When he met the world’s best rugby league player at home, Stan Grant found a man who thinks deeply about his heritage and isn’t ashamed to put family first

What’s he like: Johnathan Thurston?



That’s the first question I have been asked. Not, what did he say? How did he look?



What’s he like?



Well what did I expect? A confident, brash footballer; loud and self-centred. That is certainly a stereotype. Thurston’s reputation precedes him, written in headlines of glory, shame and heartbreaking grief.



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The man who opened the door was welcoming, humble, softly spoken and reflective. Johnathan Thurston has put away childish things; he has become a man.



I spent several hours with the world’s greatest rugby league player – some say he’s the greatest of all time – at his home in Townsville, north Queensland.



We talked about family, about children – he has two young girls – about marriage, about success and the responsibilities it brings. For a long time we talked about our people – Indigenous people and how our culture has shaped us and sustained us. And we talked about how the pain and tragedy of being a black Australian can touch us.



Thurston had agreed to a long interview for National Indigenous Television’s Awaken program. He has rarely, if ever, opened up so profoundly.



The Johnathan Thurston we know is the Johnathan Thurston on the field – probing, scheming, talking; non-stop talking – cajoling referees, taunting opponents, firing up his team-mates. He is the player who calls for the ball first, who wants the ball in his hands, who takes hit after hit from men twice his size to create opportunities for other players around him.

I didn’t actually see the try … it was just relief Johnathan Thurston

We know Johnathan Thurston for his laugh: a crazed, maniacal cackle. It is the sort of laugh you remember from school; the playground joker – the kid who steals your hat and throws it into a tree, or comes up behind you and pushes the ice-cream into your face then runs away. Yes, that kid: a pain in the neck but one you could rely on in a clinch.

We know Jonathan Thurston the cheeky young pup who more than a decade ago first came down to Sydney from Queensland to play for the Bulldogs. The skinny kid no other team wanted, who stacked supermarket shelves and washed cars while he trained and waited for his break.



This was the player who got the call-up for a grand final when his captain Steve Price was injured and then gave Price his winners’ medal.



The Johnathan Thurston I met was all of that – the young boy is still there, the generous soul and irrepressible spirit – but he has changed. Life has hardened him. The Johnathan Thurston I met is an old dog for a hard road.



Ten seconds to go in the grand final of 2015, the North Queensland Cowboys trail by four points against the Brisbane Broncos, and Thurston calls for the ball.



I asked the champion halfback to take me through what happened next. The answer defies the natural laws of the universe: this just should not have happened.



“I just remember Blairy [Brisbane back rower Adam Blair] flying down, trying to tackle me, I evaded him … I just kept running. Darius [Boyd, the Broncos fullback) was looking, that’s when I knew to put up a ‘hail Mary kick’ was no chance, so I started running backwards I needed to buy some time and I saw a bit of space … ”



Stop! That answer has taken more than 10 seconds. But that’s what happens with players like Thurston – time stands still.



“Yeah it actually does … so I went backwards to try and buy us some more time, so I see the ball go to a little bit of space and I threw the ball, and I think I got jammed by Corey Parker, the next second I look up and I see Feldty [Kyle Feldt, the Cowboys’ winger] jumping in the air after scoring the try. I didn’t actually see the try … it was just relief.”



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Relief – and history. Thurston took a tough sideline conversion and hit the post. The game went into golden point extra-time – the next scorer wins. And Thurston was that scorer. He kicked a field goal – the clutch player with the clutch play.

Thurston won the Clive Churchill medal as the player of the match. He has won everything in 2015. Athletes dream of the perfect season, and Thurston has lived it.

He has won his fourth Dally M award as the best player in the NRL. He has been awarded the Golden Boot, crowning the best player in the world for a record third time. He has led North Queensland to their first premiership and was part of the victorious Queensland team which defeated New South Wales in the State of Origin series.

Yet enter Thurston’s house and there is no sign of personal glory. There are no photos of him adorning the walls, no trophies or medals.

What matters to Thurston is family – his wife Samantha and daughters Frankie, aged two, and Charlie, eight months.



When I arrive Frankie is taking an afternoon nap and Charlie has just stirred from her sleep and is now playing on the floor staring up at this stranger in her house.

Family: it has been the cornerstone of his life. He grew up in a big extended family – siblings, uncles and aunties. This is the way of Indigenous families – we expand and contract seemingly with the seasons. Uncles are like fathers, aunties are mothers and cousins effectively brothers and sisters.

In 2008 that family was torn apart when his uncle Richard Saunders was killed. He’d been found in a Brisbane park bashed to death.

There were charges and eventually some of the men involved were sentenced to prison. The grief was unbearable but in time it eased; the impact though has never left him.

“Yeah, it was tough; I’m not going to sit here and lie. Yeah, it was very tough, not only for myself but for our family. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Johnathan Thurston celebrates after his goal won the 2015 NRL grand final for the North Queensland Cowboys against the Brisbane Broncos. Photograph: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

I ask if he is angry. No, he says, not anger, just disbelief.

“Like I said, you know, growing up, you know, strong community, I was always surrounded by family, cousins and when you seeing these circumstances happening and how close it happens to you, it just blows me away that it’s happening in our communities.”

For a while he wanted to walk away from the game. But he doesn’t play just for himself; he plays for his family and his people. They needed him to keep playing.

It wasn’t easy and he drifted from the discipline and focus that had taken him to the top of his game. In 2010, as the court case into his uncle’s death continued, Thurston found himself in police custody.

He was injured and out on the town in Brisbane. He was young and he was stupid. There was too much drink, too many high jinks and the North Queensland captain was thrown out of a Brisbane casino. He was arrested and charged with making a public nuisance.

For a moment everything he had worked for was on the line. There was speculation he would be stripped of his club captaincy; there were even rumours the club wanted to offload him.

It was the wake-up call he needed.

“It’s one of the lowest points I’ve been in. It doesn’t just affect myself – I’m pretty thick-skinned so I can handle the abuse or the negativity that comes with that – but the effect that it has on my family, that’s when it really opened my eyes up to see, you know, it doesn’t just affect me it affects my family as well.”

In the years since Thurston has transformed himself into the face of the game. The player who was on the verge of being sacked by his club is now a Cowboys legend. He is the most decorated player in the history of the game.

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He has deepened his connection to his people and his culture. He has spent time in his mother’s country; a place he says that has brought him peace and spiritual awakening.

He wears the red, black and yellow colours of the Aboriginal flag on his mouthguard. He wears headgear patterned with Indigenous art. He gives it away to a young fan after each game. It is his way of bringing us – black and white – together, he says.

There is so much more to this man – a man at peace with himself and his place in the world. We spoke for several hours and I left with an answer to that question.

What is he like, Johnathan Thurston?

As I prepared to leave, his wife Samantha was bathing Charlie and Frankie was watching the Wiggles on TV while eating her dinner, and the greatest rugby league player on earth was in a place he has made for himself; it is a place where he has always wanted to be.

Awaken is on Wednesday 2 December, 9pm on NITV (Ch34 & Foxtel 144)

