Quote He won eight championships with Wigan and nine Challenge Cups but it’s a story he tells about the build-up to his second tour of Australia with England in 1992 that probably best explains him. Four years previously, his first tour Down Under had ended with a knee injury after six minutes. Now he had a recurring shoulder injury.
“I went to see a specialist who told me I needed surgery, but I didn’t care what was wrong with me — I was going to Australia. I met this guy who had had a similar problem and he showed me a way to strap my shoulders. It was really uncomfortable at first. I couldn’t catch a ball or move my arms past there [rib height but it was good for tackling. I thought, ‘I’m just going to go for it’.”
Edwards locked himself in his hotel room for three days before the game. “I was like a fighter before a fight. I thought about how bad I had felt in 1988 and just sat on my bed and listened to music and built up hatred for Australians — that’s the wrong word because there are some great people in Australia — but all my life I had been waiting for this Test match in Australia, and I was going to put my body on the line.”
“I’m not sure I’d have wanted to share a room with you.”
“No, I was sharing with Paul Eastwood but they should probably have put me on my own. Paul was a nice guy but I wasn’t the most sociable person, I wasn’t sociable at all. But I wasn’t there to be sociable. I was there to redeem myself for what had happened in 1988 and for what had happened against Australia before. . . we won by a record score.” '"
Incredible.
I live in hope that one day, just one day, he might return to Wigan.
