MOSTLY, people measured Pat McCabe the wrong way.

They’d see his size (nondescript) or gauge his speed and skills (solid) or even rate the flashiness of his haircut (schoolboy) and ask: “Why do they keep picking McCabe?”

The answer to that question lay in the size of the thing ticking inside his chest.

When it came to heart, McCabe carried onto a footy field what Phar Lap did to a track.

Although it too was brave, McCabe’s decision to yesterday to walk away from footy due to a neck fracture didn’t immediately tell of his heart.

Until you point out, that is, he’d already fought back from two broken necks to not only play again, but both times returned to the Wallabies.

Both would have been well beyond lesser men than McCabe, whether they were equipped with the right measurements or the wrong ones.

Appearances always misled when it came to McCabe.

Right from the start, the St Aloysius student battled to overcome the perception he’d grow up to make a mean chartered accountant.

“I’m not like an accountant, but I’m probably leaning in that direction,” McCabe even admitted once.

He was bookish by his cover but McCabe was always a talented teenage rugby player as well.

Playing in the company of flashy Australian schoolboy teammates like Quade Cooper however, his name wasn’t the first on the lips of scouts, and senior success took time.

McCabe spent two years with the Waratahs academy but judged to be too slow, in 2008 he joined a distinguished list of people cut by NSW.

A year in club rugby for Warringah, where he trained like a man possessed, launched McCabe’s career. In 2009 the Brumbies came calling, and by 2010 he’d made his Super Rugby debut at the comparatively mature age of 22.

It became apparent that for all the things McCabe supposedly couldn’t do, few could match the intensity in what he could.

Run? Full-tilt. Tackle? Full-tilt. Attend a team meeting? Full-tilt. McCabe did all the one-percenters a team loves, only he did them at two-percent.

It sounds like a Chuck Norris joke and unsurprisingly, in future years, that’s exactly who teammates would liken him to.

But with those same flashy schoolboy peers now Wallabies, then-Test coach Robbie Deans wanted balance and yearned for direct, intense, working players. Step forward McCabe.

Deans gave him a debut on the 2010 Wallabies Spring Tour, and after convincing McCabe to move to inside centre, rushed him into the 2011 World Cup plans.

McCabe’s run-on debut was in the Wallabies’ shock loss to Samoa, and most agreed he was among a handful who held his head high.

How? He gave Samoa some of their own, hard-tackling medicine, much to the discomfort of mum Pauline, who once banned McCabe from playing rugby because it was too rough.

But playing ten kilos above your weight in Test rugby will inevitably take a toll.

When the World Cup rolled around, Deans threw faith in McCabe but his body was wearing down, and a loose shoulder dislocated in-and-out throughout the tournament.

In a gutsy quarter-final win over the Boks, McCabe would throw the bad shoulder into fierce tackles and then get back in the line in agony, with his arm hanging loose.

It was determined McCabe would need a shoulder reconstruction but if he could put up with the pain, he could play in the semi-final.

Asked about that choice, McCabe questioned the word choice.

“I don’t think I can do any more damage to it so it’ll be strapped and forgotten when the ball is in play,” he said. “I’m desperate for this.”

Re-read that. That’s why they kept picking him.

A shoulder op and one year later, McCabe would fracture a bone in his neck on tour with the Wallabies. He initially ignored the pain for several days.

A long, torturous recovery eventually followed and some questioned whether McCabe should risk returning.

When he re-injured his neck playing for Australia against the British and Irish Lions — and went through the same torturous recovery a second time — the question marks only multiplied.

But McCabe trusted the assurances of his doctors and put his determination into playing once more. As a cerebral law student, McCabe didn’t need rugby, like many do.

But he loved it.

And his teammates loved playing with him. After returning — again — and finding career-best form for the Brumbies this season, McCabe was likened to the fabled hardman Chuck Norris, and teammates eagerly volunteered to offer “Chuck McCabe” jokes for a newspaper column.

“How many push-ups can Pat McCabe do? All of them”, or “Pat McCabe just killed two stones with one bird”, or “Pat McCabe counted to infinity — twice” and so on.

He shied away from the attention, but his form earned him another Test recall in June, and finally a starting spot against the All Blacks.

More rotten luck saw awkward force on his head, and another fracture in his spine in Auckland.

This time, it has spelt an end to his rugby career, and though it was short, it was a long way from unfulfilled.

Few in Australian rugby would have squeezed as much from so little.

Within the space of five seasons, McCabe went from a NSW discard to a highly-valued starter at Test and Super Rugby, all for esteemed coaches bearing names like White, Deans, Larkham and McKenzie.

Dig up team sheets for most of the big wins by the Brumbies and the Wallabies, and McCabe’s name is there. Dig up players’ player voting sheets — the true test of credibility — and McCabe’s name was usually there too.

His name will now be added to letterhead of the family law firm — “McCabes” — and down the track, he’ll be introduced as a guy who 24 Tests for Australia.

Not bad for a bloke looked like he wouldn’t get one.