Burke came close but my record still stands!

EVERYONE needs opportunities to get on in life, whether it’s through good luck, good timing or someone else’s misfortune, and I am thankful to the ones that have come my way.

- MICHAEL LYNAGH

Had I not gone on the Australian schoolboys’ tour to America and the UK in 1981/82 and missed the summer back home, cricket would have probably continued to be my main sporting interest and who knows what would have happened from there? Instead I came back in the January and was selected for the senior Queensland team, coached by ‘Tempo’ Bob Templeton, and never donned the whites again.

Then, there was my first cap, against Fiji in 1984. It was only because Michael Hawker had planned to get married at that time and did not travel to Suva that I got my chance, playing outside the great Mark Ella.

I stayed at centre for the first few Tests of my 72-cap career, including the 1984 ‘Grand Slam’ tour of the UK. There’s all this old footage of the tour and over Christmas they replayed the Wales game on Fox back in Australia. My three boys – all players at the Harlequins academy – said, ‘dad, it’s like it’s in slow motion’. And they were right, the pace of the game was nothing like it is today. The only thing that’s not in slow motion was the scrums, they got the ball in and got it done. I’d love to see that happen now.

I was having a bit of goal-kicking trouble in the first two Tests on the tour, so Roger Gould took the duties on against Wales, but I was given the job back against Scotland and kicked beautifully, scoring 21 points. I equalled Paul McLean’s Australian record for most points in a match that day.