rival behemoths seek to missile Pocock into
next week. Who couldn’t use a break from
that caper?
Feeling weary and battered in late 2016,
Pocock approached Wallabies coach Michael
Cheika with a request: he wanted a year away
from the game. A hiatus, he told Cheika, was
his best chance of being fit and fresh for
rugby’s next big dance: the 2019 World Cup
in Japan.
That was one reason. There was another,
this one quintessentially Pocock. Playing
rugby for a living is a privilege, he says, “but
the flip side is you have ver y li t tle time to do
anything else that’s important to you. I
needed some time.” To Pocock’s relief,
Cheika required no convincing. “He knows
me well enough to know I’m a bit of a weirdo
and probably wasn’t that surprised.”
A subset of rugby fans was less
sympathetic. To their mind Pocock was a
highly paid servant of the game abandoning
his post. Pocock was unmoved. “You’re
always going to get people who don’t like you
or what you’re doing,” he says. “I’m happy to
cop that. Everyone wants to be liked but you
have to b e prepared to make those de cisions
and wear the consequences.”
FIRST, GO HOME
Pocock was 14 when his family fled the
midlands of Zimbabwe as racially fuelled
violence erupted on neighbouring farms. As
an adult he’d returned to the country
numerous times for short stays. Now, his
sabbatical approved, he set his mind on a
more substantive trip.
As for what he did over there, it’s
complicated. Pocock’s first response is, “I
guess I’m really interested in the intersection
of conservation and community
development”. Oh, boy. At first blush you
could be forgiven for thinking that what he did
in Zimbabwe is less compelling than the mere
fact he was there. He’d had a choice between
a) continuing to play rugby on the
international stage and b) exploring the fusion
of conservation and community development
in an African basket case... and he chose b)!
The man has depth. Perhaps that’s the point,
not his itinerary.
But then he gets talking and the trip begins
to sound, well, comprehensible. He got to
work on his grandfather’s citrus farm – one of
his first jobs was telling half the staff they
would be let go at the end of the month. “It
was jarring going from playing rugby to being
on the land, trying to make things work and
growing a couple of hectares of tomatoes,”
he says.
He guest-coached at his old primary and
high schools, setting them abuzz with the
combined power of fame, immense physical
size and approachability. And he joined the
fight against rhino poaching, heading out into
the Malilangwe veld with armed response
units. From his Zimbabwean stay there’s a
photo that captures him among a group of
veterinarians gathered around a fallen,
tranquillised elephant. Answering a challenge
from one of his companions, Pocock is
deadlifting one of the beast’s legs.
That was far from the only exercise he did
during his six months in Africa. But for
someone who once struggled with an
obsessive approach to working out as a
subconscious means of controlling his
anxiety, he did a good job of forcing himself
to lay off the training while focusing on
other priorities.
After consulting with the Brumbies’
strength and conditioning team before
leaving Australia, he committed to havingthree months’ “active rest” to let his body
recover. That meant labouring on the farm
and climbing hills but avoiding the gym,
where Pocock’s rampant competitiveness
and drive for self-improvement invariably kick
in, pushing him to move colossal loads in the
exercises his body still lets him perform.
In the second half of his stay he added
running and “a bit of weights” to his regimen.
He also experimented with fasting,
on occasions going three days without
solid food.
“Fasting’s something you can afford to do
when you’re not playing,” he says. “Your
body’s amazing. I wanted to see how it
responded. Basically, I felt the first day and a
half was tough. After that, you get used to it.”
Pocock squeezed in a leadership course at
Harvard before spending the last phase of his
sabbatical playing footy for the Wild Knights