David Campese

Weeks after making his under-21 debut for Australia, the teenage wing stepped up to the senior side, against the All Blacks in Christchurch. He didn’t blink, he didn’t even know who Stu Wilson was, so why worry? They lost, but he scored, and David Campese’s reign had begun.

The 1991 Rugby World Cup final. England versus Australia at Twickenham. England rampant, a move down the left, the Wallaby defence is stretched and the home team have a three-on-one. “Back in those days,” begins our storyteller, David Campese, “there was the very occasional prospect of a penalty try but more often than not it was just a penalty for a deliberate knock-on.

“The moment I saw it was a forward in the backline, Peter Winterbottom, making that pass and I knew they had three on the outside of me including the great Rory Underwood, I realised what I had to do – there was nothing to lose. 

“Yep, I played the odds and I simply knocked the ball forward deliberately to kill the move,” he admits. “Call it gamesmanship, call it unsporting, call it whatever you want, but I call it the difference between a silver medal and a gold medal. Had Wints executed that pass, the result may well have been different. 

“Welsh referee Derek Bevan ruled that it was deliberate, continues David, “but only awarded a penalty and we were happy to concede three points. Nowadays, of course, I am sure it would have been a penalty try and yellow card, but you can only play the game that’s in front of you and that’s exactly what I did.

“Do I regret it?” he ponders. “Not one bit. I have no doubt that Peter, one of the hardest and most uncompromising flankers I ever faced and someone I respect immensely, would have done exactly the same thing in a similar situation.”

There are many in the sport of rugby who would place David Campese on the absolute summit of the all-time great list. The Apex attacker, the consummate entertainer, the outspoken maverick, the intuitive genius; all those descriptors apply, and his Test record – 101 matches, 64 brilliant tries and a World Cup win in 1991 – underlines the validity of the claims. 

For David, rugby is his love affair, but like so many romances, there are times when he’s been infatuated and exasperated in equal measure. His outspoken personality is always there for all to see and hear, but underneath that façade, there’s a man of huge simplicity from a humble working-class Aussie background, who speaks a lot of common sense about our great game and his dissatisfaction with the current Rugby Australia regime is clear. 

From the moment he picked up a rugby ball, he did it his way, without compromise, without apology and without fear. Blessed with incredible natural pace, few have possessed the all-round kicking and handling skillset of the great Wallaby. For every one of those 64 tries there’s one hundred others enabled by his coruscating brilliance, none more so than the try of the 20th century, when Campese executed that exquisite no-look ‘miracle pass’ to send Tim Horan flying over for the winning score in the 1991 Rugby World Cup semi-final against Australia’s nemesis, New Zealand – a career-defining moment of impudence from an all-time great.

It all started in rugby league, the bedrock of Aussie winter sports and one he didn’t believe he quite excelled at. “Coming from a country town on the ACT/NSW borders called Queanbeyan, league was the focus of our community and I embraced it with all the glee of a sporty teenager,” he explains. “I played everything going – cricket to second grade standard, I won the local junior golf tournament aged fifteen and of course, dabbled in Aussie Rules (AFL). I guess having the exposure to so many different sports really helped in my overall skill development, but above all, it gave me the awareness of space and how to find it, something that I believe defined my rugby union play.

“I remember playing in the Grand Final for Queanbeyan Roos aged sixteen,” he continues. “We lost and as the night rolled on and the booze flowed, the blame came my way. I wasn’t a drinker at all compared to most of those older lads and it’s safe to say I copped it a bit for missing a few tackles, something that happened a few times in my career thereafter, I have to admit.

“People had mentioned to me that union might be the natural fit for my skillset; a format with more open running and less emphasis on defence sounded bloody good to me and off I popped to try my luck in the fifteen-a-side game with the Queanbeyan Whites.”

Around that time, the coach at Queanbeyan was Peter ‘Froggy’ Morton – also a black belt in karate and a man you didn’t mess with. “He saw my potential,” says David, “and I started playing in the fourth team and, while I was learning, Queanbeyan won the Premiership for the first time ever.”

Morton soon became a mentor. “He once told me, ‘If ever I see you drinking like these others, I’ll belt the f*cking daylights out of you!’

“It was a tough environment,” adds David, “and I knew he was trying to look after me so the best I could ever manage was a simpering ‘Yes, sir!’ in response.”

