"Stu who?"

It is a famous story that the first time that a young David Campese heard about legendary All Black Stu Wilson, the wallaby answer was: "Stu who"?

What follows is Stuart Wilson's views on one of the all-time best rugby players in the world. It is a tale of old, as you will see.

«Well, David Campese hit New Zealand, his first tour over here. We’d heard about this brash, upstart little prick from Sydney – you know, he was running around, goose-stepping, and saying he’d do this and do that. We saw him during the provincial games. He was good – without a doubt the most exciting talent we’d seen for years – and I’m saying, ‘He’s on my wing, I have to mark him.’ So I said to the big gorillas, ‘Look boys, I catch him, we get him in the ruck, you do it to him: we’ll give him the good, old fashioned New Zealand welcome, all right? I want size-fifteen boots right over the top of him.’ They said, ‘Can you catch him?’ I said, ‘I’ll try.’ Well, for three Tests I tried but couldn’t catch him. We had the boys sharpening their sprigs. They said, ‘Stuey, this time we’ll get him.’ I even brought Bernie Fraser over from the other wing and gave him 10 minutes. I said, ‘Bernie, you come have a crack at him. I can’t catch him – he’s too quick.’ He had the goose-step, he had the chip and chase, he had the typical cockiness of all Australian backs. But we just couldn’t get near him – he was that good. He knew that we were after him, and he knew that if he’d got into the Doctor Death House, as we used to call the rucks, than Doctor Death would deliver. So he would always scoot around. When he got into the heavy weather, he’d make sure that he’d scramble out of the rucks before our boys could get to him. A good player, damn him. He made life hell for me for three tests.»