Mark Riddell came last in a sprint drill at training. Again. His Parramatta teammates doubled over in laughter. Again.
New Eels coach Michael Hagan was more than a little bemused. What, his gun hooker was this much of a snail? Riddell put his arm around Hagan, grinned like a rat with a gold tooth, and said: "Coach, I'm a footballer, not an athlete."
The old Riddell would go home from training, drain a dozen beers then go to bed. But with his workload and responsibility going through the roof because of the reduced number of interchanges and departure of PJ Marsh to Brisbane, the new Riddell has decided to shoulder the extra burden by stripping a significant amount of beef from the rest of his famed frame.
"I'd be at home and drink somewhere between eight and 12 beers without even realising it," he told The Sun-Herald before today's clash with the Warriors. "Just cutting out the amount of beer during the week has made a big difference. I didn't have one beer for about five or six weeks during the off-season. I was seeing the results after three or four weeks, and kept it going.
"Obviously, I've had a few since then. I'll never give it up, but I guess it's finally clicked that I need to take a more professional approach to looking after myself with my diet and alcohol intake."
He's still no Charles Atlas, but Riddell is down from 104 kilograms to 97kg. For the first time, he can play 80 minutes. Pure footballing skills and instincts have always compensated for a six-pack being the most likely contents of his fridge rather than the shape of his stomach, but the question has been: How good would he be if he were fit?
We're about to find out.
"I used to eat a lot of junk, but not as much as people are led to believe," he says. "Having a beer was having more of an effect on my weight than what I ate.
"Once PJ left, I spoke with Hages and he said there would be an opportunity to play more minutes. I'd never been in the right condition to do that before. I don't want to be out there for 70 or 80 minutes for the sake of it. I want to contribute some quality."
Does he regret not doing this sooner? "I'll never regret the times I've had," he says. "I said to myself when I started playing first grade, 'If there's one thing I do, I'm going to enjoy this ride.' I've probably never been the absolute professional who does everything right. I love the camaraderie, everything that goes along with footy.
"Other blokes probably don't enjoy that side of it as much as I do. The game has changed, and whether that's been for the better, I don't know. But it's getting harder and harder these days for blokes to enjoy themselves."
Riddell's mid-match farewell of Canberra's Michael Weyman - "See ya, fat boy" - was comedy of the highest order. As was celebrating a try by clapping himself from the front row of the grandstand. Once, when he was thanked for his honesty by St George staff for telling them how many beers he had a week, he told them: "Well, if we're being perfectly honest, I probably have just as many bourbons."
He wants to coach - with Brett Finch.
"We ring each other, day in and day out," Riddell says. "We'll be watching games and coming up with all these ideas. Hopefully, one of us will get a head coach's job, and the other one can become his assistant.
"I really want that side of it to fall into place. I'll never walk away from the game. I just couldn't do it. I don't know what I'd do without rugby league."
Hagan's response to Riddell's character description last year was a typically deadpan: "Thank you for clearing that up for me, Mark."
"Yeah, I told him that," Riddell says. "It was more of a joke than anything too serious, but there was probably a bit of truth in it. I'm never going to be the fastest in the team or the strongest or the fittest.
"I still wouldn't put myself in the category of an elite athlete, but give me a footy team to play in and I'll run out and play my heart out for them. That's got to be worth something."
