NRL legend Paul Gallen can’t stop fighting and won’t sit still, even at age 40

In a playing career that spanned more than 400 top-flight games, there’s not much he didn’t achieve.

He captained a drought-breaking State of Origin series win and guided the Sharks to a historic maiden premiership – all in the space of two-and-a-half years.

He kicked the last ever points in the now defunct City-Country game, has landed a field goal at Leichhardt Oval and won a World Cup across 32 Tests for Australia.

Since hanging up the boots, he has become one of the biggest draw cards in Australian boxing, beating UFC legend Mark Hunt and former heavyweight world champion Lucas Browne along the way. In June he fought rising star Justis Huni for the Australian heavyweight title.

So, what’s keeping this bloke going?

At an age when other recently retired players of his generation are moving into coaching positions, commentary roles or corporate life, why is he putting himself through utter torment as a professional boxer?

Money is one reason, sure. There’s plenty of it to be made in boxing.

But a fear of idleness is another.

Paul Gallen is ultra-competitive and just can’t sit still for long.

Delivery days

It must have been a bizarre sight.

During the height of Sydney’s Covid lockdowns in 2020, a beaten up 2012 Volkswagen Caddy pulls to a stop outside Joe’s Fruit World in Wetherill Park. Out steps Paul Gallen – the Paul Gallen – to pick up dozens of boxes of fresh fruit. It takes 20 minutes to load the van with it all.

An hour or so later, the former Blues and Sharks skipper is seen carting the boxes back and forth between the “rusted, dented shitbox of a car” and So Fresh Juice Bar in Cronulla Mall.

Gallen started the gig after he was unable to keep a training job at the Sharks due to the NRL’s strict Covid biosecurity measures.

He didn’t need the money though. He was just bored, so asked a mate if he could do a few hours work a couple of days a week for him.

“It just gave me something to do,” Gallen says.

“I just don’t like sitting at home, it gets boring and I’m happy to work.”

He didn’t receive a cent for the gig, either. Instead he was paid with a free Acai bowl after each shift.

But he did gain another sponsor.

The owners of Joe’s Fruit World, where Gallen picked up each delivery, were so impressed that the company jumped on as a sponsor for his fights.

“I know people go on about me and money, but one thing no one can say is that I haven’t worked for everything I’ve got. No one’s giving me nothing, and that’s how it should be. If you work hard for something, you should be rewarded. That’s life.”

The rematch he’ll never get

Almost four years on, and Gallen still gets worked up about the rematch Josh Dugan will never give him.

It was pre-season 2018, and a group of senior Sharks players had gone out for a long lunch that eventually turned into evening beers.

Dugan had just joined Cronulla on a big-money deal from the Dragons and the banter between he and some of the established Sharks players ramped up as the day wore on and the beers went down.

One thing led to another and Dugan challenged Gallen to a wrestling match. Right there on South Cronulla Beach.

Gallen was considered the best wrestler at the Sharks at the time and has a blue belt in Jiu Jitsu which was awarded to him by Alex Prates, coach of UFC star Robert Whittaker.

The rest of the crew formed a circle and placed bets as Gallen and Dugan faced off. Safe to say a large majority of the wagers had Gallen winning the impromptu wrestle quite handily.

Didn’t work out that way though.

“Josh Dugan … man, he got me,” Gallen remembers. “We were on the drink and he got me in an armbar. I knew he was going for it, too, but I just thought there was no way he’d know how to do it.

“Anyway, I felt him going for it, and, yeah … he knew what he was doing. He jammed it down.

“If he didn’t know what he was doing, he would’ve broken my arm, but he just goes, ‘You know I’ve got ya,’ and I had to say, ‘Yeah…’”

It’s eaten at Gallen ever since.

“It killed me. Killed me,” he says. “I was texting him all night, telling him, ‘We’re on tomorrow morning’, but he never gave me a chance.

“I turned up the next morning at training wanting a rematch and he didn’t give me one. He’s never given me one – ever. Whenever we wrestled at training, he was nowhere to be seen.

“He lives on it. Whenever I see him it’s there.

“He’s happy to run with it, and I can’t deny it – he got me – but he’s never given me a rematch.”

Competitiveness, or maybe just a sincere revulsion towards losing, is at the centre of what makes Gallen tick.

It’s infectious too. Cronulla’s 2016 premiership win was built on the back of Gallen’s competitive drive.

“The will to win in Gal is just different to most people. It’s hard to explain,” says Chris Heighington, who won the second of his two premierships with the Sharks.

