Recently, I was lucky enough to catch up with the great Mark Loane.
For anyone that had anything to do with Queensland and Australian Rugby in the
70s and 80s, the man known now as
Doctor Mark Loane will need no
introduction. A legendary player both on and off the field, Mark was captain of
a world beating Wallaby side, before retiring and pursuing his second “calling”
as an ophthalmologist, an occupation which keeps him exceedingly busy. At the
age of 63 and still in the prime of his second career, Mark still loves talking
about rugby, even if he is unable to watch every game closely. While we
chatted, he shared some highlights from his days playing for Queensland at
Ballymore and the professional era of today.
Hello Mark, thank you for making some time for me, it's taken a
while and you've been really generous.
Well thanks Tom, I feel badly about that.
I love being a Reds supporter, and watching games at Ballymore,
do you get out there very much these days?
Well I don’t get out to Ballymore very much, the games are at the
stadium [Suncorp] mostly aren’t they? Well, I enjoyed when it was at Ballymore.
And I can remember the almost village-like atmosphere out there. The crowd was
very close, so it was a very intimate thing playing there. It was only 10 or 15
meters to the crowd. After the game was finished, everyone milled around
downstairs, having light drinks and food and whatever. Frequently there was a
whole section of people eating barbeques and eating out of the back of their cars.
It was very much a community like atmosphere back in the 70s at
Ballymore. We hadn’t done very well prior to that, and we were on the way up,
in terms of provincial rugby.
It was a close-knit community at all levels, the supporters, the
players, the dynamics of the whole thing. It was always very pleasant, you felt
like you were playing for your village. As the French say, you played to the
sound of the bell - the village bells. People’s loyalty existed out to the
distance that you heard the bell. So you’d play to the village bell.
What's your most memorable game playing for Queensland?
It must have been around about 1976, it was beating New South Wales
42-4. I’d been reared with this idea that as a Queensland player you had to be
twice as good, because the selectors at national level were always against you.
I remember going out to see games when I was at University where Queensland had
lost by 10, 20, 30, 40 points, and that was expected. We started to turn that
around.
I can remember Geoff Shaw, the NSW captain at the time, great
friend of mine. He said “this is going to be a cricket score.” It was 4-nil to
New South Wales. And that was the end of it. We scored 42 points, to 4. The
last two tries were scored from about 35-40 yards out. And when we scored the
second one, the crowd kept calling “UP! UP! For the up and under!” It was
almost like 100 years of NSW winning was expunged in that one afternoon. You’ll
have to get the replay out Tom.
You are referred to as one of the great players, and captains,
for Queensland, and the Wallabies, when did you officially stop playing rugby?
[6:46]
I finished in 1982. There’s very few things you get right in life
in terms of timing. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Maxwell Smart in “Get
Smart” [the TV programme], and the doors are closing behind him. I’ve always
imagined that life is like that, I call it the Maxwell Smart doors. If you just
get it wrong, every door is closed in front of you. And that was one door I got
correct. I retired in 82, and I was 28 years of age. I had another year or two in
me, but I had enough, I had energy left and I knew I needed to convert that to
the next phase of life.
At that stage, I was playing for University, Queensland and
Australia and then stopped cold turkey. Gave my boots away, gave any balls I
had away, started studying in ’83. That year I had to do this very difficult
exam called the first part of ophthalmology which I actually did quite well in.
[Points to a certificate in the foyer next to where were sitting]. There it is
there, on the far right. I stopped rugby, did the exam, and was fortunate
enough to top the country. So ‘82. It was a good time to retire.
Do you have any great Rugby memories that happened away from the
field that you could share?
Yeah, I think there were always interesting things to do. I can
remember we played Ireland in, I think, 1982, and we beat them. There was
always this idea that rugby touring was about much more than just playing
games.
I remember having breakfast on the Sunday after the test match with
Greg Cornelsen when our manager Nick came in and said ‘what are you guys up
to?’ We said ‘not much’ and he said: ‘come out to the Pale with me’. The Pale
is an area around Dublin. We went to this stable, where they had a horse called
Habitat, which is one of the most expensive horses in the world, we toured
around this paddock looking at these horses and some of them were the most
famous stud horses ever. Northern Dancer was there, all the way from Canada. I
don’t know if you follow horses Tom. Here’s the thing, “Black Caviar” is the
great, great, great grand-daughter of Northern Dancer, this famous horse. So,
you were allowed to enter into things like that.
For instance, in 1975-76, we were invited to Buckingham Palace by
the Queen, Prince Charles and Princess Anne for a reception there. So, rugby,
those days in particular, allowed you entry into things that you couldn’t buy.
Particularly with the British Isles tours, 75-76 and 81-82, we used to have
what we called the culture club and what we’re do, was if we were in London for
example, we’d sit down and go through the newspapers and go through all the
cultural events, the ballet, the theatre, the plays, the philharmonic
orchestra, whatever you wanted, you’d take the numbers down and then we’d get
the tickets for them.
