And then after that it’s a natural progression onwards and upwards until you’ve gone from thumping that pulpit in the Hills District to pounding on the big issues as World Rugby top man.
Experimental ruck rules? Ask Israel!
TV rights? Ask Israel!
Because someone of your experience, Israel, in leaping into the air and catching a ball, and extolling a virtue system based on a somewhat, shall we say, firey, interpretation of the Bible, would be number one the best person to run world rugby.
And to captain the Wallabies? You bloody betcha.
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Upon a planet other than this one.
Ha-ha! I didn’t mean any of that! I actually meant the opposite. I could think of 103 people better suited and more likely to captain the Wallabies than you, Israel, and for something to do I would list them as follows.
1. David Pocock
2. David Campese
3. David Attenborough
4. Richard Attenborough
5. Richard Hadlee
6. Dayle Hadlee
7. Dale Finucane
8. Queensland medium pacer Adam Dale
9. Comedian Adam Sandler
10. Adam, ie the first human in the bible
11. Springboks’ wing man Wylie Human
12. Chuck Jones who drew Wile E. Coyote
13. Star of Coyote Ugly, John Goodman
14. John Blackman
15. Dicky Knee
17. Dick Johnson 18. Star of Dickman and Throbbin’, John Holmes 19. Larry Holmes 20. Sherlock Holmes
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21. JB Holmes 22. AB De Villiers 23. Fanie De Villiers
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24. Nick Faldo’s caddy, Fanny Sunesson 25. Sun Yang 26. YE Yang 27. Wylie Human again
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28. Joss Ackland who played Argen Rudd in Lethal Weapon II and thought that holding up diplomatic credentials offered immunity from Sergeant Murtaugh (Danny Glover) shooting him in the head 29. Danny Glover 30. Richard Glover
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31. The guy who played McLovin in Superbad, Christopher Mintz-Plasse 32. The even more exotically-named Dallin Watene-Zelezniak 33. The less exotically-named but still excellent rugby league lock, Dallas Johnson 34. Dustin Johnson
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35. Dustin Hoffman 36. Ryan Hoffman 37. Ryan Matterson
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38. Terry Matterson 39. Terry Fahey, “The Redfern Express”, about whom there’s a very good story about a greyhound and a mad goose and I will tell it one day though it would be best not to alert PETA and/or Four Corners 40. Former NSW Premier John Fahey 41. Fay Wray
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42. Fay Dunaway 43. Noted runaway slave I just Googled, Henry “Box” Brown 44. Ray Brown, ball-playing backrower for Wests, Manly and Australia
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45. Ray Charles 46. Prince Charles 47. Prince 48. Queen, the band
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49. Queen, the old lady who’s head of the nation state of Australia 50. Steve McQueen 51. Steve Smith
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52. Steve Smith who often gets abuse from silly people on Twitter who think he’s Steve Smith 53. Conway Twitty 54. Dean Schifilliti 55. Neil Piccinelli
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56. Neil Diamond 57. Jeremy Piven who plays Ari Gold in Entourage, you know the guy, the agent 58. Star of The Secret Agent, Toby Jones who was also in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy the convoluted spy flick that my wife Frances and I fell asleep in because it was our first date six months after having twin babies
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59. My wife Frances 60. Sir Francis Drake 61. Drake 62. That actor from Rake
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63. English sumo John Tenta who later performed for the World Wrestling Federation as Earthquake 64. Darrell Eastlake 65. Daryl Tuffey the Kiwi paceman whom Ricky Ponting hit for 30 runs – 6,2,6,6,4,6 – in the penultimate over the world’s first ever T20 international, February 17, 2005
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66. Phil Tufnell 67. Phil Collins 68. Joan Collins 69. Joe Cocker
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70. Famous owner of a cocker spaniel, Oprah Winfrey 71. Owen Finegan 72. Collette Dinnigan
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73. Collette Mann 74. Manfred Mann 75. Wylie Human remains no show 76. Big Show
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77. Glenn Maxwell 78. Glenn Robbins 79. Anthony Robbins
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80. A girl I once shagged who’d once shagged Anthony Robbins 81. Dennis Lillee 82. Denis Compton 83. Peter Frampton
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84. Peter Allan 85. Allan Moffatt 86. David Moffatt, remember him? The Kiwi rugby guy who was head of the NRL for an odd little period
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87. David Warner 88. Candice Warner 89. South African model and philanthropist Candice Swanepoel who’s so beautiful it makes you feel ugly just looking at photos of her on the Internet 90. Sonny and/or Cher
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91. Roger Moore 92. Roger Bannister 93. Tyrion Lannister
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94. Tadgh Kennelly 95. Thomas Keneally 96. Tom, George, Luke and Sam Burgess, and their mum and entire extended family, and anyone they’ve ever met, and Russell Crowe 97. Burgess Meredith
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98. My wife Frances’s best mate Meredith 99. Each of the 788 people who make up the population of Meredith the town on the Midland Highway between Ballarat and Geelong 100. Gary Ablett