Watch Yvonne Sampson go Face to Face with Broncos, Maroons and Kangaroos legend Darren Lockyer on Fox League at 7:30pm AEST on Tuesday!
Darren Lockyer says his rugby league career would have been a pale imitation of reality were it not for the influence of master coach Wayne Bennett, or the on-field smarts imparted by Queensland legend Wally Lewis.
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In an all-encompassing chat with Fox League’s Yvonne Sampson airing on Tuesday night, Lockyer also reveals how he considered a mid-career switch to AFL to follow in his father David’s footsteps.
A two-time Golden Boot winner, premiership and Queensland hero, Lockyer spent his early years playing Australian Rules in Brisbane before his family moved to the north-west Queensland town of Wandoan, where they owned and operated a truck stop.
With AFL simply not part of the Wandoan vernacular, Lockyer’s mother Sharon eventually gave in and allowed her son to play the greatest game of all. It would spawn one of Queensland’s greatest rugby league stories.
“My Dad was an AFL player here in Brisbane, he trialled with Carlton. When I was old enough he enrolled me in the local AFL club. I thought the game was something that I would play my whole life,” Lockyer explained to Sampson.
“When Mum and Dad said we’re going to move west to Wandoan to run the truck stop, I just assumed that AFL would be there as well. To my great disappointment at the time, they only play one game in Wandoan and that’s rugby league.”
Lockyer took to rugby league instantly, and it wasn’t long before his on-field exploits piqued the interest of a certain Wayne Bennett. Lockyer recalled the schoolboy football carnival in 1994 where the master coach first asked to speak with him.
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“The first time I met Wayne was at Ipswich Reserve Oval. He was sitting up there on the hill, just there watching the game, watching the day go by. He asked for me to go over and talk to him that day and at that point in time, that was my first touch point with him. But it’s one I’ll never forget,” said Lockyer.
Bennett would go onto become a pivotal figure in Lockyer’s career, giving him his debut at the Broncos, where the champion fullback-turned-five-eighth would make all 355 of his NRL appearances.
Asked whether he would reach the same lofty heights without Wayne’s influence, Lockyer was unequivocal: “No way,” he said. “Wayne teaches you the game but he teaches you more about life. I think for a lot of players that have come through under Wayne, they would all say the same thing – that to get longevity and performance out of your career for a long amount of time, you need a great mentor for that.
“If you come to the Broncos and you are driven, and you’ve got someone like Wayne as your coach, then you’ll get the best out of yourself.”
If Bennett was the guiding hand in Lockyer’s extensive career, then Queensland legend Wally Lewis could be considered the on-field architect. Lockyer says like many Queensland kids of that era, he closely studied Lewis on the field – and took away some key learnings.
“I think staying calm under pressure but also wanting the football when the game was on the line,” Lockyer said of Lewis’ biggest lessons. “When you’ve got a lot of chaos going on, the best way to let go of the chaos is calm.
“The other thing I noticed about Wally is he was always looking at the defensive line. Not every player did that but Wally was always looking to see where there was an opportunity.”
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Lockyer’s story is the stuff of legend, and is widely tipped to culminate with the 49-year-old being inducted as an NRL immortal in due course.
However, things may have panned out differently had Lockyer pursued a mid-career switch to the AFL. A call from his long-serving manager George Mimis revealed that AFL club Essendon had expressed interest in Lockyer’s services.
“When the question came to me ‘is there any interest?’, I had to think about it for a bit because it was always a dream as a 7 or 8-year-old to go and play at the highest level in AFL,” Lockyer said, before conceding the odds would be stacked heavily against him.
Nowadays, Lockyer is instantly recognisable from his gravelly voice, the result of an on-field injury sustained in 1999. After retirement, Lockyer said he considered surgery to rectify the issue, but was ultimately talked out of it.
If anything, he considers his voice a badge of honour.
“We played the North Sydney Bears and it happened at North Sydney Oval. I just played with it until I finished in 2011. It did impact me on the field a bit because literally no-one could hear me,” Lockyer said.
“At the end of my career I did look into getting it fixed. There was a bit to it and there were no guarantees. As a lot of people mentioned, they did say ‘well it is your trademark’. There is that YouTube clip that you see my voice before and after – it’s a fair change.
“The game gave me a lot, without a doubt. And I think as time goes on you realise that more and more.”
Watch Yvonne Sampson go Face to Face with Broncos, Maroons and Kangaroos legend Darren Lockyer on Fox League at 7:30pm AEST on Tuesday!
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