A Mat made in heaven

IF MAT ROGERS had been at all superstitious, a pre-match massage gone badly wrong earlier this year would have sent Australia’s rugby union convert scurrying back to the 13-man code.

Rogers was preparing for his NSW Waratahs debut in a pre-season friendly after a much hyped code switch from his beloved Cronulla Sharks.

He was in the Waratahs dressing rooms before training, relaxing on a massage table when his hand was jammed underneath a collapsible backrest. It squashed his finger.

"I was just lying there speaking to Scott Staniforth and I just sort of leaned over to talk to him and as I leaned over I put more of my weight on the back and it just sort of collapsed and squashed it," Rogers recalled.

"It was painful and I thought I'd actually cut my finger off. It was stuck there and it was probably three of four seconds before I could get up because I was lying on my left side and it was my right hand right across my body stuck under the table. I was like a turtle on its back."

Eventually Rogers managed to push his weight up with his other hand and free himself. Remarkably, the Aussie lost the top of his right-hand ring finger in the spokes of an exercise cycle when he was four and he added wryly: "I thought I was going to have a little buddy to go with it."

X-rays revealed the right-hand middle finger was not broken but it capped a horror 48-hours for the defector, who had suffered a broken nose playing for Australia in the international sevens final against New Zealand in Brisbane the previous Sunday.

That was in February and lesser characters than Rogers would have wondered if someone was trying to tell him something about his career move. Instead, Rogers, then 25 and already a Rugby League World Cup winner in 2000 with Australia's Kangaroos, brushed his mishaps aside, dusted himself down and prepared to get to grips with the new code with even more gusto.

"It rekindled the fire even more to want to get out there in the 15-a-side game and succeed," he said. Two tries in his first two Super 12 matches of the 2002 season for the Waratahs seemed to confirm that he would succeed and such was his form that Rogers, son of Australian rugby league legend Steve Rogers, was fast-tracked into the international squad.

He debuted for the Wallabies as a substitute against France in June and was sprung from the bench by coach Eddie Jones a further five times this summer, bringing the Australian backline to life with a brilliant solo try against New Zealand in Australia's epic 16-14 Bledisloe Cup win and another in the final Tri-Nations defeat to South Africa.

Following his starting debut for Australia at the weekend, at full-back against Argentina in Buenos Aires, Rogers is set to be unleashed on the Northern hemisphere this Saturday when the Wallabies kick off a three-match European tour at Lansdowne Road against Ireland. And he will be keen to show coach Eddie Jones that he has more in his locker to offer Australia in the build-up to next year's World Cup than his effectiveness as an impact sub. The 20-minute man is convinced he can go the distance.

"I can't wait. I was getting pretty frustrated sitting on the bench during the Tri-Nations but it's a whole learning curve for me. I think I'm ready to go now, I'm ready to play the 80 minutes. I've worked pretty hard over the last six or seven weeks getting myself in shape for this tour and I'm all ready to go."

There is a caveat: "A lot of people are expecting me to play 80 minutes of football like I have been in 15 and 20 minutes and it's not going to work like that. You can't afford to go out on the field and just put all your eggs in one basket, you've got to go out and just play it smart for 80 minutes."

An exceptional goal kicker with pace to burn, Rogers, now 26, came to union as a wing with 11 Tests for the Kangaroos under his belt. He had actually played union in a successful Australian Schools team which also included future Wallaby stars Joe Roff and Ben Tune but rugby league, and the Cronulla Sharks in particular, were in his blood.

"I was raised a Cronulla boy through and through," he wrote in his recent book, Off The Wing On A Prayer. "My father Steve played footy on the weekends, my mum Carol was a nurse and my older brother Donnie and baby sister Melanie made up the rest of the family.

"I never realised that my father was a star footballer when I was a kid. To me he was just Dad. I knew he played footy and was on TV but I was never in awe of his fame."

But the three Rogers kids grew up around rugby league players and going to the football on weekends was very much a part of our lives." While Steve Rogers career dictated their family life, his competitive streak also imposed itself on his children from a young age. "We'd be playing Space Invaders or some other game and argue about everything, but we could never beat Dad. Mum would be at him, saying, 'Why don't you let the boys win once in a while?' and Dad would say 'No, they have to learn to win'."

