When nice guys can actually come first

By WYNNE GRAY

Great Wallaby lock John Eales will leave an unusual legacy when his magnificent career ends tonight.

In these days of professional sport where bad attitudes, belligerence and controversy seem to keep pace with spiralling salaries, Eales has shown that nice guys can come first.

Even in that most gladiatorial sport of rugby, Eales has retained his ability and his self-effacement.

He is an extremely pleasant man off the pitch, someone who would rather not be in the spotlight, but accepts that his talents and his team have pushed him into the frontline.

On a plane trip some years ago, a missionary friend of the Eales family confirmed to me that what the media and public saw of Eales was the same man in private - warm, accepting, observant and humane.

Eales is calm, measured and cautious, not the sort of barking, domineering captain that Wayne Shelford, Nick Farr-Jones or Sean Fitzpatrick were.

Despite his apparent reticence, Eales is the Wallabies most successful captain, and in the eyes of many in the sunburnt country, the best player ever to have worn the green and gold.

His ascension to that pedestal seems to be a contradiction in a sport where machismo is mighty, where brutal is best.

Yet Eales has shown that his athletic skills, concentration and mental toughness are equal to any other type of rugby armoury.

It has prompted Mark Ella to pen an apology in today's match programme after his assessment of Eales five years ago.

"I stupidly questioned his capacity to lead Australia in battle," Ella writes. "How wrong could I have been, sorry John.

"He has matured in the job and has achieved success as leader of the Wallabies that I could only have dreamed about as a former Wallaby and captain.

"Much has and will be said of Eales long after tonight's game, but he will surely go down as one of the greatest players ever."

I have been privileged to watch a number of Eales' performances from the first time he played against the All Blacks in Sydney in 1991. That day his first lineout take was one he stole from the intended target of Ian Jones. As a pure jumper, Eales was special, soaring into the air, his two-metre frame seeming to have the hangtime of Michael Jordan, his mitts like two sticky glue pads.

Round the field he was marvellously athletic, not a bulldozing driving forward but one with the instinct to do the right thing at the right time.

He lowered Rob Andrew in the 1991 World Cup final with a try-saving cover tackle, he was voted the players' player of the 1995 tournament, and held the Webb Ellis trophy aloft in the 1999 cup after most of the year out with a shoulder injury.

There was the injury-time penalty goal in Wellington last season which gave the Wallabies the Bledisloe Cup, he led them to Tri-Nations glory and then a series win against the Lions.

Under pressure, Eales has repeatedly delivered.

Listening to Australia this week the country cannot believe his farewell will be tarnished tonight.

There have not been too many celebrations for the All Blacks in recent seasons, but this is one party they are determined to gatecrash.

And if it happens, you know Eales will be the first to congratulate them.