Negative image may not be the full picture

Johnny Watterson talks to Ulster's controversial Australian recruit, secondrow Justin Harrison

Occasionally Justin Harrison goes to his own place. Sometimes he's there and he doesn't know where he is. Lost, he doesn't recognise the terrain, finds himself at the end of roads he's never walked before. He's Alice on a stroll and then he's the main player in a sort of murky Mad Hatter's Tea Party. He doesn't recognise himself but in this wonderland he's calling opponents "stinking black c***s" or he's involved in altercations or people are making accusations.

More often than not Harrison bucks the negative image, although recently, this has become more difficult for a player who is seen as a "niggly enforcer" on the pitch. Sledging is part of what Harrison is good at and taking the physical side to the edge and beyond has characterised him as an effective secondrow player, world class in the lineout and highly prized.

An Australian World Cup finalist, he was one of the two locks who might have won the last Webb Ellis trophy before Jonny Wilkinson dropped the shoulder and swung his boot. Now Ulster have this reflective hunk of competitive Australian beef settled in Belfast for the next three years.

The 31-year-old is unapologetic about his hardness and the bullocking streak to his game. But Harrison is facing accusations he cannot truly explain. He knows the charge of making a racist comment is true because he has admitted to it, but disconnects with his background and thinking; the reasoning behind it is troubling him and, he believes, is an aberration which is deeply out of character.

Before Harrison arrived to Ulster three weeks ago he lined out for the NSW Waratahs against the Cats in a Super 12 match. Four minutes and 20 seconds into the game Cats winger Chumani Booi was tackled and a number of players heard a Waratahs player scream "Leave the ball, you stinking black c**t." Team-mate Nathan Grey was initially named as the culprit and vilified before Harrison confessed he was responsible for the attack on Booi.

The secondrow was suspended for three Super 12 matches and received a suspended $20,000 fine from a SANZAR judiciary committee. Controversially, Harrison was not asked to step down as the Australian Rugby Union Players Association president despite becoming the first Australian Super 12 player to be suspended for making a racial slur. Since then Australian captain George Gregan, who is black, criticised the comments but stood by his team-mate.

"I was really shocked by what he said. We just had a discussion earlier about the verbal side of the game. He's always been part of it. He's never been at that level or every time I've been with him on the field and been around him as a person, it's never been on that level. I was really surprised by it," said Gregan, adding: "I just said, 'I know it's totally out of character for you, Justin. I know what's said and you showed a lot of character for stepping up'."

Harrison was brought up in the remote Northern Territory. His father taught. His mother nursed around the Aboriginal communities in the biggest backyard in the world. From the age of four healthcare and educational programmes in a community where the Harrisons were the only white European stock was part of everyday life. Aside from an older sister and younger brother his friends were mostly Aboriginal kids. "Part of my life that I'm proud of," he says.

At 16 years old he moved to Sydney for High School before going to Lismore University.

Rugby? He didn't play the game, hadn't thought of it. Nothing in his background pushed him towards the game, nothing in his make-up made him think about playing. His first steps in the game were a means to an end.

"I started rugby when I was 19 years old," he says. "I decided the best way to get to know someone was to join a rugby club. It was an arbitrary decision, pretty much. Sydney is about nine hours' drive away and I didn't know anyone. I was eager to see the world and was told the best way to do that was to join a sporting team."

Over the Christmas of 1993 the student received a call from a coach who recognised his potential and told him to come down from Sydney to Canberra and see if he could get a scholarship into the Australian Institute of Sport, the hook being "there were not many blokes running around down here in the secondrow". Harrison packed his bags.

"I hadn't any real aspirations or any goal of playing for Australia at that stage. I was just enjoying the journey and the opportunities I was getting. It wasn't until the 1997 season with the Brumbies that I was going to make a career out of the sport and possibly realise representative dreams that were starting to emerge. I was 23 and thought there might be a chance but it was all bar-room stuff, guys with a few beers in them."

The alcohol had not befuddled the minds of the barflies and Harrison was called up to play for Australia in 2001. His debut, against the Lions in the third Test of that summer's tour, attracted 84,000 people to Stadium Australia. On the eve of the match England's Austin Healey decided to call Harrison a "plank" and an "ape" in his British newspaper column, comments that brought the otherwise unknown player into a lead role before the defining game. "I've been called worse. What you're called isn't a concern," he says. "It's totally fine. He's just a player doing the best he can like everyone else."

