IN THE LIONS DEN: SENSATIONAL SYDNEY
After the drama of Melbourne, we’ve had an inspiring experience in Sydney, writes Geordan Murphy in the latest Matt Hampson Foundation blog from Australia.
The second Test between the Lions and the Wallabies obviously had a controversial ending, with the tourists celebrating a series victory while in Australia there has been a lot of comment on the referee’s decision to allow the last-minute winning try. Off the field, though, our own tour goes from strength to strength.
We moved on to Sydney on Sunday, and a couple of days later I visited the Sargood Foundation with Matt Hampson Foundation chairman Adam Walker and our good friend Ben Mosley who is on tour as official artist of the Lions. We were delighted, too, to be joined by Jamie Roberts and Lynn Cleckner from the Lions and Sarah Webb representing Wooden Spoon.
The Sargood facility is an unbelievable place and I was actually quite emotional there because it made me think about Matt has done with his own Foundation and how that has grown in supporting young people after serious injury.
The Sargood set-up was a hospital after the Second World War and then turned into a children’s hospital but in the early 2000s the government was going to sell it. Then the local community came together to buy it and it is now a 17-bedroom first-class facility for spinal rehab supported by both the foundation and local government.
Rod Macqueen, a Wallabies rugby legend as head coach of their Rugby World Cup winners in 1999 and the series win over the Lions in 2001, is on the board of their foundation and he greeted us before James looked after our tour.
It was really inspiring and it made me miss Hambo’s team back home. There were so many parallels with the Get Busy Living Centre, all the individuals – their CEO, their physios and care team – and what they do and the language they use was very much in line with what I often hear at Matt’s Foundation. They talk a lot about really ‘experiencing’ the place rather than just describing it. They say you have to ‘live it’ and I know that from our Foundation as well.
From there, Adam and I walked a short distance to Long Reef Golf Club, accompanied by my old Tigers team-mate Ben Woods who kindly agreed to join us and some legends of Empower Golf Australia.
James Gribble, who experienced his own spinal injury in 2008, is a friend of Scott Tindall who was part of the physio team with Tigers in my time there as a player, and I remember going to a fundraiser for him in London in 2009 so it was nice to meet up with him again. He is the creator of Empower Golf which promotes opportunities for people with disability to experience the sport.
He invited Nick Taylor, one of the top para golfers in Australia, and Ben Tullipan, a survivor of the Bali bombing who lost both lower limbs, and another inspirational guy.
We played on the amazing course in fantastic weather. Afterwards I caught a wonderful ferry across from Manly back into the centre of Sydney at the end of an incredible day spent with some great people at a humbling, unbelievable place. As well as being so impressed by the work they do and the people they involve there, it also made me really proud of Matt’s achievements in helping other people and provided a few ideas as well for when we get home.
