172. Shane Millard

If you could relive one day from your career, which would it be?

I’ve got two. My NRL debut, which was enormous. Growing up in Australia, all you want to do is play NRL, even if it’s just one game. And then the 1999 Challenge Cup Final at Wembley.

In your career, you were coached by Phil Gould, Tommy Raudonikis, John Monie, Andrew Farrar, Frank Endacott, Tony Smith and Brian Noble. Which made the biggest impression on you?

The best was Gus. He debuted me in 1996 at the Roosters. From a football-brain point of view, he was the best. When he spoke to the group, it felt like he was just speaking to you. He was a great motivator. At the Dragons, I was coached by Andrew Farrar. I had my best year under him. He was a great coach. Character wise, Tommy was amazing. I went to Western Suburbs in 1997, and we were odds-on favourites to make the semi-finals, but we lost our first three games. Our next game was Parramatta on Easter Thursday. We turned up to train on the Tuesday, but he cancelled it and put us on a minibus. There were garbage bins full of beer. We went to one of John Singleton’s restaurants. We were full of drink. The bus got us back to the ground at 2am and we had a light captain’s run on the Wednesday. Before the game, Tommy gave us a great team talk about how everyone was tipping us for the wooden spoon. He said, “They can all go and get f***ed!” He had this massive wooden-spoon ornament in his hand and smashed it against the wall. There was timber everywhere. “Get out there!” he shouted. We were up against a really good Parra team with Jarrad McCracken, Jim Dymock and Jason Smith, and we beat them 25-14.