Milestone for man who dared to be different

FEW stimulate more turbulent emotion than rugby's David Campese, the ultimate individual in the ultimate team sport.

Campese has so many distinctive trade-marks, the goose step, the ball held downwards in one hand, the provocative smile, that the awesome statistics of his 14-year Test career seem almost incidental to any rounded profile of the man.

It is fitting that the 34-year-old Australian tonight will win his 100th cap in Italy, the land of his fathers and the country in which he spent 10 happy winters while the sun blazed back home in Sydney.

More to the point, Campese will be accorded the passionate Latin welcome due to a favourite son at the Stadio del Plebiscito in Padua, where he strutted his stuff for three seasons on behalf of the Petrarca club in the mid-Eighties.

The Italian connection has always been important to Campese, the gifted outsider who sits on his own in the team coach yet takes good care never to neglect his roots. He is perhaps the most influential personality on a long list of overseas players and coaches who have contributed to the growing credibility of Italian rugby at home and abroad. For the Gazetto dello Sport, Campese, the scorer of a record 63 Test tries for the Wallabies is Rugby Union.

It would be fanciful to suggest Campese derives his remarkable competitive spirit and detailed professionalism from anywhere other than Australia and in particular New South Wales, the state to which he gave his allegiance after a short spell with Australian Capital Territory.

In many respects he is the quintessential Aussie competitor, slagging off opponents and sometimes entire nations in the build-up to great matches and then trying to destroy the other side psychologically once the play starts.

Bob Dwyer, the Australian coach, who once said Campese had "a loose wire between his brain and his mouth", devoted a whole chapter of his autobiography to explaining what makes this unique performer tick.

The gist of Dwyer's assessment was that Campese paid his dues to natural-born talent by turning himself into a fitness freak with an unrelenting programme of weights, sprints and aerobics that went on 12 months a year from his youth onwards.

However, Dwyer paid Campese a penetrating tribute: "His instincts are always to do things which are above the ordinary. I have come to the conclusion his greatest single asset is courage ... he has never wanted to be restricted by the fear of failure." No single moment of courage springs to mind more readily than Campese's decision to dare the entire New Zealand defence to stop him during the 1991 World Cup semi-final when he set off on a devastating 45-metre diagonal run that culminated in a superb try.

Arguably Campese's six tries in six matches in the 1991 tournament made all the difference between Australia lifting the World Cup and finishing as also-rans. Everyone has a favourite memory of a Campese performance - he has three times scored a Test hat-trick - yet it was not a try but his apparently deliberate knock-on of a pass intended for Rory Underwood that tightened Australia's grip on the World Cup final at Twickenham. England never came so close to scoring again.

Given the torrent of disparaging remarks Campese has made about English rugby over the years it is rather surprising he wants to see out his playing days at an English club such as Sale or Harlequins, who have both expressed interest in acquiring his services.

A few days ago the Sydney sledger was at it again, dishing out verbal biff on the eve of his 18th major tour, though this time sadly the itinerary will not include England.

"It's about time England got off their backsides and realised they are not the kings of rugby," he said. "In the professional era they are nobodies. Who would go to watch the type of rugby they play?" Never mind the fact that among Campese's old colleagues Dwyer now coaches Leicester while Michael Lynagh plays for Saracens: the great Australian wing will always enjoy bad-mouthing England even though it is now five years since they confronted the Wallabies.

If Campese's Test career resembles a string of pearls every now and then one comes across a monumental dud, notably the suicidal pass on his own line that Ieuan Evans intercepted to clinch the 1989 Test series for the Lions at the Sydney Football Ground.

Last year Campese's support for Kerry Packer's rebel World Rugby Corporation proved another error of judgement, indicating scant loyalty to the Australian RFU, which for all its sins has provided a healthy environment in which the sublime maverick can flourish.

Once he had passed 30 Campese stopped talking about retirement and started focusing consciously on winning 100 caps. Even so, Australia's forthcoming Tests against Ireland, Scotland and Wales could well be the last opportunity supporters in these islands will have to witness the superstar from Down Under in his pomp. Englishmen will have to settle to watching Campese torment the Barbarians at Twickenham. Catch him while you can.