I was in charge of culture for the 81-82 tour. So, when we were
say, in Leicester, we’d play a game on the Saturday, travel on the Sunday,
train on the Monday, play the following Wednesday, I’d have the bus available
to me for the days off. Actually, I remember in Leicester, we visited Bosworth
Field, the place where Richard III was killed.
When we toured, you entered into the country, and the people were
generous to you.
What are the changes that you've noticed the game has been
through since the amateur era, do you think they are better or worse?
I’ve always had a problem with the fact that people appear to be
pulled out of their community structure. I always thought that the most you can
think about rugby was about 15 hours a week. I worked that out once.
But first of all, you can’t play the game unless you’ve got some
talent… you have got some God-given talent. But I don’t know whether you need
to be devoting 40 hours a week to it. And they pay them a lot of money, so it’s
thought that you should be thinking about the game for 40 hours a week. I would
think that they probably should play more games. Whatever you’re doing. If it’s
lifting bricks, go and lift a lot of bricks. If it’s playing rugby… why not
play some more games. But now, how can you be match fit, with what appears to
me to be huge periods of time where people don’t play games.
It used to be only 15 people on the field. I’d like it to go back
to that. When we were playing, it was 15, not 22. They only had 2 reserves, and
you couldn’t be taken off the field unless a doctor validated it and said that
you couldn’t play. So that meant it was a war of attrition, and that meant you
could wear people down.
I work a lot in Cape York, and they say amongst the cattle people
that it’s a great place to breed cattle, but you can’t fatten them. And I think
Queensland, historically has produced a huge number of quality players. We
breed them, but it’s hard to hold on to them. They tend to migrate throughout
the country, and overseas as well, which wasn’t the case in our time. If you’re
asking for differences, you tended to stay in the community where you learnt to
play the game. There wasn’t much transitory movement. You tended to stay put.
That’s one big thing I think. And the second thing is that you need to devote
40 hours a week to it, instead of 15. And the numbers of players, 15 and not 22.
But anyway… these are theories from old men. (Laughs).
What advice would you give to aspiring rugby players, both girls
and boys?
Well I think the girl’s thing’s important. My understanding is that
girls Rugby Sevens is the fastest growing sport on earth. Someone told me that.
Someone also told me that rugby itself is the fastest growing college sport in
the US college structure.
What advice would I give? I think get some talent. You need the gift,
and then you need the desire. Some people don’t have the desire. We’ve all
known people that were sports people in school or whatever, who should have
been an Olympic athlete. And sometimes, the most gifted walk away from the
gift.
You can work at certain things, but there is the gift, whether
you’re playing tennis, snooker or golf… The second things is desire. I say this
to young people all the time, young doctors come to assist me in Cape York, and
I say the biggest question to ask yourself is ‘do you want it?’ ‘How committed
are you?’
Number one, get the gift, number two, desire, and number three,
concentrate for the required period of time. Like all things that are
worthwhile, you have to concentrate for the required length of time.
The other thing would be to avoid injury. A lot of people suffer
from knee injuries etc.
And probably the most difficult thing would be “divine luck”. I’m
not talking about luck in the sense that it’s granted to someone because they
“got lucky”. Say if you’re playing in a US Open in golf, and you chip in from
20 meters - at a crucial moment of time, the ball rolls in.
So, there is a bit of divine luck involved in life and sport. They
brought this person to Napolean, and they said “he will be an extraordinary
general, he’s very, very good”. And Napolean said “yeah, he might be good, but
is he lucky?”
You have to have the talent, you have to have the training, you
have to have the concentration, you have to have the opportunity, and also a
little bit of what I call “divine luck”.
What advice would you give to rugby players in this professional
era regarding life after rugby? Also, do you think your rugby career helped
you? 14:30
It helped me. And I was still doing things while I played rugby. I
was doing a medical degree, and was doing things after medicine, obstetrics and
trauma, trying to find my way through what my mature decision would be,
regarding whether I was going to specialize. It was possible to live those
parallel lives, because there was time made available for it.
It’s possible to do a couple of things well in life. I’m afraid
that the professional attitude from sport almost precludes you from doing something
else, particularly skills for later on in life. Sport tends to last from 18 to
28, but life’s much longer than that.
Thanks again Mark for giving us some of your time, I've been
looking forward to getting a perspective of a past player and some insight into
your experiences!
It’s a pleasure.
You've played rugby in a number of places. You've also played several codes. What was it that brought you to the Reds?
[Laughs] Yeah I didn’t actually retire, what I said is I’m playing less now. That remains the same and I think I will never actually retire. I love playing. If I didn’t have a family, I’d say I’d still be in Europe now as a 43 year old.
