Higher Calling

As Great A Rugby Player As David Pocock Is, The Game Has Never Been Enough To Satisfy Him. His Every Moment Is Shadowed By A Question: How Do You Cut Through The Trappings Of Success And Live In A Way That’s True To Your Values?

- Daniel Williams

YOU’VE BEEN HANGING around in a Canberra log yard with David Pocock. Now it’s time to go and suddenly the man has vanished. He was last seen headed out back, from where the barking of a vicious sounding dog is ringing out. The minutes tick by until, lo and behold, Pocock reappears, cool as a sax player. Turns out he’d been searching for the yard boss. He’d wanted to thank him for his hospitality.

“Deep down,” Pocock tells me later, “I think we all know what’s right.”

It’s the miniature version of a wider narrative. Pocock takes off. Pocock isn’t where others think he should be. But the man himself can shake off their annoyance or disapproval because he’s heeding his better instincts.

In case you missed it, Pocock checked out of Australian rugby last year. As good as he is, as important as he is to the fortunes of his Super Rugby franchise, the Brumbies, and to the Wallabies, he took a voluntary timeout from his duties to both. Instead of packing into scrums and winning turnover ball, he spent six months in his birth land of Zimbabwe, doing a bunch of things that simply wouldn’t for a second enter the head of 99.9 per cent of people. But that’s Pocock. That’s the example he sets. Be your own man. Dance to your own beat. Never mind what’s typical. Do what’s right.

Fortunately for Australian rugby, what felt right for this year was a return to the fold. Pocock’s back in headgear and primed for the Wallabies’ three-Test series against Six Nations champions Ireland this month. Football is his focus again. But it will never be his world.

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