David’s life revolved around the club, not only for the rugby, but also for work, as he took on the role of trainee bar manager. “I spent my time working around the rugby club,” he says, “I’d go for runs at lunchtime with some of the senior players, sometimes sprint training with the likes of Peter Hitchcock and Cole Maxwell watching proceedings. Hitchcock was also the ACT coach at the time and whilst I was going through ‘the system’ it helped to have continuity like that.”

His parents didn’t watch. “There was little parental pressure to perform, something I believe is becoming a problem in this era,” he says. “In the last twenty years there’s a lot more parents getting involved with their kids’ sports, and that can be healthy, it can assist the children getting to the next level.

“But,” he adds, “it irks me when those parents use their kids’ sport for their own agendas – there are systems that get badly manipulated by parental agendas, parents who believe that the only way their son or daughter will make it is if they’re involved and that, to me, isn’t right.”

Indeed the modern game has a lot to answer for. “The system before professionalism worked well,” reckons David. “The club game was connected seamlessly to the first-class game and the pathway was clear. Now, there’s a huge disconnect in Australia between the grassroots and the professional game and the support mechanisms are lacking to connect the two. It’s obvious that without the grassroots pipeline, you won’t have a professional game and I worry greatly that not enough is done to support the community side of the game, especially in a country that has huge competition for sporting eyeballs with AFL and rugby league offering attractive options for athletes.”

With a season or so of union under his belt, David found himself attracting the attention of age-group selectors. New South Wales and Queensland were dominating the selection of the Australia under-18s and under-21s, and the winger was called into the squad for a training camp, held at a local army barracks. “One of the positive things was the way that the Wallaby coaching directors were already around the age group players at this time,” says David. “People like Arthur McGill and David Clark spent a lot of time talking to us and asking us about our aspirations. I didn’t mince my words when asked what I was looking to achieve from rugby – ‘I want to play for Australia, mate’ was my simple response – and I’m not sure many of today’s youngsters hold that desire as dear as we did.

“I made the under-21s and we played Fiji at Ballymore in 1982 as a curtain-raiser to the Wallaby v Scotland match,” continues David. “There was I, sitting in my blazer, still fairly naïve about the whole set up and I recall vividly that when the Scots ran out there was an almighty cheer followed by a chorus of boos and hisses as the Aussies ran out. I couldn’t work it out! Then someone told me that this was all about selection. Bob Dwyer had selected NSW boys Mark and Glen Ella over the Queensland legends Roger Gould and Paul McLean. 

“To add insult to injury, Glen dropped a bomb from John Rutherford and the whole crowd cheered loudly. I was pretty surprised, but this showed the parochialism between Queensland and New South Wales, a rivalry that crosses many sports. Here I was in my first appearance for a Wallaby side and the senior boys are getting booed by their own crowd! I think Scotland did a number on us that day, winning 12-7 with Rutherford dropping a crucial goal.”

Next up for David were the All Blacks. “A couple of weeks later and I fulfilled a lifetime ambition, playing for the under-21s against the All Blacks at the Sydney Cricket Ground,” says David. “Any blue-blooded Aussie will tell you this is the ground they want to play at – the place of Bradman, of Bodyline, of Bledisloe battles and more. You sit in that old green-roofed pavilion soaking up the cricket and rugby heritage around you and it’s a pretty special experience. But a few weeks later, the experience went up a notch as I found myself called up into the full Test side to face New Zealand at the old Lancaster Park ground in Christchurch.

“The Wallabies capped a few debutants that day – Gary Ella at centre and Andy McIntyre at tighthead among others. With six rookies in our side, we were never going to extend the All Blacks and they scored four tries beating us 23-16, but I managed to get onto the end of a few passes and sneaked over for a try on my first outing. A couple of those new boys didn’t get another outing for Australia, but I’m glad to say I managed a couple more caps before my career was done!” 

While he was passionate about the game, he wasn’t entirely clued up on his opponents. “I recall one of the New Zealand journos coming up to me during a presser and asking how I was going to cope going up head-to-head on my debut against the great Stu Wilson,” remembers David. “‘Stu who?’ I replied. I genuinely had no idea who he was but I found out pretty quickly and soon realised just how good he and his fellow backline players were. Stu is still one of the best I played against but on that debut match I managed to get one over on him on the scoresheet if not the result.”

