England that he was offered association football contracts.
But he decided to return to Sydney, with his popularity ensuring the success of the new code when it kicked off here the following year.
Speaking after a lunch in Auckland to farewell France-bound Warriors great Stacey Jones, Pearson told the Herald: "I'd love Andrew to be available. It will depend where he is at in his career, I suppose.
"He would be absolutely perfect. At Stacey's luncheon today, they did a video link [with Johns]. It's not just Australians who love Joey; we do, too. Obviously we wished he was a New Zealander.
"We are talking 100 years ago with Dally Messenger - Joey Johns, he's right up there."
Johns's representative farewell was tipped to be in Origin III next year, to be held in the far-from-traditional environs of Melbourne's Telstra Dome.
He now has the opportunity to leave a more compelling final memory of his time in the game, one that will be remembered long after the controversy about whether he turns down an Australian jersey on October 15 this year is forgotten.
The idea of his touring with the 2007 Kiwis was first raised at an International Federation meeting in Leeds on November 14, 2003.
In other news, St George Illawarra prop Jason Ryles seems likely to pull out of Sunday's eagerly awaited encounter with Parramatta.
Ryles missed last weekend's triumph against Brisbane with a groin injury, and coach Nathan Brown last night said he would take a hard line on the Test prop's fitness for the Jubilee Stadium sell-out.
"Rylesy will have a fitness test later in the week and
if he's 99 per cent fit, he won't play," Brown said.
And Pearson said NRL chief executive David Gallop had told him there were significant problems with his proposal that Cronulla doctor Peter Malouf rule on the fitness of Kiwi Tri-Nations players, such as Sonny Bill Williams.
Gallop said: "Clubs will alway be reluctant to give up the right to decide if their players are fit, but there may be a role for a mediator of some sort."
Manly centre Steve Matai last night was found not guilty at the judiciary of a careless high tackle, while centre George Carmont (groin) is out of Newcastle's side to play the Warriors on Saturday night. Jarrod Mullen joins the Knights' squad.
Gold Coast have signed local boy Luke O'Dwyer back from Parramatta.
About 500 guests last night farewelled Cronulla prop Jason Stevens at a charity fund-raising dinner.
The Australian rugby league's team of the 1970s will be announced at another function tonight.
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