Keith Galloway

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This story is from fox sports.

Trying to keep out of trouble
By Barry Toohey
March 26, 2004

KEITH GALLOWAY reckons he has the perfect lifestyle. Galloway, 18, finished school last year and most of his mates from Marist Brothers Kogarah have just started blue collar jobs.



And while his dad and older brother are plumbers, Galloway only ever wanted to be a footballer.

"Yeah, pretty much," the Sharks second-rower says.

"PE teaching was something I thought about but I only just passed my Higher School Certificate.

"I just love rugby league and to get to be able to train and play full-time - it's just the perfect lifestyle."

Manly's Paul Stephenson thinks much the same way.

So too does St George Illawarra's Ashton Sims.

Like Galloway, they are just starting to live out their dream of making a profession out of playing the game they love.

Three years ago Stephenson, 20, was a young hopeful playing first grade back home in Taree.

He was signed by the Broncos but, like many youngsters who leave the bush to pursue their ambitions, he battled homesickness and an unfamiliar environment before the opportunity arrived this season to join the full-time squad at the Sea Eagles.

"Manly have given me an opportunity and I just want to grab it," says Stephenson, who now lives with his girlfriend at Dee Why.

"It was tough early on in Brisbane. I was living with a family up there and struggled with homesickness from being so far away.

"Now I am back down here and not everyone gets this sort of chance."

Sims, a towering young prop from Gerringong, is in the Dragons' full-time squad.

He shares a house with a couple of other players in Wollongong but heads back home as often as he can to catch up with his mates.

Most of them have started apprenticeships in jobs such as carpentry.

A couple of years ago Sims was like them, not knowing what the future held.

"I didn't know how serious to take my footy back then," he says.

"But things have fallen into place.

"Now I guess I am one of the lucky ones."

But just how lucky are players such as Galloway, Stephenson and Sims?

In the wake of Jamie Lyon's decision to turn his back on a big-money contract with Parramatta because of the pressures of the modern game, the spotlight has turned to the downside of rugby league's era of professionalism.

There have been claims that many of the game's stars, and not just the up-and-comers, have no understanding of the "real" world because they have never had to experience it.

Life as professional players, many of them highly paid, means they haven't had to go out and find a job.

Some argue the Lyon case is a wake-up call to the game's administrators.

Retiring veteran Terry Hill added weight to those concerns when he claimed more and more young players would succumb to the same pressures and tread a similar path to Lyon if there was not a shift in attitudes.

Former international Noel Cleal, who brought Lyon to Parramatta from Wee Waa several years ago and watched him develop into a Test star, knows a thing or two about identifying stars of the future.

He can also see the dangers those same young players face.

"They get into this culture of just training and playing and not having to work," Cleal says.

"With a lot of time on their hands, that is when the boredom can set in.

"And it doesn't matter how much TAFE they do."

Most NRL clubs have programs in place to educate players. Some are better than others.

St George Illawarra, whose star centre Mark Gasnier needed time off last week to consider his future, are among the leaders.

In the past few years they have run a series of player education programs to assist in areas such as financial planning, the law, drug education and planning for the future.

Since 2000, the club has run up to a dozen presentations each year.

The Dragons' latest venture away from football is a work experience-like program available to all its players.

The idea was developed in the off-season.

"We are calling it our career interaction program," Dragons football manager Neil Lovett says.

"We have employed an education consultant to work with our players to identify the sorts of job-related fields they would be interested in working in.

"We are then matching them to our various sponsors and we have a whole range of sponsors willing to take our players on."

Lovett doesn't hide the fact players are cocooned.

"Most live in a fairly artificial environment and in the last three or four years when they have become full-time footballers, they have never had to experience what happens out there in the real world," he says.

"We want them to experience that, even if it is only for one or two days a week.

"We want them to have to wake up, put on the appropriate attire and turn up on time for a regular job.

"It is to counteract the unreal world these guys live in and they'll also get to appreciate exactly what they have."

Lovett says most of the club's players, including highly paid stars like Shaun Timmins, who is doing some sales-related work with Lion Nathan, are taking up the opportunity.

Sims is another.

"I haven't started yet but I will be doing some sales work with some of the club's sponsors in the Wollongong area," he says.

"It is something I am interested in and keen to do.

"A lot of the boys are involved. Even the more experienced players are showing plenty of interest.

"Everyone needs to have something to fall back on when they finish playing, so getting the opportunity to learn along the way is great."

And what about the external pressures facing young players today?

Sims, Galloway and Stephenson all say the same thing.

They are just enjoying the thrill which comes with breaking into first grade.

When the pressure does come, and no doubt it will, you just hope they will now be better prepared to deal with it.