Champion Wallabies captain John Eales faced some of the toughest men on the planet during his playing career but has revealed his mother was the true source of his strength in a moving tribute after her death.
Rosa Eales died on October 31, at age 88, and Eales wrote her a moving obituary.
Eales was one of the greatest to ever step into the Wallabies boots and was the last Australian captain to taste Bledisloe Cup success against the Kiwis.
He played 86 Tests for the Wallabies from 1991 to 2001, captaining 55 of them and leading Australia to World Cup glory in 1999.
However, in a shocking revelation, Eales wrote that he did not want to play rugby as a child and had begged his mother to take him out of it while he was in hospital after giving birth to his sister Rosaleen.
John Eales is pictured with his mother Rosa in front of the statue erected in his honor at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
“The only rugby matches I had seen were between the Wallabies and the All Blacks and it all seemed too tough for a kid who wasn’t very tough. On the way to Kenmore, we visited Rosa in the hospital,” he wrote for news corporation.
‘Knowing that contact sport wasn’t his thing either, I waited until Jack left the room before seizing the moment.
“Mom, Dad is taking me to play rugby and I don’t want to play,” I said. “You HAVE to get me out of this.”
She replied: ‘John, I’m sorry, there’s not much I can do from here. Go to Dad today and we’ll talk about it later.’
Fortunately for the Eales family (and Australian rugby), John attended that match and began what would become a brilliant career at Ashgrove Emus (later GPS Juniors).
Eales was a two-time World Cup-winning Wallabies star during his playing days.
Rosa, however, was a much harder sell. She would only attend two rugby matches that John played before becoming a Wallaby.
He attended an under-10 grand final which Eales and his teammates lost, and another match that involved an all-out brawl.
Even when Eales began playing club rugby, she was always a mother first and a football supporter second.
“At five o’clock on a September morning in 1990, I arrived home after winning the Rothman Medal in the Brisbane Club rugby competition,” Eales recalled.
‘After entering the front door, Mom scolded me as I walked in shame through the hall and down the stairs.
‘As we turned the corner into my room, his enthusiasm dropped: “Oh, and by the way, congratulations love!” Mothers never really leave.
When Eales began his international career, Rosa eventually converted and watched every game with his rugby circle.
“If proof was ever required that Rosa was a convert, she occasionally brought me balls when I practiced extra kicking at the West Mitchelton rugby league oval, near our home,” Eales wrote.
But it wasn’t just me. Rosa helped everyone, and everyone who knew her was impressed by the strength of her kindness and gentle humility.
‘She, of course, wouldn’t dare believe that she had anything to teach anyone, which is exactly why she had so much to teach everyone.
“He rarely preached, but he practiced regularly, and if his practice was love, his signature was kindness.”
Life was often challenging with six siblings living off a schoolteacher’s salary, but that turned into a true tragedy when they lost one of their own.
“The two hardest moments of Rosa’s adult life were bearing the enormous weight of losing her daughter, Carmel, to Hodgkins lymphoma at the age of 20, and her husband, Jack, almost 20 years ago. , due to melanoma,” Eales wrote.
‘It was his faith; in Catholicism, in herself and in her family, that helped her move forward.
‘Rosa left this world at the age of 88 on October 31 and her legacy lives on through her five children, their partners and her 14 grandchildren.
‘I am convinced that much of the art of dying lies in the dignity of letting go. Not giving up, because Rosa never did that: she fought the good fight.
‘But in the end, when faced with the inevitable, he let it go with clarity, peace, dignity and satisfaction. If there is beauty in death, this was the solution.’