“He’s got a competitive drive like no one I’ve ever met.

“As a captain, he wasn’t too vocal. He led by his actions and his training.

“In 2016, there was me, Lewy (Luke Lewis) and Wade Graham, and we all just got on the back of G-Train.”

40 for 40: Too fit for his own good

Gallen is a glutton for punishment. Especially the self-inflicted kind.

On his 40th birthday in August, he decided to run laps of the brutally tough Wanda dunes, just north of Cronulla Beach. An 81m incline, the sand dunes double as an infamous training and proving ground for some of Australia’s top athletes.

NRL teams will do 10 to 15 reps in a session. Former middleweight UFC champion Whittaker’s record is 37.

Gallen did 40.

“I remember doing them when I was playing,” Heighington says. “I swear we only did eight and everyone was cooked. Gal did 40 on his 40th birthday – he’s a machine.

“He’s built differently in his mind and he works harder than anyone I’ve ever met.”

Three months later, while deep in training camp for his next boxing match, Gallen appeared at a Sharks pre-season session – workout gear and boots in hand – and took part in a yo-yo test. A much-feared fitness barometer involving shuttle runs at increasing speeds, Gallen – twice the age of some players there – performed better than half of them, including a few current NRL players.

“I don’t mind the training. I like it,” he grins. “Tim Tszyu says he hates the training, but he knows he’s gotta do it to get to where he wants to go. I know I’ve gotta do it, but I also enjoy it. I just like it.

“I’ll always train. I’m not going to stop, even when I retire. I might get on the piss a little bit more and enjoy myself a bit more. I’ll do that more, but I still enjoy the training.

“I don’t know what it is. That’s just me.”

But his incessant, nearly addictive approach to training has been his own downfall in the past. It wasn’t until his fight with Huni in June that he realised it.

Gallen went into the fight against Australia’s number one heavyweight with the best preparation of his professional career. His training was perfect, his diet was dialled in. To the point he lost too much weight. Coming in at just 97kg, he was lacking “a bit of fat” to absorb the many heavy body shots Huni landed.

“It was the same in my rugby league career,” he says. “I’d have a fight in the off-season, I’d get super fit and was beating everyone in time trials, but then in round one or two, I’d get bumped or corked. Something would always happen to me.

“I’d have to then put a couple of kilos back on, get to 105 or 106 kilos, and I’d be fine for the rest of the year.”

How much longer?

Gallen broke a rib in the second round of that fight against Huni, and his stubbornness saw him last until the tenth and final round before the referee stopped it.

It was a performance that only reinforced just how tough he is. He admits now that after busting his rib, he had no chance of winning, and that only pride saw him still answering the bell as the fight wore on.

“I also had a few mates who’d backed me to go the distance,” he laughs.

That fight also forced him to reflect on how much longer he actually wants to keep boxing.

“Getting punched in the head, it’s not ideal,” he says. “I’m at that stage where I’m thinking ‘how long can I do this without getting hurt?’

“I played over 400 games of top class footy and was never knocked out. I’ve had a couple of broken ribs in the Huni fight, but that was it. It’s not like I’ve been iced or knocked out cold and I don’t want that to happen.

“I’m at the stage where I have to start worrying about my welfare long term, but I just enjoy the training and the money’s too good.”

The money is very, very good. Gallen has become one of the highest paid boxers in Australia and will make another tidy sum when he fights Darcy Lussick.

A win will pave the way for a $1 million pay day against Sam Burgess, rumoured to be in the works for February.

Gallen’s high profile paved the way for his big boxing pay days, but he hasn’t relied on that alone. He knows how to promote a fight and he understands how the media works.

In the lead-up to his bout with Huni, he was on the phone every couple of days to journalists up and down the east coast, engaging in a heated back-and-forth with Huni’s dad, Rocki, and his promoter Dean Lonergan.

He knew what buttons to push ahead of his fight with Lucas Browne in April too, and managed to pull off a miraculous first round knockout win.

Whether they love him or hate him, the pay-per-view buying public is always tuning in when Gallen fights.

Whatever his motivations are, beyond money, he’s keeping them close to his chest as his wife, Anne, begins urging him to think about their young family and the next 40 to 50 years ahead.

“She’s at the back end of it. It’s not nice for her,” he says. “She wants me to stop, but I’ve just got a few things that I want to get to. They’re private, but I know what they are and once I get there, I’ll finish up.”