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Candice Warner is confident her husband David will prove his mounting army of critics wrong by resurrecting his career in the ODI series in India before finishing his career on his own terms.
Warner is hopeful of making his comeback from the concussion and hairline fracture to his elbow which ruled him out of the rest of Border-Gavaskar Trophy series midway through the second Test.
There have been growing calls for the 36-year-old opener, who has scored just one century at Test level in the past three years, to retire or be dropped but he wants to play on in all three formats.
Warner wants to not only return to the team for the World Test Championship final and the Ashes in England in June, he’s targeting the ODI World Cup at the end of the year in India as well as next year’s T20 version in the West Indies and United States.
“He’s doing well. He flew back out to India on Monday to join up with the ODI squad in the hope of being able to get himself fit and ready for the three ODI in India,” Candice told The Roar.
“So hopefully the elbow is okay. Because I know that he’s ready to go and he loves playing in India.
“Following that you’ve got so much cricket ahead whether it be the IPL, whether it then be the test championships with which Australia has just qualified for after The Ashes, and another World Cup back in India – there is so much cricket on offer. But he needs to be 100 per cent fit and ready because you don’t want this injury to keep flaring up.”
Candice and David Warner. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
With injuries and player welfare really at the forefront of sports across the nation right now, Warner is happy with the measures that are being taken to protect athletes. She also supports the changes implemented by the NRL around concussions.
“It’s about longevity and it’s about looking into the future,” said the former ironwoman.
“As an athlete, it’s really hard to do that to be able to look into the future and go, ‘well hang on a second, I need to do what’s best for me later down the track.’ So I think the NRL is doing a really good job with trying to navigate around the whole concussion situation and doing what’s best for the player, not just what’s best for the team on that weekend.”
It was announced on Thursday that Warner will now be a full-time panellist on the Fox Sports program ‘The Back Page’ alongside Tony Squires. Warner has appeared as a guest on the show many times and is thrilled to be part of the team on a permanent basis.
“It’s a dream come true. I’ve been watching “The Back Page‘ for as long as I can remember. And to now be doing it more often and alongside Tony – it’s almost like a pinch-yourself moment.
“I just love sport. Growing up I did every sport possible as a young girl and I always went to the footy with my dad. So now to have that opportunity to speak about all the sport that’s going on, and also to all the fantastic women in sport and what they’re doing and what they’re achieving, not just in Australia, but around the world. It’s nice to be able to showcase that.
A sportswoman in her own right, Warner was the youngest ever professional to enter an ironman series at just 14 years old. At 16, she was the NSW state ironwoman champion and believes her sporting credentials will be beneficial to he role on ‘The Back Page.’
“For me, it’s about being a former athlete, it’s about understanding the athletes that come onto the show and understanding the sacrifices they’ve made, and what goes into what they do. But it’s also seeing things from an athlete’s or a player’s point of view. Sometimes journalists don’t quite understand, not being an athlete, but, I understand. I also get where athletes are coming from or why they’d say or do certain things. So it’s nice to have that point of view or that point of difference.
Coming from a sporting background, as well as raising three daughters, Warner is thrilled with how far women’s sport has come.
“When I grew up, there wasn’t a lot of sport on offer for young girls. The only sports were basically what we saw at an Olympic Games, whether it be swimming or athletics or gymnastics.
“But I’ve got three daughters and now they can basically do what they want. If they want to play cricket, well, they can play cricket and make a good living out of that. If they want to play rugby league then there’s the NRLW, there’s the AFLW – there’s so much on offer for women in sport now, it’s come so far in the last 20 years.”
And it’s not just on the field or the pitch either. The landscape of journalism has also changed with more women covering sports.
“It’s so nice to see so many women involved in broadcasting sports, Fox Sports do that so well, better than anyone else. You look at who’s on the screen, at Fox Sports you see a Yvonne Sampson, who is, in my opinion, the best in the business. You have Megan Barnard, you have Isa Guha in the cricket – the stable of women at Fox Sports, I look at them and I see them as the benchmark now.”
Candice Warner. Photo: Fox Sports / Brett Costello
Both Candice and David’s public and private life have copped a battering over the years. The wife and mum admits that you just have to keep pushing through it all.
“You don’t have a choice, you either give up, and that’s not good for anyone or you just keep going. And that’s what I’ve always That’s what I’ve always done. That’s what my parents have always told me to do. You deal with things and you move on and you keep going and because I’ve kept going, I’m now able to do all these incredible things like radio and TV and deal with confidence.
“Because I’ve lived through things I understand things and I feel really confident that I belong now.”
As united as Candice and David have always seemed in the public eye, the same cannot be said when it comes to their footy teams. The Warner household is divided during the NRL season, with Candice a staunch Rabbitohs fan, and husband David an avid Roosters supporter.
“I love the Rabbitohs. I don’t miss a game. I try to get out to as many games as I can.
“My family and household are split in half because David is a Roosters fan and so are two of my three daughters. So for Friday night’s game, I’m kind of glad that Dave’s not around because someone ends up getting really disappointed.”
“But I love all sports. I follow the Swans in the AFL, both the men’s and women’s cricket teams, the Sydney Swifts and Liverpool in the EPL. You name it, I just love my sport.”