Brisbane Broncos legend Corey Parker has taken listeners behind the scenes of one of super coach Wayne Bennett’s army camps, which left one of rugby league’s toughest players on the brink of disaster.
As we commemorate Anzac Day and recognise Australia and New Zealand’s servicemen and women, a text message from a listener on SENQ Breakfast sparked the former Broncos captain to reminisce about a camp at the Canungra Barracks in 2001.
Parker was just 18-years-old at the time was surrounded by some of the game’s greats, including league hardmen Shane Webcke and also Petero Civoniceva.
“Wayne loves his army camps, anyone that’s played under Wayne would’ve been to an army camp,” Parker said on SENQ Breakfast.
“We were there for three days, minimal food, and they wanted to do this sleep deprivation stuff.
“I just recall one night, we walked about 10km and it just seemed like it was going uphill forever, it was late at night, about 11.30 or 12, going into the morning, we get on the trucks and we go back down and we find this area in the bush to camp for the night.
“We heard a bit of a rustle in the bushes and Shane Webcke was in my group, Lote Tuqiri and Shaun Berrigan. Webby being the alpha male of the group… he started throwing rocks down at that area and it ended up being the drill sergeants.
“They had night vision goggles and we didn’t so they could see us but we couldn’t see them.
“Every hour on the hour they thought it was a good idea, obviously Wayne handed it to them, to wake us up, but wake us up, not with alarm clock, not righto boys lets get up, they threw stun grenades into where we were staying.
“They were incredibly loud, so you’re fatigued, you’re hungry, you’re hot, you’re tired and they then proceeded to unload out of machine guns, blanks.
“If you’ve ever seen a machine gun go off in your direction, with a flame coming out of the end of the gun, for me I remember clear as day, I remember looking and seeing this flame coming out ‘bang, bang, bang, bang’.
“I couldn’t get myself off the ground every fibre of my body said ‘stay down’ stay down’ but you knew obviously it wasn’t real bullets… you just assumed.”
Parker said the nightmare of a camp continued for three days, saying it was “intense and brutal”.
“So much so that Petero Civoniceva, one of the toughest humans I’ve ever played football with – he put his body through the ringer to the point where on the third day Petero’s body was starting to shutdown,” he said.
“I was on one arm with Petero because his fingers would curl up, his wrist would curl up, his arm would curl up, everything was curling up… he was going into full cramp mode.
“He got evacuated out of there, he spent a couple of days in hospital and they said any further or longer for Petero it could’ve been a disaster.
“So that was my first initiation into army camps through that period of time.”