December 16, 2021: RIP 'Skull' Mulholland
The former Perth and Paris coach was a giant figure during the period of Two Tribes.
When I wrote in the foreword to Two Tribes that ‘none of the people in this book will be around forever’, it was a glib comment made without much thought.
But with every revision of the book - I started on another one last night for a January release - it seems another name will go on that dedication page at the front.
I didn’t get to Tom Raudonikis in time. Bob Fulton was the first of my 100 interviewees to go and now - shatteringly - he has been joined by former Perth and Paris coach Peter Mulholland.
Pete has been battling cancer for a couple of years.
I’ve known Pete since I was a cadet reporter and he was the coach of St Gregory's Campbelltown.
Suffice to say: all the nice things being said about him now are true. He was humble, warm and selfless and launched hundreds of careers.
Peter starts our story as coach of Perth - who sack him in the first few pages! He finds a way over to Paris Saint-Germain and before long is staging a sit-in at his hotel to get paid. In between we hear about the PSG boys’ game of cat and mouse with French immigration, entering each time on tourist visas and being paid out of England.
Mulholland would never play the political game required in first grade and would never molly coddle star players who had allies on the board. But he was the undisputed king of schoolboy and junior football.
I thought about plonking all his quotes from Two Tribes into this post but instead I will republish the weekly newspaper article I did on him last year after we spoke for the book.
RIP Skull. There won’t ever be anyone else quite like you.
PS: Another of our interviewees, Matt Fuller, just posted this about Pete: “Today the world lost a beautiful human, Pete Mulholland (Skull). A man who took a wayward kid and turned him into a man, and made him a professional footballer when no one else saw what he saw.
“Pete, I loved you so much and am so grateful for everything you did for me. I was very fortunate to get to say goodbye to you and to hear you say one last time that you were proud of me and loved me. Even on your death bed you tried to make me feel good.
“I will be forever grateful to his wife Mel for thinking of me in her darkest hour and my thoughts go out to his whole family, and the thousands of others whose lives he touched. Pete turned boys into men and is one of the greatest humans to grace this earth.
“Rest easy mate and thanks for everything. Love always Sheep.”
MASCORD MEETS …. PETER MULHOLLAND (Canberra Raiders talent scout)
League Weekly, March 23 2020
By STEVE MASCORD
“WHAT I learned from cancer is you can control some things and you can’t control a lot of things - and you don’t worry about what you can’t control”
Peter Mulholland, the veteran Canberra Raiders talent scout and inaugural coach of the Perth Reds who has overseen the British Invasion in Australia’s capital, has recently undergone stem cell treatment for cancer. He was looking forward to a season back at work enjoying the fruits of his labour.
Then came Covid-19.
Now many of the younger players - such as Irish star Ronan Michael - Peter has signed for this year are cooling their heels in the Australian Capital Territory while the NRL side is playing behind closed doors.
As a cancer patient, Peter is also among the higher risk groups in the face of the pandemic. But he’s already faced oblivion once in the last 12 months.
“It’s something that is there and you’ve got to deal with it the best that you can. What it’s teaching a lot of people is how to deal with things on the run. You’ve got to make changes all the time.”
Has anyone ever said that the Super League War of 25 years ago prepared people for cancer and a pandemic? Peter, the coach of Paris St Germain in 1997, is about to be the first…
“I guess it’s no different to what I did in those 12 months in Paris,” he says, of a period where the club floundered with players coming in and out of France on tourist visas.
“You make changes. Like the Super League War, it was an ever-evolving day-to-day bloody circumstance. Everything changed with the Super League War.
“You had to deal with it on a daily basis. Were the players going to defect? There were stories coming out from the east and everybody jumps at shadows. They’re things you just deal with. You’ve got to get on with it.”
When we spoke to Peter late on Friday, he was at home in Sydney’s south-west. That’s where it all began for him as coach of the all-conquering St Gregory’s Campbelltown high school team in the 1980s.
He led them to eight championships, making him one of the most in-demand coaches when the Australian Rugby League premiership expanded to Perth, Auckland, North Queensland and South Queensland in 1995.
Although the NRL is trying to continue during the Covid-19 crisis via ultra-isolation of players and staff, Peter said on Friday night he still had some contact with the Raiders.
“I had two days in camp with them this week,” he said.
“It will have to be stricter if everyone goes into lockdown but the players are isolated. The game has taken wonderful precautions and I’ve got to be honest with you, this (ARLC chairman Peter) V’landys and the leadership he has shown in this is just amazing.”
“Skull”, as he is affectionately known, adds: “Our club has got a brand new training centre, we’ve got the best draw you could possibly have to start the season, we’ve got a better team than we had last year and then all of a sudden coronavirus hits!
“It’s just diabolical but if it wasn’t so serious you’d be laughing at it.”
Once more, Peter’s not thinking of himself.
“The biggest vulnerability is on our medical system. You know that and I know that. The death rate, the mortality rate is more to do with old age people. I’m in precarious position, I’m not in a dangerous position because I’m six months post stem cell transplant.
“I’ve got a test on the seventh of April that will tell me where I am completely with it. It (cancer) is back again. It has come back again but hopefully and touch wood and pray to God that it hasn’t spread or it hasn’t got any bigger.
“I’m on a wait-and-see programme now. They just test me to wait and see what happens. It’s only minute. It’s not big enough for them to want to do anything about it at the moment. I feel quite good Steve. I just get tired.
“I take strength from positive people. I’ve got to keep positive people around me and that’s what this place is about. “
With that, he’s talking about the Raiders. They’ve opened the season with wins against New Zealand Warriors and Gold Coast.
“You’d love Canberra, mate,” he enthuses.
“The board of directors are some of the most powerful men in the ACT. I’m talking guys that were ambassadors, guys that were chiefs of staff for prime ministers, the ambassador to the United States - all these guys are on our board.
“One is the head partner of Price Waterhouse Cooper. These guys know what directors do. You’ve got a chairman who’s the most influential political man in Canberra in Allan Hawke then you’ve got Don Furner, longest serving CEO, best mate of the coach.
“Coach comes back to his home town, sets up a winning culture in the place and above all that you’ve got John McIntyre and Simon Hawkins from the Queanbeyan Leagues Club.
“It is rock solid.”
“Skull” is proud of the role he has played in the Raiders’ British Invasion - but he’s anxious it’s not overstated.
“Ricky got Josh Hodgson just as I arrived here,” he insists.
“Then we got Elliott Whitehead and Ryan Sutton and George Williams and John Bateman.
“You know what? Ryan Sutton is a recruit. The others are players you buy. You buy NRL (level players), you recruit juniors.
“It’s not hard to pick out John Bateman was a good player! John Bateman had a £200,000 transfer fee on his head. My club didn’t even bat an eyelid. I got the bill for it on the Monday.
“…they paid it on the Tuesday.”
RESOURCES
Peter Mulholland Wikipedia entry