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The star of the summer blockbuster movie ‘Saltburn’, Australian actor Jacob Elordi has become a household name right around the world in recent months.
But before that, he had well and truly established himself as a teen heart throb in his role as the twisted bisexual jock ‘Nate’ in the American HBO high school drama series Euphoria.
While the debate over ‘Is Jacob Elordi a Melbourne Boy or Brisbane Boy’ continues to rage more with every award-winning on-screen performance, the greater South-East Queensland rugby union community feel cheated for a whole other reason.
It’s not that Melbourne claims him, but more that Hollywood now has him.
Local Ashgrove footy coach ‘Boxhead’ Gunterson (57) says ball-playing second rowers are fucken hard to come by nowadays.
“AFL and basketball have made big inroads in Queensland” says Boxhead.
“Once upon a time, the tall glasses of water were the only thing we could keep league from stealing. But that’s changed. These long fellas have options now”
According Boxhead, the problem with his beloved game is that the second-rower is a perhaps an unsung position in the average rugby line up. Sports like basketball and Aussie Rules give these humble scrum pigs the opportunity to be a star.
And there’s no greater way to make a second rower feel like a star than to offer him the role of Elvis Presley in a Priscilla biopic.
Like hundreds of other grassroots coaching staff from both the Victorian AFL system and Brisbane’s club rugby community, Boxhead claims to have seen the magic of Jacob Elordi as a young fella trotting round the paddock.
“He was quick, with velvet hands” says Boxhead.
“An attacking forward. The type of kid you wanna keep in the game. Actually, come to think of it, he was probably into his stage and theatre back then. There was an element of ballet to those toes. He’d beat the halfback and peel off from the ruck like a winger. The scarlet of the scrumbase. It was poetic to watch. He understood the science of this game we play in heaven. He respected it. He gave a shit. The wife wants me to watch some of these shows he’s been in with her, but I just can’t. I’m still so filthy nobody locked him in, we’d have him in the Reds – maybe even a gold jersey by now. He was a young Horwill, a young Eales. Some would even say Lomu”
“The moment HBO first came knocking, we knew we’d lost Jacob for good. I thought it was some sort of low-tier basketball American comp but apparently it’s a TV channel or something”
