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TERRIGAL - The blokes nursing schooners of Carlton Cold at the Wee Waa Bowling Club would love to be in Matt Gidley or Brent Tate's footy boots at EnergyAustralia Stadium tomorrow night.
But the man who could have actually been doing so couldn't give a stuff. Jamie Lyon, Wee Waa's new
celebrity barman, has been there, done that -- now he'd rather be pig chasing or fishing with his mates.
Lyon, 22, shocked Parramatta, the National Rugby League, his family, and pretty much everyone in the dusty north-west New South Wales town when he chucked in a A$250,000 ($293,600) per year deal after just one game for the Eels in 2004.
The runaway centre, regarded as one of the most potent attackers in the game, high-tailed it back to the bush unannounced -- and has no qualms about potentially missing a sixth Kangaroos test cap in Newcastle.
Lyon played his last test against the Kiwis in Sydney last July, scoring a try as the world champions romped to a 48-6 victory.
He might not even bother to watch the latest instalment of transtasman league rivalry.
"There's other stuff I might be doing. Footy's not everything. I will probably watch it but not definitely," he told The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
"I don't mind sitting back and watching it on telly and when I do, I don't wish I was there," said Lyon, whose ambivalence is still hard to swallow for some locals, not to mention the Eels.
"I've copped some grief, my folks were a bit dirty -- but they didn't want me to regret it (quitting). They came around and will support me with whatever I want to do. "
Lyon has been busy setting up home with his girlfriend, and started as a trainee casual barman -- earning A$16 an hour -- at the bowling club yesterday.
Patrons occasionally welcomed him with a shake of the head, as if to say 'what were you thinking?'
Lyon doesn't mind enlightening them: "I didn't like living in the city. That was the main thing.
"I hated the traffic and there were people everywhere."
- NZPA
