‘There’s no regrets’: The heartbreaking rise and fall of Jack Bird
By
Michael Chammas
May 8, 2021
You have 5 free articles remaining
Start your day with the Morning Edition newsletter.
SIGN UP
Already subscribed? Log in
Jack Bird is back in St George Illawarra colours.Credit:Nine
Paul Gallen can remember it well. “I thought, ‘There’s no hope this bloke is going to keep playing’,” Gallen recalls.
Jack Bird had just dislocated his elbow, 18 minutes into the 2016 grand final. Gallen, then the Sharks’ skipper, had suffered the same injury some 13 years earlier.
The pain, which Gallen describes as the worst he experienced in his 20-year career, reduced him to tears and forced him from the field.
Yet Gallen still berated his centre, who at the time was clutching at his arm in agony after friendly fire from his captain in a tackle on Melbourne’s Will Chambers.
“Toughen up you soft cock,” Gallen yelled, albeit convinced he wouldn’t last another minute on the field.
Bird lasted another 62. And then lifted the NRL trophy with his arm strapped like a mummy for good measure.
Little wonder former Sharks coach Shane Flanagan also points to that unforgettable night at Stadium Australia five years ago when asked to share a story that best speaks to the character of the man he lured from the Dragons as a teenager.
"In normal games he’d be off and missing five to six weeks," Flanagan said. "It was a horrendous injury. It looked awful. But no way in the world was he coming off. He was unbelievable. That’s typical Bird, shakes it off and says 'I’m going to be the best player on the field'."
Jack Bird celebrates winning the 2016 premiership with Cronulla.Credit:Getty
That type of toughness has been ingrained in Bird since he was a teenager. Since doctors told him that he would never play rugby league again after being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis just weeks after suffering an ACL injury playing OzTag as a 16-year-old.
“From there, I just saw him deteriorate to nothing, mate,”
Bird’s father, Mick, told the Herald in 2017. ”He couldn’t open the car door. He couldn’t even open a can of Coke. He could hardly walk, that poor kid.”
Bird had to draw on his reserves of toughness after a shoulder injury, a sternum injury and two ACL knee reconstructions limited him to just 17 games in three years after moving to Brisbane on a multi-million dollar contract.
“When I was going through tough times, people would look at me and say, ‘He’s never going to make it’,” Bird told the
Herald in a candid interview at WIN Stadium last week, which will be aired on
Channel Nine before Sunday’s Dragons-Bulldogs game.
“They’d say, ‘He’s done an ACL at 16, he’s got rheumatoid arthritis’, which is a condition you have for the rest of your life … But I was never going to give it up. I was always going to fight until I literally couldn’t do it any more.”
Jack Bird speaks about his struggles and his decision to keep playing NRL.
"I’m not going to lie, there were times there I thought about giving up. I just knew it wasn’t the right decision. There’s always thoughts going through your mind whether this is the right thing to do or not and whether to keep putting your body through the drama."
The toll on Bird was more than just physical. The abuse he copped from irate Broncos fans was relentless.
“People calling me a bust or whatever they want to say, it cut me deep,” Bird said as he prepares to return to Brisbane for Magic Round next weekend.
“It killed me that it didn’t work out for me up there. I wish it did because I loved the place, I loved living there and I loved the club. They put faith in me. They signed me on good coin and put faith in me to try and make semi finals, make grand finals.
“If I could turn back time … it’s not my fault I got injured. If I was healthy up at Brisbane I don’t think they would have wanted to shop me around.”
Gallen’s relationship with Bird goes back well before anyone in the NRL had ever heard of him. At the request of agent David Riolo, Gallen attended a fundraiser in Wollongong back in 2012 after Bird had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.
”I remember I bought this Usain Bolt-signed spike,” Gallen said.
“It was probably a fake, but anyway I bought it for two grand. There’s a fair chance it’s not even real.”
Gallen still remembers the day he thought he had convinced Bird to knock back offers from Brisbane and Newcastle to remain at the club with whom he had just won a premiership.
“I had one last coffee with him and he gave me a figure that he would stay at Cronulla for,” Gallen admits. “I drove back to the club. There were cameras waiting out the front so I dropped him at the other side of the Leagues Club. I told him, ‘Birdy, I’m going to give this figure to Flanno right now. You f---ing walk into his office and you tell him and get it done today’.
“I went home and rang Flanno half an hour later and said, ‘did you speak to Birdy?’ He said, ‘He walked past my office but never walked in’. Between me dropping him off and that call to Flanno, he obviously spoke to someone and never went into Flanno’s office. The deal was announced with Brisbane that afternoon. The rest is history. He left.”
Sitting there listening to Bird relive the pain of what he endured during his three seasons at the Broncos, you can’t help but wonder whether leaving Cronulla was the biggest mistake of his career. Plenty told him it was at the time.
He was the best young player in the game, whose world unravelled from the moment he set foot in Queensland. Does anything change if he stays? Was the money even worth it?
“I don’t regret it,” Bird fires back. “I actually had more money on the table at other clubs. I just wanted to test myself, get out of my comfort zone and try something different. There’s definitely no regrets. I got coached by Wayne [Bennett]. Got a nice house up there. Got mates up there. I loved living there.
“I kind of wanted to give Brisbane one more shot at playing up there ... but I don’t think the club wanted me. I actually don’t even know the truth behind it all. My manager was telling me this, the club was telling me that. You just don’t know.”
Jack Bird suffers an ACL injury during Magic Round in 2019. He will return to the scene of the crime for next week’s Magic Round celebrations in Brisbane for the Dragons’ clash with Melbourne.Credit:NRL Photos
“By the end of it I said, ‘Listen, if you guys don’t want me, I’m happy to go - so let’s just sort out a deal and get it over and done with’. I probably needed to come back home and find myself again and be around family and friends and enjoy footy again.”
Darius Boyd’s mental health battle over the years has been well documented. The former Broncos captain could see the emotional toll the injuries were having on Bird and regularly made time to have a coffee, or even just watch a game of NFL together.
“He wears his heart on his sleeve and he wants to be the best and doesn’t want to let people down,” Boyd said.
“That’s a great attribute to have, but on the flip side it can really eat away at you. Unfortunately with social media these days, everyone likes to stick the boot in and kick people when they’re down. Most of the time it’s pretty unwarranted and pretty disgusting what’s said from people who have opinions that don’t mean a lot.“
Despite the support, Bird’s mental state was slowly deteriorating. He distanced himself from those who tried to help him, shutting down as the reality of his predicament began to wear him out.
He tried to bottle up the pain until, one night, it all spilt out. Bird broke down in tears after returning home following more abuse from members of the public.
“I’m the type of person who doesn’t really speak out about tough times and stuff,” Bird said. “I don’t really seek help. My partner would always get me to try and speak up, but I’d never do it.
“I’m a person that bottles things up, so it was kind of hard to get through it … I show a brave face on the outside, but deep down it was hurting not to play footy. The first year I was injured I put on a lot of weight, I got a little bit depressed. I pushed some people away that meant a lot to me.”
During that year, Gallen visited Bird in Brisbane while preparing for a boxing match. His friend was no longer the person he once was.
“In 2016, you would have thought he was an arrogant little prick if you didn’t know him,” Gallen said.
“He was just so confident. Playing State of Origin and winning a competition. He was awesome. He had this swagger about him. But when I went up and saw him, he wasn’t the same. He wasn’t happy.
Swagger: Jack Bird in Origin camp in 2017.Credit:Getty
