Two years ago James Slipper just wanted to get back to playing the game he loved.
He might have been stuck on 86 Tests – Australia’s second-most capped prop at the time – but all he wanted to do was get back to playing consistent rugby, having been frozen out of the Queensland Reds by Brad Thorn after having his life spiral out of control.
Bringing up his century couldn’t’ haven’t been further from his mind after starting his comeback from a two-month ban for twice testing positive to taking cocaine.
“Mate, nar, I wasn’t thinking about hitting the 100 caps, that couldn’t have been further away from my thought process at the time,” Slipper said on Tuesday.
“Thinking back to when I had the change going to the Brumbies, I just wanted to play consistent rugby – that was my one goal, I just wanted to contribute to whatever team I was playing for and I feel like I’ve done that. If I think back two years ago, I definitely didn’t see 100 caps on the horizon.”
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A couple of years later, one World Cup and one Super Rugby AU title down the road with the Brumbies, and Slipper will all but certainly raise his bat on Saturday against the All Blacks on his old home ground.
By doing so, he’ll become just the 13th Wallaby to play 100 Tests and join David Campese, George Gregan, Stephen Larkham, George Smith, Nathan Sharpe, Adam Ashley-Cooper, Matt Giteau, Stephen Moore, Sekope Kepu, Will Genia, Rob Simmons and Michael Hooper on the prodigious list.
It’s quite the achievement for the 31-year-old, who only two-and-a-half years ago didn’t see “a healthy ending”.
Once again though, the humble knockabout bloke, who just enjoys a surf and a chinwag, hasn’t thought much about the milestone he’s about to bring up.
Instead, the pain of losing the Bledisloe Cup for another year still runs deep from last Saturday night.
“It’s something I haven’t really thought about too much probably from a direct result about what happened on the weekend,” Slipper, who started at loose-head prop in the defeat, said.
“It’s been a tough couple of days to get the head back in the game and making sure I’m ready to play this weekend.
“To play 100 games I obviously an honour, but I want to win the game more than anything.”
It’s that winning attitude that Slipper has always had that keeps him going.
Earlier during his press-conference, Slipper emphatically knocked suggestions that the fourth Test against the All Blacks is a “dead-rubber” on its head.
His sentiment was something his teammates should always remember.
“We obviously respect the jersey that we play in, we’re playing for our country and you’ve got to prepare like it’s last your Test, and this week is no different for me and Simmo and especially the young fellas,” he said.
Never one to reminisce much on the personal achievements of the past, Slipper said his debut still stands out.
And you can understand why.
When he came off the bench in 2010 during the Wallabies’ 27-17 win over England, Slipper had played just three matches for the Reds and started just once.
As his teammate and friend since the age of 14, Rob Simmons, sitting by Slipper’s side on Tuesday, was bang on in remembering that by the end of his maiden year he had played 14 Tests and just three Super Rugby games.
As Simmons says, “He’d come off the back of three professional games in his whole life – one 80 minutes – and he got thrown into Test footy against one of the best scrums in the world and held his own, and by the end of the year he had 14 Test matches and three Super Rugby, so I think from the very start we all thought he was a very special player.”
Slipper still holds an important role in the Wallabies and that was shown on Monday when two of the young guns in Australian rugby, Tate McDermott and Fraser McReight, commented on lifting on Saturday for their senior teammate.
“Whilst it may be a dead-rubber, we still have a lot to play for,” McReight said.
“Obviously if Slip (James Slipper) gets picked it’s his 10oth game and he’s a character in the team and everyone loves Slip, so if there’s one thing we want to do we want to win for the Queenslanders, we want to win for Australia, but we want to win for Slip, so there’s so much for this team to play for.”
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