Hoiles the big loser as beef-up plan fails
Rupert Guinness | November 8, 2008
FOR two years Wallabies coach John Connolly badgered Stephen Hoiles to stack on the weight, insisting he needed more bulk and strength if he wanted to continue to be a Wallabies back-rower.
But trying to become "the person I probably will never be" has probably cost Hoiles his Wallabies jumper. As the the team's spring tour continues, he is in Australia, having missed selection for a second time this year.
He last played for Australia in the second Test against France on July 5, but was omitted for the Tri Nations squad and then, after captaining Randwick to the Shute Shield final, for the northern hemisphere tour.
Wallabies coach Robbie Deans told Hoiles, 27, he needed to become more involved in the game, which Hoiles interpreted as needing to be faster and fitter - traits he had, but believes were lost by his bid to gain weight.
As he spent hour after hour in the gym doing extra weights trying to convert his 98 kilogram body into the 103kg physique Connolly wanted, Hoiles believes he lost his trademark spark. His intention now is to return to being the natural player he is, and not the colossus others said he had to be.
This was his goal when he lined up in Canberra for his first pre-season training block since 2003, at the Brumbies. He joined the team last year, from NSW, and has re-signed until the end of 2010.
"A lot of people think you are not on the Wallaby tour, they always say you must be down, but I get to do a pre-season and get all this time to rip in to next year," he said.
Deans, Hoiles said, did not outline what he had to do to return to the Wallabies, but he read between the lines.
"He didn't have a problem with anything in particular," Hoiles said. "He just thought I had to do more and be involved more as opposed to waiting for things to come to me and then doing something.
"That just comes down to being fitter and doing more running. I have run so much more the last couple of weeks than I have for the last two or three years.
"The focus of the game [before now] was more about set pieces ? With the new [experimental] laws, it is a running game, and I have to take advantage of that because naturally that should suit. I have to get back to my basics that got me where I was."
Hoiles won't allow himself to be consumed with the idea of a Wallabies comeback, however. He just wants to become the best footballer he can be.
"I am not going back to training and trying to do what I think will get me back in the Wallabies," Hoiles said. "I have to do what is best for me and what got me to play my best footy. That is being as fit as I possibly can ?
"I am 100 kilos. I have spent years trying to get from 98kg to 103kg and it's at the stage where it is superficial weight. It just keeps certain people happy.
"The people who have those perceptions of me [that he needed to bulk up] are out of the game. 'Knuckles' [Connolly] is out of it - [he] was really big on it. [Connolly's predecessor] Eddie Jones wasn't big on it. He was, 'Get strong but you don't have to spend your whole life in the gym.'
"But under Knuckles, leading up to the World Cup, the whole 2006 and 2007 [seasons] were [about] being big and strong, and being this huge person that I will probably never be."
