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Former Wallabies prop caught up in ferocious NSW fires

By Online Editors
Wallabies prop Al Baxter. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

NZ Herald

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Former Wallaby prop Al Baxter has described the frightening bushfire scenes which turned his family’s holiday into a nightmare.

Baxter, who played 69 tests, was trying to shelter from the fire in the Malua Bay Surf Club which was then “smashed by embers” as he put it to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The family had evacuated their holiday home on the New South Wales south coast but a supposed haven turned into another nightmare as the Clyde Mountain Fire swept in.

That’s when someone yelled “get out, get out”.

“We heard what sounded like the rumble of a waterfall and it got really dark. Strange orangey-brown loose embers were falling out of the sky and we started seeing spot fires,” the 42-year-old Baxter said.

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“There were about 1000 people there and we went down to the beach and there were horses and dogs and budgies and chickens.

“You could hardly see the hand in front of your face. It was this weird darkness with red edges to it, but not being able to see any flames was better in a way.”

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Sydney architect Baxter was on holiday with his wife Jen, their three children and other family members.

Baxter added: “Whole houses started burning in Malua Bay. All three sides of the beach were going up.

“There was this really fierce howling wind that brought embers with it. We started seeing headlands and ridges up and down the coast going up.

As the front passed, the heard gas bottles exploding as residents watched houses burn. It was still. When a southerly arrived the headlands around them reignited.

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“It once again went dark and this howling wind, which was a colder wind and filled with smoke and dust and embers, was coming back the other way. The fires started coming back towards the beach,” he said.

When they returned to their family beach house in Rosedale it had been turned into molten steel and mesh, like most of the neighbours’ places.

This article first appeared on nzherald.co.nz and is republished with permission.

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Jon 9 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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