ROCKY ROAD
WHEN Cameron Munster was nine years old, he was told by his mum and dad, Deb and Steve, that they didn’t like the thought of young Cameron playing rugby league, or any other contact sports for that matter. Yeah, that’s right. Munster. The bloke who isn’t afraid to stand up to your favourite team’s forward pack, if they rough him up enough. And if your halves are in the mood for a bit of a cheeky chat on the run after a rare Storm error, he’ll make sure he returns serve with extra mayonnaise. You’ve got to. There’s nowhere to hide in the heat of the National Rugby League.
“I went to school at Berserker Street State School, which is a primary school back where I’m from,” 24-year-old Munster shares with Inside Sport, having just landed in Sydney for the Melbourne Storm’s clash against Canterbury-Bankstown at the Bulldogs’ famous old suburban ground at Belmore. “A lot of my mates at the time were playing rugby league at a club called Norths Knights. I was really close to them. They asked me if I wanted to play. So I asked Mum and Dad: ‘Can I play?’ And they said, ‘No, we don’t want you to get hurt.’
“Eventually I ended up getting some of my team-mates’ parents to sweet-talk mum into letting me play … which she’s pretty happy about now. It was just one of those things. I was nine years old, wanting to play my first game of footy with my mates. I ended up playing school footy from grade five to grade seven. That was my first taste of rugby league when I was a kid. I was very fortunate that my mates’ mums ended up persuading mine.”
I ASKED MUM AND DAD: ‘CAN I PLAY?’ AND THEY SAID, ‘NO, WE DON’T WANT YOU TO GET HURT.’
Munster grew up in Rockhampton, an everyone-knew-everyone kinda place. Typical regional Queensland big country town on the verge of city status. Cameron had the typical smorgasbord of sports to choose from at school. He’s happy to admit that before the thrills