"I started playing rugby league with the Engadine Dragons when I was four, because Donnie started in the under-7s and there was no way I was going to miss out. Dad couldn't very well argue about it because he started playing footy at four as well. I was a natural speedster with a good instinct for the game.

"I developed the ability to push forward in any direction twisting and turning, hitting and spinning, skidding along on my knees and my elbows anything not to get tackled. Coaches would say that I would run 100m on my knees if there was a sniff of a try. And they were right."

Rogers junior had a lot to live up to. His father, after all, is revered as one of the greatest centres in modern rugby league and he scored a club record of 1,253 points for the Sharks. The inevitable comparisons, although Mat insisted he was not bothered by them, did eventually start to gnaw away at him: "I was so used to reading 'Mat Rogers, son of former Test great Steve Rogers' that I thought my name had been changed by deed poll without my knowledge."

Solace finally came, however, from his mother. "I knew I'd finally made it in my own right after about five years of first grade when Mum told me, "I think you've finally arrived, son."

I asked her, "You really think so?" She said she was sure of it. People were referring to her as 'Mat Rogers' mother' rather than 'Steve Rogers' wife'."

It was not just Mrs Rogers' acquaintances who were monitoring her son's progress. The Australian Rugby Union came calling in the antipodean winter of 2000, only for Rogers' father to politely tell them to hold off for a year. The ARU were not likely to forget, especially as Rogers finished the 2000 season having scored 18 tries and amassed 212 points, the most prolific campaign of his career. Yet, despite the offer of a two-year, ARU contract, Rogers was far from convinced a switch to union was the right move.

"I'd never considered changing codes. In my own mind I was always going to re-sign with Cronulla and finish my career there. But after I had that first conversation (with the ARU) the penny dropped. I really wanted to do it, it felt right. I remember saying to my wife Michelle that I wouldn't mind having a go at this.

"The decision was never really about the money, it was about personal satisfaction. My mum Carol played an important part in my final decision. Mum was desperate for me to stay at Cronulla and I think she was also worried about Dad's job if he let me go to rugby. "At one stage she said, 'I just want you to stay at Cronulla'. She was very sick at the time, but I just had to tell her she was being unfair to say that. In the end Mum told me she just wanted me to be happy. It was very important to me that when I did make my final decision and I told her before anyone else she understood and supported me."

SO with his mother's blessing, Rogers made the jump from league to union, causing a storm in the process, coming as it did so soon after Wendell Sailor's defection from the Brisbane Broncos. Rogers had even received a late approach from rival NRL club, the Bulldogs, but said he never considered playing with another rugby league club.

"I love this place (Cronulla Sharks)," he said as he announced his decision. "But even if Cronulla had offered me the same amount I would have made the same decision. It's not about money, I just want to play rugby."

And despite his desire to move off the wing Rogers received no assurances about where he would play. "I wasn't guaranteed any position if I end up back on the wing, so be it," he added at the press conference. "I am just really excited about the opportunity to play rugby union. This is something I really want to do."

Now the union game has won his heart, Wallaby coach Eddie Jones must find where best to deploy it as he tries to complete the jigsaw puzzle of building a team to retain the Webb Ellis Trophy on home soil 12 months from now.

Bob Dwyer, the coach who delivered Australia their first World Cup victory in 1991, believes Rogers, whom he coaches at the Waratahs, certainly has a place in the Wallabies' game plan.

"I think we'll be certainly looking to find some agile guys that can beat bigger, less agile defences," Dwyer said.

"Someone like Mat Rogers. Someone like England found in Jason Robinson or South Africa found in Werner Greeff. I think they'll be looking very, very closely at how they're going to use Rogers."

The Wallabies' three games in Europe should mark their card nicely, something Jones intends to exploit.

"Test matches are Test matches and we have to make sure we don't give away any Wallaby jerseys cheaply," Jones said.

"But at the same time we've got to look ahead."

The message is clear, then, for Mat Rogers and his colleagues: the countdown to the World Cup begins on Saturday, at Lansdowne Road.