With the great wing grabbing another try in a surprising win in the second Test in Wellington, the teams headed to Eden Park to play the decider: “Roger Gould scored after 55 seconds,” recalls David. “I remember him trotting back after converting his own try with smiles, and someone said, ‘Rog, I don’t think that was a good idea – now they’re really pissed off!’ And as night follows day, so they responded with typical power and abrasion, slamming us 33-18 with Ali Hewson getting 26 points as we got on the wrong side of Scots referee Alan Hosie.

“Those Bled games were the pinnacle of Test rugby at the time, as far as I am concerned,” says David. “The Boks were out of the sport and the rivalry was beyond intense. You wanted to play them because you knew they were the best and that’s how we became the team we became – by learning how to beat the standard-bearers of the sport. During my career, I played them 29 times and won only nine and only managed eight tries with three Bled wins. We always had the backline to cause them issues, but it was when Alan Jones came along and sorted the forwards out so we could compete, that was the game-changer for us and once he’d done that, we had a team that could beat anyone.”

Moving across the backline from wing to fullback during those early caps, David amassed nine tries from his first fourteen Tests, including four against the USA in Sydney. He also recorded the first of his nine Bledisloe wins against New Zealand in that match in Wellington, getting on the scoresheet alongside Gary Ella as Australia won 19-16. But the Wallabies were still inconsistent, recording only two wins in 1983 as they beat minnows of the time Italy and a Hugo Porta-led Argentina. “I think that those formative years with the Ellas were the blueprint for our future success,” he says. “Mark is one of the best players I have ever seen let alone played with or against. I recall the first time we crossed paths on the pitch – it was some New South Wales v ACT combined fixture and I was enjoying a pretty good day. Half time approached and the New South Wales coach strode onto the pitch, grabbed Glen and Mark and just bellowed, ‘STOP KICKING THE BLOODY BALL AT BLOODY CAMPESE!’ I guess if I wanted validation that was it, there and then!”

With a full Northern Hemisphere tour scheduled for 1984, expectations for the Wallabies were low, with the British public considering them the poor relations of the Southern Hemisphere compared with the might of the All Blacks and Springboks. But coaching maestro Alan Jones had other ideas, and the Wallabies found something close to a golden generation of players, with Campese and the Ellas at the heart of their rejuvenation. They played eighteen matches spread across Britain and Ireland, with four Tests against the home nations, and defeated England 19-3, Ireland 16-9, Wales 28-9 and Scotland 37-12 – a Grand Slam tour. “For some reason we were a better touring side than a home side,” reflects David. “We’d also recruited well; Topo Rodriguez joining us from Argentina when he immigrated to Australia helped us enormously and he, alongside Tommy Lawton, gave us serious beef. Alan also appointed a proper specialist coaching team; Alec Evans, Bob Templeton driving the forwards and the brilliant but abrasive Bob Dwyer looking after the backs.

“The Grand Slam tour was long form,” he continues, “loads more games than tours today. It gave you time to gel and to form a bond. We only really had two teams in New South Wales and Queensland and four or five players were from Randwick alone, so when the pressure was on, then we had combinations that knew how to find a way to win, crucial in those tight matches.”

The Randwick influence cannot be understated. It was a talent production line: David Knox, the Ellas, Michael Cheika, Eddie Jones, Euan McKenzie, Simon Poidevin, Lloyd Walker, Chris Latham... “The Randwick/Dwyer style was the way the Wallabies played,” explains David, “and that club had such a massive influence on the game in Aus. Even today we see some of those names as Test coaches or pundits, continuing the legacy of Randwick RFC.”

The tours however, gave the players a chance to mix with those from other parts of Australia, and indeed mix backs and forwards too. “I do recall that for some reason I drew the massive Queenslander prop Stan Pilecki as my first roommate,” says David. “In those days you had a roomie change quite regularly so the whole team started to get to know each other ... I don’t think they could have chosen anyone more of a polar opposite to me than big Stan as my first one. I was near teetotal, didn’t smoke and was a pretty assiduous trainer. So, you can imagine my thoughts when I went up to the room to be met by clouds of cigarette smoke and a few open tinnies as Stan had already claimed a major territorial advantage.

“The first night I woke up around 3am and I looked over to Stan’s side of the room and there was a little red glow as he puffed away on his cig in the dark. ‘Hell’s teeth mate, do you actually smoke in your bloody sleep?’ I asked, only to be met with a guttural grunt, some choice expletives and a fusillade of coughing from the big prop, who smoked and snored the night away for some fifteen weeks, much to the dismay of those who had the misfortune to be the next one sharing with him.

