Greg Inglis could be weaving his Storm magic in his Kangaroos position next year, writes Glenn Jackson. He is invariably called GI, as in GI Joe, but there is nothing action figure about him. No stiff plastic parts. Just long, languid strides, and athleticism never seen before on a rugby league field. Never, ever seen before.
The try Greg Inglis set up in the Centenary Test, giving new meaning to bending his back as he put the foot on the gas and sent the ball to "Gaz", was no one-off. Some of the tries he has picked off himself throughout the World Cup have again defied the movements and manoeuvrings of the human body; more Go Go Gadget than GI Joe.
What his success in representative football has shown, yet again, is what Inglis can do when he has the room for such movement and manoeuvrings. As a centre.
Inglis has bristled in the past about any talk that he is not suited to his club position, five-eighth, as has his Melbourne coach, Craig Bellamy. But now, it seems, there may have been something of a rethink. For the first time, Inglis has spoken about a possible return to being the centre of attention.
"Obviously, the Storm's bought a five-eighth [Arana Taumata], so I'm not sure what'll happen there, whether I go back to centre or stay in the middle," Inglis said.
"We haven't spoken about it. I've still got a month off before I head back to training. I've just got to see what old dog-face 'Bellyache' [Bellamy] says about it. It'll be interesting to see how the team lines up."
Approaching the World Cup final, Inglis appears to be near the top of his game, not bad considering this is the 2007 Clive Churchill medallist. Confident and confronting for any team that is forced to face him.
He looks and sounds relaxed, but he is driven by something far more steely than his contorting limbs. After a loss in this year's grand final to Manly, the reality that opportunity doesn't come knocking too often has set in.
"The confidence is there, but in the back of the mind, there is that fear of failure," Inglis said. "You might only get one shot at this. It doesn't come around often. It could be the only one. But we are together in this. Everyone wants to play for each other. We want to be the best in the world. We want to be No.1 again. You're not champions unless you defend a title."
That would cap a landmark year for Inglis, who signed a new four-year deal with the Storm. Throughout those protracted negotiations, he proved he could be a player of people as well. He raised the prospect of a move to rugby union, as Melbourne officials raised his offer.
"I always knew what I was going to do," he says. "But I did sit back and think about switching codes. Those statements were true. I was considering going to Khoder [Nasser, who helped broker Sonny Bill Williams' exit from the NRL]. I was considering going to union, but I'm very happy with the decision I made."
The year also provided potholes. Late in the season, Inglis played not long after his father, Wade Blair, suffered a heart attack.
"Obviously, it was tough," Inglis said. "It was pretty devastating. I went up there and sat down and spoke to my family about it, and they said, 'Go play.' But he's lost a lot of weight now, which he had to do. He looks a lot healthier now than what he did."
After the World Cup is over, Inglis plans to just "sit back and relax" for a while. First, there's the prospect of one more game in which the public can sit back themselves, relax, and simply gasp at what the man can do on a football field.
His try last Sunday in the semi-final against Fiji, stretching with the ball in his hand, was the perfect mix of athleticism and footballing instinct. Pure GI genius. Freakish.
"People might see it as a lifetime on TV, but when you're in that field, you've only got certain vision that you can see," Inglis said. "I only had that split second to think about it, and I just said, 'I'm going to go for it.'
"Freak's just a word, anyway. You can define freak as anything - freak of nature, freak of human society. But all the hard work's done up through the middle - I'm just out wide just looking pretty putting the ball over the line."
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