Just as Healey made certain that the world knew who Harrison was, the lock ensured his performance would be a counterpoint to Healey's petulance. Harrison played an inspired match and in a late, precious moment robbed the Lions of a pivotal lineout ball close to the line, denying Martin Johnson's side one last shot at a series victory.

In 2003, the World Cup final smartened up his trophy and tournament trail and once again Harrison played his way onto the Test side with lineout brilliance and fiery confrontation around the pitch. He did so despite numerous experts calling for the older players' heads to roll. When Ulster came to his agent, Nick Taylor, last year before the Australian Test at Twickenham, there was little interest. Belfast's reputation, like Harrison's, was shaped by certain moments, many not so appealing.

Still contracted to Australia for the next World Cup he spoke to his wife, Janneke, and the more it went around, the more convinced they became that the initial long shot of Northern Ireland was making more sense after 10 years as a professional than the continued routine of training paddocks and coach journeys around the Southern Hemisphere.

It may be a good place for him, Belfast. Thirty years of bigotry, of hearing and seeing religious intolerance expressed daily on television has softened judgments. Ravenhill Road will not pronounce on him over Booi but on his condition and impact in the Heineken European Cup and Celtic League. Still, the huge frame of Harrison visibly contracts when the issue is mentioned.

"That (the Booi remark) was a very difficult period of my life and will be remembered as that," he says. "Having spoken to the player after the incident . . . we've had several discussions and it's fine with us now. Unfortunately it is a moment in time that will forever be frozen as unquestionably a huge mistake I made.

"When you make mistakes people sometimes think you intended to or that it was some sort of goal of yours. But that was a clear incident that got out of control real quickly and something I'll regret for a long time."

Whether the racist outburst makes the racist is a point Harrison will argue. Most definitions will emphasis an attitude or action that "systematically" treats an individual or group differently because of their race, or, an attitude with "a strong and persistent bias" towards a race. To the player it was an aberration, a lousy and terrible misjudgment. The thought of being seen as a racist offends him.

His full-on style in his game is his way of being effective.

"The image is not a goal of mine I'm trying to portray. I guess anyone who sacrifices the things he has to to play professional sport is always extremely competitive, is always eager to win, hates losing. I have a real passion for the teams I play for and a real desire. You work hard in the week to perform hard and execute things as well as you can. Rugby is an aggressive, physical sport and that needs to be part of everyone's game.

"Breaking the rules is an unfortunate by-product and quite definitely not an image to present to younger people or their parents. But for me it is unfortunate when some things escalate into out-of-control situations. But you are in an environment that is fairly unique, the aggression and testosterone for 80 minutes is sometimes very difficult to control.

"In that respect it doesn't concern me what other people's opinions are. If you were worried about how you are perceived you wouldn't bother getting up in the morning. It's not something I have a disregard for but it is not something that is a driving force in my behaviour. It's not something I seek recognition for, it's just the way I play the game.

"I'm loyal to the other people on the field so anyway I can beat my opponent, I'll employ it. I'd rather be remembered for making the tackles and winning lineouts than being involved in altercations or physical confrontations."

Rod Moore was the lever that lifted Harrison to that lineout ball against the Lions on his debut. The two are together again and while Harrison has not played a match since the final of the Super 12, he's not short on what coach Mark McCall expects. He knows, too, Belfast will close the chapter on his professional playing career.

"Look, I'm not shy of hard work," he says. "Another World Cup with Australia would have been fantastic and lots of things would have had to go right for me. But I firmly believe if I'd stayed fit I'd have been part of it. I played in a World Cup final and won a Super 12 so I really had been exposed to everything Australian rugby had to offer. We wanted to expose ourselves to a different culture and life. No amount of monetary compensation can allow for the fact we have many, many European countries at our doorstep now and we intend to make use of that."

Harrison's challenge is maybe that he has no real present in Ireland. Articulate and reasoned, he believes a present can be developed with his wife and family and with his expertise in the Ulster pack. The rest, the place he finds himself in where he does not want to be, the "tags" that accompany him, will be dealt with day by day.

Harrison's history

Age: 31

Position: Lock

Height: 2.03cm

Weight: 112 kg

Irish club: Ulster

Super 12 teams: Brumbies and Waratahs

Australian Test caps: 34 Australian debut: v Lions 2001

Test career high: World Cup final v England 2003

In the news: Left the Super 12 and Australian World Cup squad to play for Ulster on a three-year contract. In March 2005 admitted to a racist remark in a Super 12 match against the Cats and banned for three games.