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COREY Hughes will never forget those days when anyone who ran last at Belmore lost their gear. No excuses. No exceptions.
Finish at the tail of a sprint. Get nude. Part of the losing touch team. Get Nude. Beaten in a 400m run because someone was pulling at your singlet. Who cares, nude up champ.
"And then you'd have to cross the field doing A skips too,'' Hughes laughs. "These big, high knee lifts that . . . well, it's an image not easily forgotten.''
This was supposed to be a yarn screaming bloody vengeance. Of Corey 'Smacka' Hughes staring down the club that punted his old man. Pushed him too. A franchise that dined for some 40 years on a family dynasty . . . only to fine him $10,000 for defending it.
The Hatfields and McCoys have nothing on this lot. Uncle Mark walking out on the club. Uncle Graeme now filing for defamation. Throw brothers Glen and Steven into the mix for five life memberships now sitting in trash cans.
"So how do I feel being the first Hughes to ever play against Canterbury,'' Corey shrugs. "Mate, I'm not sure how to answer that. But when the club made an offer to Mick Ennis last year and not me, well, I had to go. I wasn't playing second fiddle to anyone.''
And this is why we can't talk Hughes and Kill Bill vengeance. Because, sure, they've fined, frustrated and forced Hughes out. Caused a family feud of Bert Newton proportions. But still, somewhere deep within, beats those derbakeh drums of the Bulldog Army.
For proof listen to Hughes at Cronulla, telling prop Luke Douglas an old Darren Britt line about bookends staying between the 20m lines. Then he recycles a Jason Hetherington yarn. Talks up some Lebanese joint on Burwood Road.
"So loyal,'' says one Belmore buddy, "he even has a Bulldog inked on his arse''.
And this is why the Sharks have signed Hughes at 31. Because, sure, he's already a Shire boy. A keen surfer whose two boys - Taj and Slater - are named after wave riders too. But still this No.9 reeks of old school Bulldog.
It's why he never answers his mobile. Why he won't talk about putting the head of a live komodo dragon in his mouth, either. Or glueing $2 coins to pub floors because, well, he likes to watch mates try and pick them up.
Instead, Hughes talks when the rain is pouring in tandem with the blood. When the interchange bench is down to one. Like the time he played three weeks with a broken collarbone. A couple more with cracked ribs.
"And never once,'' says legendary medico Hugh Hazard, "being needled.''
This is a steel born beneath that golden Belmore Bulldog. As a baby, ballboy, then boom rookie with a $30,000 contract and a job with Bankstown Council. It's a grand final in your debut season.
That same year learning Ricky Stuart will take your spot on TV. And listening down a telephone line as the old man tells you he's been sacked. "I can still hear the emotion in dad's voice,'' Hughes concedes. "It was tough, took a huge toll on our family. Even mum. And, yeah, there were days when I wanted to just go.''
Instead he grew.
Like in October 2005 when Hughes was fronted by a boozy bucks party outside Kembla Grange race course. Drunks who bagged his family. Mates and club. Who then ran screaming when 'Smack' offered to explain his nickname. And for that the club fined him 10 grand.
"Look, I'll never repeat what those blokes said,'' Hughes shrugs. "But I'd played at Canterbury for years, had never been in trouble . . . I was standing up for what I knew was right.''
Those that count remember, too.
"Oh, when everything happened in 2005, it was Corey who held us together,'' close mate Mark O'Meley recalls. "He got us together and said `don't worry about Garry being sacked or anything else happening upstairs'. When we bounced back in 2006 . . . it was all him.''
Because this is what the Bulldogs have created in Corey Hughes. This fella who survives because of bung knees and nudie runs. Coffs Harbour and Kembla Grange. A son who watched the old man get shanghaied, crucified and sent out past the Belmore barbed wire.
Who then played four more years with everything he had.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/sport/nrl/story/0,26799,25280896-5006066,00.html
Finish at the tail of a sprint. Get nude. Part of the losing touch team. Get Nude. Beaten in a 400m run because someone was pulling at your singlet. Who cares, nude up champ.
"And then you'd have to cross the field doing A skips too,'' Hughes laughs. "These big, high knee lifts that . . . well, it's an image not easily forgotten.''
This was supposed to be a yarn screaming bloody vengeance. Of Corey 'Smacka' Hughes staring down the club that punted his old man. Pushed him too. A franchise that dined for some 40 years on a family dynasty . . . only to fine him $10,000 for defending it.
The Hatfields and McCoys have nothing on this lot. Uncle Mark walking out on the club. Uncle Graeme now filing for defamation. Throw brothers Glen and Steven into the mix for five life memberships now sitting in trash cans.
"So how do I feel being the first Hughes to ever play against Canterbury,'' Corey shrugs. "Mate, I'm not sure how to answer that. But when the club made an offer to Mick Ennis last year and not me, well, I had to go. I wasn't playing second fiddle to anyone.''
And this is why we can't talk Hughes and Kill Bill vengeance. Because, sure, they've fined, frustrated and forced Hughes out. Caused a family feud of Bert Newton proportions. But still, somewhere deep within, beats those derbakeh drums of the Bulldog Army.
For proof listen to Hughes at Cronulla, telling prop Luke Douglas an old Darren Britt line about bookends staying between the 20m lines. Then he recycles a Jason Hetherington yarn. Talks up some Lebanese joint on Burwood Road.
"So loyal,'' says one Belmore buddy, "he even has a Bulldog inked on his arse''.
And this is why the Sharks have signed Hughes at 31. Because, sure, he's already a Shire boy. A keen surfer whose two boys - Taj and Slater - are named after wave riders too. But still this No.9 reeks of old school Bulldog.
It's why he never answers his mobile. Why he won't talk about putting the head of a live komodo dragon in his mouth, either. Or glueing $2 coins to pub floors because, well, he likes to watch mates try and pick them up.
Instead, Hughes talks when the rain is pouring in tandem with the blood. When the interchange bench is down to one. Like the time he played three weeks with a broken collarbone. A couple more with cracked ribs.
"And never once,'' says legendary medico Hugh Hazard, "being needled.''
This is a steel born beneath that golden Belmore Bulldog. As a baby, ballboy, then boom rookie with a $30,000 contract and a job with Bankstown Council. It's a grand final in your debut season.
That same year learning Ricky Stuart will take your spot on TV. And listening down a telephone line as the old man tells you he's been sacked. "I can still hear the emotion in dad's voice,'' Hughes concedes. "It was tough, took a huge toll on our family. Even mum. And, yeah, there were days when I wanted to just go.''
Instead he grew.
Like in October 2005 when Hughes was fronted by a boozy bucks party outside Kembla Grange race course. Drunks who bagged his family. Mates and club. Who then ran screaming when 'Smack' offered to explain his nickname. And for that the club fined him 10 grand.
"Look, I'll never repeat what those blokes said,'' Hughes shrugs. "But I'd played at Canterbury for years, had never been in trouble . . . I was standing up for what I knew was right.''
Those that count remember, too.
"Oh, when everything happened in 2005, it was Corey who held us together,'' close mate Mark O'Meley recalls. "He got us together and said `don't worry about Garry being sacked or anything else happening upstairs'. When we bounced back in 2006 . . . it was all him.''
Because this is what the Bulldogs have created in Corey Hughes. This fella who survives because of bung knees and nudie runs. Coffs Harbour and Kembla Grange. A son who watched the old man get shanghaied, crucified and sent out past the Belmore barbed wire.
Who then played four more years with everything he had.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/sport/nrl/story/0,26799,25280896-5006066,00.html
