Idiots Anonymous

Mark Gasnier, St. George-Illawarra’s star centre and former face of the 2008 Rugby League World Cup, has begun preparations for his stint at French rugby union club Stade Francais by trying to fit into the lifestyle of an obscenely wealthy athlete that seems to earn money simply by standing there and looking vaguely interested.

Gasnier, 27, decided to leave the club made famous in part by his Immortal uncle Reg, and make the switch of codes in lieu of conditions of his lucrative contract not being met by third parties. The approximated $350,000 he was set to earn solely from the Dragons was, in his words, “a little light-on”.

Jersey design is said to have played a major part in Gasnier's decision to defect.

“What’s a guy supposed to do with $350,000 a year? I mean, c’mon. A guy’s gotta make a living, you know? It’s pretty sad to think that I’m expected to maintain any kind of lifestyle with that sort of pocket change.

“It’s frustrating that I’m being attacked by fans at the Dragons and in the league community in general for ‘turning my back’ on them. I’m not turning my back on anyone: I’m just after a challenge: and when I say ‘challenge’ I most certainly do not mean ‘a shitload of money’.”

And it was that challenge that was the real lure for Gasnier. In his current role, he is the Dragons’ go-to man: the player that can tilt the game in his team’s favour with individual brilliance. At Stade Francais, his role as an outside back will be fundamentally different, in that he will do nothing.

“We don’t expect Mark to partake in anything to do with the actual game,” said Stade Francais spokesperson Cedric Jean-Baptiste. “Here at rugby union, we have 15 men on each team, but we only know how to use about 9 of them, no? If Mark can get his ‘ready stance’ down, and pretend to look interested in the goings-on of the match — even though nobody has ever understood our game, ever — he will surely be one of the all-time great outside backs.”

Though the rumoured 600,000 Euro deal may seem like a fast-track into a life of luxury, Gasnier himself is far more subdued about the prospect of leaving the country, and the club he has called home for so many years.

“I have some great memories of the Dragons, and I’d hate for people to think I’m taking the easy out. I wish I could stay here. I’m going to miss the angry supporters, the fish-bowl life, the drunk teenagers behind the grandstand in Wollongong, having to tolerate Matthew Johns telling dick jokes on national TV: those are good times. Believe me, when I’m sitting in my luxury French apartment overlooking Nice, having sex with my beautiful French fiancee and enjoying relative anonymity whilst asking my personal butler to warm up the Lamborghini, I’m going to be thinking ‘man, I wish I was back in Towradgi.’”

In celebration of the new deal, Gasnier is expected to commission the manufacture of a cloak woven with solid gold.