For a man who visited Buckingham Palace to meet Queen Elizabeth II and who has twice walked the famed fairways of Augusta National, Andrew Slack is content in quiet retirement – and forever grateful to avoid many of the demands of modern technology.
Andrew had a stellar rugby union career highlighted by captaincy of the famed Gland Slam-winning Wallabies in 1984 when they beat England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland in Test matches.
He retired from international rugby following that tour but returned in 1986 to lead Australia to a rare Bledisloe Cup victory over New Zealand.
A career in sports journalism followed, culminating in a role as Head of Sport for Channel Nine, Brisbane, retiring in 2016.
Now 70 (he reached the milestone in September last year), Andrew was only weeks into retirement when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, resulting in a prostatectomy.
“My brother-in-law was more of a ‘what would doctors know’ sort of guy and he left it too late which was a shame,” he recalled.
“I’d tell any man to go and get it checked.
“It’s such a common thing. I reckon I could organise a lunch for 12 blokes from my rugby days and we wouldn’t have a prostate between us.”
The cancer setback wasn’t enough to dim Andrew’s lifelong positive attitude, nor was turning 60.
“Turning 60 wasn’t such a big deal because numbers haven’t ever meant too much to me,” he said.
“I’m basically a positive person because, to be honest, I can’t see the point in being any other way.
“Put me down as the glass half-full guy because I’d hate to be the bloke who always thinks of his glass as being empty.”
Retirement has allowed Andrew to pursue his other great sporting love, golf: “I play a lot of golf. I don’t run because I might damage something and not be able to play golf.”
“I don’t do a lot of travelling. My wife, Caroline, is a Pom and she goes back (to the UK) almost every year to see her family and I occasionally go with her.”
“But our grandchildren are five and two-and-a-half and we don’t want to stray too far from them because we’ll miss important things.
“I turned 70 last year and Caroline and I had a few days in New Zealand.”
Andrew says his retirement from Channel Nine in 2016 came at the right time because he was able to sidestep some of the massive technology changes that were happening on a daily basis.
“When it comes to technology I would describe myself in one word: pathetic,” he said. “On a scale of one to ten, I’d give myself a one.
“Just before I retired in 2016 one of the bosses at Nine came over and said I needed to set up a Twitter account.
“I reckon I used Twitter maybe two or three times and then was lucky enough to avoid it completely.
“So the timing of me getting out worked perfectly. I survived. Things were changing so quickly on the technology side I might have drowned
“I’m not on Facebook or any other social media. I’ve got other things to do.”
For all his time in sport and his achievements (87 appearances in a Wallabies jersey, including 39 Tests with 19 as captain and 133 games for Queensland), Andrew is not an avid watcher of sport on TV.
“I don’t watch a lot of sport. I’ll watch the Reds and Wallabies, of course, because I have a sense of loyalty to them. I know some of the guys involved and have an investment in it” he said.
“I’m just not a fanatic about watching sport. I mean, if there’s nothing else on, I’ll tune in.
” I watched the Broncos the other night because young Cameron Bukowski was making his debut and I knew him through the Villanova (College) connection.
“I always watch the fourth round of the Masters and I’m very lucky to have been to Augusta twice (2007 and 2017). The course is even better than it looks on TV”.
As for rugby today, Andrew says it is a better product than five years ago and always needs to be entertaining.
“All games/codes could be better in some ways but that doesn’t mean they’re not good.
“When I was playing there didn’t seem to be as much attention and there certainly weren’t people everywhere with mobile phones and cameras.
“You could play your game and go to work on Monday where there’d be maybe 20 seconds of football talk and you’d just get on with your job.”
Andrew confirmed one of the great stories of the 1984 Grand Slam tour of the UK involving breakaway Chris Roche.
“We went to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen. The side to play England was named that morning and (manager) Chilla Wilson had told Chris he had missed out, so he wasn’t in the best of moods.
“Then Chilla forgot his name as he was introducing the players to the Queen. Then Rochie leaned on an antique table and broke it.
“So he got the trifecta that day … left out of the team, having his name forgotten in front of the Queen and breaking a table in front of her.
“She was great about it. She just laughed.”
Barry Dick was a journalist at The Courier Mail and Sunday Mail for 43 years, before retiring in 2015. Most of that time was spent on the sports desk in a variety of roles including sports editor, digital sports editor, Rugby League editor and chief Rugby League writer. While Barry was the first full-time Australian football writer for The Courier Mail in 1973, his true passion was always Rugby League and he covered a myriad of Grand Finals, State of Origins and Test matches. Barry was inducted into the Media Hall of Fame on March 27 2017.