You beauty! It's triple meat for the badge
By Nick Mulvenney
SYDNEY (Reuters) - For once it was not what he said, or how he looked, but what he did that attracted the attention as Western Force winger Nick "the Honeybadger" Cummins grabbed a hat-trick of tries in Super Rugby win over the weekend.
For Cummins, once described as "the most Australian man on the planet", the three scores which gave the Force a 28-16 victory over New South Wales Waratahs was "triple meat" - a reference to meat pie, which he uses as rhyming slang for try.
The 26-year-old is well on his way to becoming an internet phenomena for the colloquial similies that litter his post-match interviews, all delivered with the bluff innocence of a small town "ocker".
The mop of curly blonde hair and the 1970s pornstar moustache he carried over from "Movember", not to mention eyes that permanently look like they are about to pop out of his head, add to the comedic effect.
Among the more tasteful remarks have seen him compare himself or team mates to being "tough as woodpecker lips", "taking off like a rat up a drainpipe", "sweating like a bag of cats at a greyhound meet" and being "mad as a tree full of galahs".
The rangy 6ft-2in (1.89m) winger now clearly plays up to the expectation that he will bring out a new line every time a microphone is pointed his way, even if it threatens to present a one-dimensional image of a quality player who has won 12 Wallabies caps.
Cummins was raised with seven siblings - two of whom have cystic fibrosis - in rugby league territory near Brisbane by a single dad, who was named Queensland father of the year in 2012.
When he was named Australia's Players' Player of the Year for 2013, the citation mentioned the work Cummins does for children's charity as well as his fine form for the Force and for the Wallabies on their November tour.
UNSTOPPABLE FORCE
After being a standout performer for a struggling Force side for five years, Cummins is now a member of team who can hold their heads up high after winning five matches in a row for the first time.
The Waratahs win was the fifth and Cummins provided the turning point with his second try when he turned dogged try-line defence into seven points with a perfectly-timed interception and a 100 metre sprint to score.
The Perth-based team's other great attribute this year has been their magnificent defence and despite being something of a lightweight in the modern game at under 100 kgs, Cummins has always played a full part in that aspect of the game.
In fact, as he explained after a recent victory over the Otago Highlanders, that is what prompted him to adopt the moniker of the carnivorous mammal with ferocious defensive abilities.
"The badge? Long story short, there is a documentary on National Geographic or Animal Planet or one of them setups, I watched this thing and this Honey Badger was going toe-to-toe with a male Lion," he told New Zealand's Sky TV in a pitchside interview.
"It was underneath him, an underdog obviously, he was on his back clawing away, one, two and the big fella got his canastas clawed off and trotted off around the corner and fell over.
"The badger gets back up and I thought what an animal, that's bloody impressive."
(Editing by John O'Brien)
