Rugby League: Kiwi skipper now restored in mind as well as body

By PETER JESSUP

Kiwi rugby league captain Richie Barnett believes his face is stronger than it was before the sickening collision with Australian Wendell Sailor that smashed it, and he has no nagging doubts about leading the team to the World Cup.

"I feel the way I did before the season started and the closer I get to full fitness, the doubt that I'll be tentative when I get back on the field gets less and less," he said yesterday.

Barnett has been training with his old team, the Sharks, near his Cronulla home rather than his Sydney City team as they prepare for the finals. Only in the last month has he been back to full strength and conditioning work.

"It'll help my confidence once we get into full contact training with the Kiwis but I expect to be 100 per cent by the time we get to the World Cup. There's nothing I can do to tell how that will go, I won't know until I get on the field for the first game."

But if the ball is bouncing halfway between him and big Bronco Sailor? "I'll go for it, I'll get it," he said.

Playing for New Zealand means everything to the Northland-born 29-year-old and he never considered giving the game away in the seven months since he nearly died as blood clotted in his throat in an ambulance behind Stadium Australia on Anzac test night.

"I don't want to go out after that. I want to make up for that loss, the fans deserve better. We know we're a better side than that. I'd like to bring the cup home."

Doctors have described his face-shattering accident as a freakish footballing occurrence unlikely to be repeated in his lifetime, let alone his playing career. It was more like an injury seen after car smashes, they have told him. ,

Kiwi doctor Tony Edwards has offered Barnett any sports science or psychological help he wants but the skipper has said all that is unnecessary.

"We'll sit down with him at the camp and go through that again but he seems very determined and should be fine," Edwards said.

There was no set pattern to recovery and regaining confidence after such an injury, Edwards added. Everything is down to self-belief.

Barnett's facial surgeons are expected to give him a final clearance to play next week.