“Stan’s legend lives on,” he continues. “During that tour we were playing at Hawick and we saw him being carted off in a police car with blue lights flashing. ‘Where the hell’s he going?’ we wondered, knowing that with Pilecki pretty much anything was possible. When he finally returned, we learned he had been desperate to get to the bookies to get a bet on a horse he fancied and had sweet-talked the local bobbies into giving him a lift to town to get his money down.

“But characters were everywhere in those days,” he muses, “and you had that mix of amateurs playing international sport. A few of the lads got arrested in Scotland for fishing in the local rivers without permission – we were Aussies, we didn’t have the regs on fishing that you guys do so we just went for it, much to the ire of the locals. It was fun, it was tight-knit and it was successful because of the relationships we forged.”

A regular going into the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987, David scored in the semi-final against France but couldn’t stop Australia from going down (and out) 24-30 to their Serge Blanco-inspired opponents in Sydney. “It was a strange match,” he recalls. “Brett Papworth and Bill Campbell both came off injured in the first twenty minutes and we simply struggled to get a platform. I scored early on but then the French played majestically and Blanco, Lagisquet, Lorieux and Sella all crossed to beat us, a result that wasn’t acceptable and one that drove us to want more from the 1991 tournament.”

In 1991, there were five hosts: the home nations and France. “1991 was harder,” he says. “The game was slowly becoming more and more professional and teams were much better structured and fitter. There were no easy games but our prep went well with wins in the Bledisloe and then a hammering of England in Brisbane by 40.”

The group stage saw three wins from three against Argentina (32-19 and two tries for David); Western Samoa [9-3] and Wales [38-3, another try for David]. Another brace in the narrow, 19-18 quarter-final win over Ireland, led to New Zealand. “It’s the only time in my career that I knew we’d beat them before the game, as I realised they’d grown old together,” he recalls. “I knew they lacked pace in their defence and I showed that in the semi when I went for the corner knowing that if I had the angle, I could simply gas them, which I did.”

New Zealand were despatched 19-6. Then it was England. “It was as close as you like and that English side were a very special team, with world-class players like Will Carling, Jerry Guscott, Wints and Mike Teague,” he says. “But I also knew they, like us, were absolutely knackered by the time we got to the final after a ridiculous schedule with only a few days between fixtures. For us, it was all about controlling that one moment that would decide the game, and that’s precisely what happened when Tony Daly got on the end of a devastating carry from big Willie Ofahengue.”

The final was won 12-6 in front of 56,208 at Twickenham. Having dominated the tournament personally, it was his crowning achievement. Combinations that were formed alongside David led the Wallabies to a second RWC win in 1999, crowning almost twenty years of rugby dominance from the gold and green of Australia.

Since that era however, despite making two more Rugby World Cup finals, things have declined. The current Wallabies seem in disarray, tarnished by poor management within their structure, failing to get out of their group at the 2023 tournament, which was overshowed by the Eddie Jones affair.

David wants to see a return to the team values that so defined the great Wallaby era. For him, it’s about learning with teammates, developing a brand that excites and resonates with the sport-barmy Aussie public. “You know you need to embrace the learning opportunities you have as a Test player and enjoy every moment without taking it for granted,” he says. “That’s how you grow your culture and how you grow your players and the game. Rugby is the history of life for me: I got to meet the Queen; to see the Colliseum; to play in Jerusalem where Jesus lived; to witness the release of Mandela and to travel the world. I came from a town of 21,000 people, went to a state school, yet everything I have I got through rugby. 

“It’s crisis time in Rugby Australia but everything is so internalised,” he continues. “They need to look back and celebrate the history of what the Wallabies have achieved. To hear the stories of the Ellas, John Eales, Topo and Stan – these are the things that are the brand and DNA of the Wallabies, not Eddie Jones soundbites to blood thirsty press people craving for clickbait.

“Use the heritage you have and dig deep to unearth the culture we created,” he says, “reclaim it and celebrate it, and then the sport and the Wallabies themselves will become bigger than administrators and narcissistic coaches who are taking up vital media bandwidth.

“For me, rugby isn’t about my caps or tries, it’s about mates all over the world and that’s the main thing I cherish as I get older and wiser.” 

Story by James While

Pictures by  Getty Images

This extract was taken from issue 24 of Rugby.
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