BY DAN

Life isn’t perfect. It isn’t easy. It hurts when we wish it didn’t. It sails when we thought our shoes were made of lead. Even the good days have clouds, the bad days smiles. We fight and fight and fight and sometimes we don’t get anywhere. We walk away from the field of battle, the office, that discussion, with no resolution. No song swells and carries us off into a dream.

Maybe that’s why we search for heroes that are perfect. We valorise the people we admire, want them to something other than human. To never make mistakes. To inspire in word and action. We feel let down when they don’t aim up. Sometimes because of the mistakes they made. Sometimes because the cognitive dissonance created by their variance from the version of them we created in our mind.

No person can stand up to that standard. Not even Josh Papalii. He’s made plenty of mistakes. You can list the incidents. They usually involve alcohol and moments of sheer idiocy. There have been non-legal lowlights too, such as when he nearly left the club, committing the Parramatta before changing his mind. It wasn’t the only time that happened too, as revealed in Chris Coleman’s must-listen interview with Papalii this week. And even on the field he hasn’t been perfect. He has been dropped, and as he told Coleman, it was never about whether he was letting the team down, but rather himself.

So yeah, he’s not perfect and would never make the claim to be. This, of course, applies to anyone with a heart and the opportunity to have strolled this earth. It only makes him seem more like one of us. Just a guy, trying to do better. As he told Coleman:

I’m also a husband, a father. I’m also a son to my parents as well. When I look back I want to be the best I can be.

There’s a quiet maturity to that. You won’t see on an Instragram post, or see it being taught in schools to inspire the next generation. But it leads in a more achievable way. The steps are small but constant. The old you isn’t behind you, it’s part of you, and what you’re able to do today. Being better day after day is the goal. We grow and learn.

Josh Papalii has done that 318 times, 319 come Sunday. Not always perfect but always better than the next best. He’s changed and improved along the way. He revealed to Coleman that he started as a winger. He made his debut in the backrow, transitioned to lock and eventually talismanic prop forward for the second half of his career. At each stop he’s been one of the best in the competition at his job. If seasons were works of art, his 2019 would be the Sistine chapel, one of the great seasons we’ll ever see from a middle forward. Build the man a statue? Name a suburb after him.

Perfect? No, but he is simultaneously one of the best props of his era, and one of the best second rowers of a different era. He’s sometimes been pigeonholed as a brute, a monster, an athlete. But he’s a crafty, intelligent footballer. A artist with his feet and his body. Courageous in his willingness to search for a way when the Raiders have needed it. People will remember the preliminary final. But like the Gatting ball it’s as much about as what it confirmed in the man as the moment.

He’s won origin series and internationals. Represented two countries. There is nothing left for him to do on the football field. Well, except one thing. But as we said, the intersection of perfection and heroism exists about as readily as football careers find satisfactory endings.

This will, according to Josh, be his last season in lime green. Even in that it doesn’t sound like it will be ending that Josh would prefer. As he told Coleman:

When it comes to the end of 2025 it will the last time people see myself in a green jersey. And that’s just where the club’s at, and where I’m at. Obviously I’d like to keep playing on, but it just won’t be in Canberra.

I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t (a lingering disappointment) because I love Canberra. And you’re not going to find too many players that are going to bleed green more than I do. I love this club. I love the community. I love Canberra. I’ll be back in the near future, but playing wise I really hope myself and the squad do something special this year.

The Raiders say they intend to give Papalii the record breaking game he deserves. They, and he, say they’re doing something special this season. Who knows, maybe Papalii gets to be one of the rare one that get to wander off into the sunset, cowboy hat on their head and song in the heart. But if they don’t that will be OK. Life isn’t perfect. We do what we can.

For 318 games Josh Papalii has been colossal. Quietly determined and occasionally outrageous. In a world that demands the sparks of perfection and delivers pessimism he has been human and heroic. And more than we could ever want.

Do us a solid and like our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or share this on social media. Don’t hesitate to send us feedback or comment below if you think we are stupid. Or if we’re not.