Meninga will never live down his embarrassing political backflip.
IT’S the Mal Meninga story that will never die.
No matter what his heroics playing for Canberra, Queensland and Australia were, his legacy will always carry with it the side story of his infamous political career.
We can’t really call it a career though, given it lasted about as long as the 200m athletics final at the Olympics. In 2001 the rugby league icon was planning to announce his candidacy to run as an independent in Canberra politics, but after going blank when asked a question during an interview, he walked out of the radio studio he was in and that was it.
In a split second he went from wanting to be a politician to not wanting to be a politician. It’s somewhat ironic given some of our public servants are renowned for reneging on promises.
He’s rarely talked about that moment in the past 16 years, but there’s a very simple reason he was left speechless despite undergoing intense preparation on how to answer any question thrown his way.
“I’d been doing all this preparation for six weeks prior about all these questions. All these questions you get asked there’s two or three answers (you have prepared),” Meninga said on Fox Sports program Queenslanders Only.
“So they asked me this question, why should people vote for me? And I hadn’t got this question in the whole six weeks of preparation.
“The Jiminy Cricket’s on the shoulder and told me, ‘What the bloody hell am I doing this for?’ Bugger it.”
Meninga was a much better player than he was a politician.Source:Getty Images
Sometimes it’s the simple questions that prove most difficult to answer.
Like a school kid who’s studied up on every part of the syllabus bar one only to find out the exam was on that minuscule aspect he’d neglected, Meninga was left red faced.
It’s no doubt a moment the 56-year-old wishes people will forget, but there’s no chance of that happening any time soon. Even his own players used to mock him.
Former Queensland centre Justin Hodges said when Meninga became coach of the Maroons the players, while wary at first, made sure everyone knew about their mentor’s embarrassing backflip.
“In some of our Origin camps we have (made fun of Meninga),” Hodges said. “Everyone was a bit scared at first and a bit intimidated by the big man.
“Then after a while we started getting in little groups and it started to catch on because everyone was just losing it.
“It’s probably the funniest 16 seconds you’ll see in your life.”
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