I’m coming back to play next year’
JAMES PHELPS, The Sunday Telegraph
WE find Jamal Idris in Pune, India. The rugby league runaway is feeding wild dogs on a litter-lined street.
“I feed ’em every day,’’ the former State of Origin star said.
“These puppies man ... they are strays. They just wander around and me and my mates, well, we just ended up looking after them.’’
Idris has been wandering around too. Since dropping an NRL bombshell by quitting a multimillion-dollar contract with the Penrith Panthers last November, the dreadlocked giant has travelled a staggering 105,000km in an 11-country search for his soul.
“I needed to find out who I was,’’ Idris said.
“Something was missing and I wasn’t growing as a person. I needed to go and find my soul. Find out who I really was and what I wanted to be.”
And what he also found was the desire to play NRL again.
“I am going to play next year,’’ the 26-year-old, who burst on to the NRL scene as a teenager, said.
“I am ready to come back, bigger, better and the best I have ever been.”
Idris will put himself on the open market tomorrow with his agent Sam Ayoub set to find him a new NRL home.
And the giant they call “Jamma’’ is no longer searching for his soul. Now he is on a mission for tries, tackles and titles.
“And that feeling you get when you run out on to the field. Man there is no better feeling in the world,’’ he said.
Now finished feeding his adopted dogs, he sits back to reveal details of the incredible eight-month journey that saw him build an orphanage in Africa, jump out of a moving car to escape a kidnapping in Vietnam, debate philosophy with gurus in India and fall back in love with himself, and then rugby league.
Idris picked up the phone and made the call that would end his rugby league career last October.
“It was right at the end of the season,’’ Idris said.
“I called my mum and told her that my head wasn’t right and I wanted to quit football. She knew what was going on and told me to follow my heart. My dad also told me to forget money, to forget what people wanted me to be.’’
Idris’ parents had been waiting on that phone call. Their son, a gentle giant and larrikin oddball, had long lost his trademark smile
The former Kangaroo had bounced from the Bulldogs to the Titans and then landed in Penrith. He fought through rumours of depression, an alleged bipolar disorder and taunts about his weight to play good but not brilliant football.
And then he suffered a season-ending injury that would sometimes see him spend the whole day in his pyjamas. There were days he would not leave his two-bedroom Parramatta unit.
“I was depressed,” he said
“As much as I tried to keep that to myself, I couldn’t because I was in the limelight. I wanted to disappear. I’d sit at home just hoping everyone would forget my name. And then things got worse when I lost my nan, my pop and my uncle. They all died last year and it hit me hard.’’
Idris was lost. He found more joy in writing poetry than playing league.
So Idris vanished. He quit his lucrative deal and became league’s lost soul. “I travelled. I couldn’t find the answers here so I jumped on a plane and went to Europe,’’ he said.
First it was museums in Munich followed by art galleries in Paris. Then gondola rides in Venice before a white Christmas in London. Still Idris did not find what he was looking for. So he tried his luck in Asia. But he had none. He was kidnapped at gunpoint in Vietnam.
“I had to jump out of a car window to escape,’’ he said.
“I just ran for my life
Idris bought a block of land in Kumasi, where he is building an orphanage.
“We have built the foundations and next the fences go up,” he said.
“It is something I have always wanted to do. I have so much and the ability to do something good with it, and that is what I am doing.’’
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...n/news-story/23e9865f3c6a0f83e77b087682fafbf6
