04 DAVID POCOCK BIO PAGE 1 SYDNEY MORNING HERALD from ZIMBABWEAN RUGBY to AUSTRALIAN CAPTAIN Jacqueline Maley
040404 DDDAVID PPPOCOCK BBBIOIOIO PPPAGE 111 SSSYDNEY MMMORNING HHHERALD FROM ZZZIMBABWEAN RRRUGBY TO AAAUSTRALIAN CCCAPTAIN 11/12 CODE OF HONOUR – DAVID POCOCK Jacqueline Maley - Sydney Morning Herald Field of dreams past … with his mother, Jane, and younger brother, Michael, on their farm in Zimbabwe in 1990. >>> As he emerged from a ruck in the dying minutes of the first half of the Wallabies' 2009 match against Wales, David Pocock found that his thumb was bent at an unnatural 90-degree angle. The pain was excruciating, but play was continuing. The star Australian rugby union flanker grasped the crooked thumb, gave it a swift yank and - with a crunch and a pop - the rogue digit shifted back into place. He played on, much to the chagrin of the team doctor, who later told Pocock to leave all future surgery to him. X-rays revealed the thumb was broken in several places, but Pocock was sanguine. ''There was a game of rugby to play,'' he says. A busted thumb is a small distraction, easily overcome by someone with Pocock's intensity of purpose. Pocock's diligence is legendary and his single-mindedness has led coaches to caution him against training too much. It's a diligence Pocock knows he has to watch, because its flip side is anxiety and obsessiveness. When he was a teenager he suffered an eating disorder, which began as an adherence to a strict protein diet but became a fanatical need to minimise body fat and grew to dominate his teenage life. ''I was crazy,'' he recounts. ''I remember the couple of times we ate out as a family during that time, just bursting into tears that I couldn't find something on the menu that I thought was low in fat or healthy enough.'' Did he realise that it was not normal for a teenage boy to be so worried about ingesting fat? ''Yeah ..
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