POWER WITHOUT GLORY
Men's Health Australia|April 2020
Retired rugby league great Johnathan Thurston will continue to make his mark. It’s just that it won’t happen to the sound of applause
DANIEL WILLIAMS
POWER WITHOUT GLORY
SPEND A LITTLE TIME with Johnathan Thurston and you start to appreciate something that hadn’t seeped in despite having watched him play for what seemed like forever. He’s a survivor. The latest (relatively mild) test of his mettle: a protracted Men’s Health photoshoot in enervating heat and humidity on the streets of Townsville. Thurston’s a big deal around here. And lots of passers-by – men, women, children; Indigenous and non-Indigenous townsfolk; the sharply dressed and the down at heel – seek their moment with him. He’s friendly to everyone. He flashes his signature beaming smile. There’s even a hint of the signature kookaburra laugh. Job done, he takes a load off in the airconditioned comfort of the grandly named The Drawing Room on Flinders, and between sips of coffee opens up about a more forbidding challenge he’s been trying to wrestle into submission: The Void.

“The thought of life without rugby league scared me,” admits Thurston, who retired in 2018 having played roughly 400 games at rugby league’s pointy end – NRL, State of Origin, Test matches. “I didn’t know who I’d be. I knew the first year would be crucial. That’s when a lot of guys fall into, I suppose, depression.”

This story is from the April 2020 edition of Men's Health Australia.

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This story is from the April 2020 edition of Men's Health Australia.

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