McGillvary hails Barrow Raiders time as key in his RL rise

It was seven years ago that the Huddersfield Giants winger enjoyed a short but successful spell at Craven Park, playing 11 times and scoring eight tries, which he credits with playing a large part in setting him on course to become one of the most feared wide-men in Super League.

Having already been on a season-long loan a mere 32 miles away from his home town at Batley Bulldogs in 2008 – hitching a lift with then-head coach Gary Thornton and team-mates because he could not afford a car at the time – McGillvary had been eager to get more playing time away from the Giants’ academy team.

Arguably, he could not have picked anywhere much further away. But that eagerness to test himself was what let to him agreeing to join Barrow Raiders – then the holders of the Championship crown – for what would prove to be a memorable stint.

“I used to drive two-and-a-half hours to train for half-an-hour, then drive two-and-a-half hours back, so it was like a five hour journey just to train for half-an-hour,” said McGillvary. “That’s mentally draining and physically draining, but it creates character and that’s the determination I had.

“I could have gone anywhere else – I could have gone to local top sides – but I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and I wanted to try it.

“I never imagined when I was nine or 10 that I’d be playing rugby in Cumbria – I didn’t even know where Cumbria was when I was that age! – but I thought Barrow were a top team and although they were far away, I wanted to try it.

“I enjoyed it up there, the boys were fantastic, the crowd were fantastic, everyone took me in well and even to this day I still keep in touch with people. I’ve got a few fans on Facebook and Twitter keeping up with my progress and it’s a great place, and I think more people should go up there.”

It was off the back of said spell that Nathan Brown handed McGillvary his Giants bow and the 28-year-old has not looked back since then, amassing personal accolades such as the Albert Goldthorpe Rookie of the Year honour, being Super League’s top try-scorer in 2015, being named in the Dream Team and capped by England under both Steve McNamara and Wayne Bennett.

McGillvary’s rise is perhaps even more impressive given that he did not pick up a rugby ball in anger between the ages of 12 and 16, having switched to playing the round-ball game with his friends after failing to make it onto the Giants’ scholarship programme.

Away from the football fields, his teenage years were spent lifting weights and hitting the town with his mates on weekends, while he took jobs on building sites and then on the night-shift at B&Q after dropping out of college.

It was the intervention of good friend and still team-mate Leroy Cudjoe which helped steer McGillvary back towards rugby, having been impressed with his size when spotting him out and about, and telling him to get down to the Huddersfield academy. However, his first experience back playing was one to forget.

“I tried the academy, didn’t get in for about 10 weeks, and then played my first game and lost 110-0 to Leeds Rhinos!” recalled McGillvary. “Ryan Hall was playing and he must have scored about three past me as I came on in the last 10 minutes, and I was thinking ‘why the hell am I doing this?!’.

“But I kept training, came back for pre-season, started playing more regularly, learning the game, enjoying it, but I was losing a bit of weight because I was working nights.

“I thought I’d give rugby a try, so I dropped my job earning decent money and I was playing that well, Jon Sharp, who was the coach then, saw me in the academy. He said ‘what are you doing for a living?’ and I said ‘nothing’.

“I was basically on the dole and playing rugby there, and he said ‘how about you come and train with the first team? We can give you £3,000 a year, but you can come and train full-time’.

“I snapped his arm off for that and the rest is history.”

McGillvary’s own work-ethic in striving to better himself undoubtedly played a large role in him becoming the player he is today, although he is quick to credit former Giants head coach Brown for relentlessly drilling the basics of the game into him and allowing him to develop at his own pace.

That gratitude extends to McGillvary contacting Brown to thank him whenever he has earned honours or international call-ups, and it is another Australian who is now helping guide him at the John Smith’s Stadium in the form of Rick Stone.

The former Newcastle Knights man was brought in last year following the departure of Paul Anderson to oversee a return to the club competing at the top end of Super League after falling into the Qualifiers in 2016 and facing the threat of relegation.

“I don’t think injuries helped, but rugby league is a squad game now and you should have enough quality to come in,” said McGillvary, reflecting on last year. “I don’t think we were as fit as we thought we were, but I look at myself and I don’t think I was good enough.

“I probably let my team-mates down with consistency because I’d probably play good for two weeks and then not so good the week after – I take stuff on board, but one thing I know for definite is that I don’t want to experience what I experienced last year. There is the possibility of losing your job, and most of us have got families and houses and things like that.”

McGillvary knows reputation alone will not be enough to earn him a place in the England squad for the World Cup at the end of the year either. Indeed, national team coach Bennett told him during the 2016 Four Nations he would not have got in if the straight-talking Antipodean had been picking on that season’s form alone.

But while the focus at the moment is on all things Huddersfield, the desire to be part of a World Cup in Australia is in the back of his mind after tasting international rugby league on home soil – something McGillvary savoured, despite his own physical make-up being an issue.

“I have no calves – mine are tiny and I always get cramp in them in international matches, especially playing against the Kiwis and Australia, but I thrive on it and I enjoy it,” said McGillvary.

“I was 16, working on a building site and no thought of playing rugby, and now I’m playing against Australia and New Zealand – how crazy is that? It doesn’t matter how hard or physical it is, I’m loving it.

“It’s what young lads dream of when they’re playing rugby league, so it has been a dream and it’s something I’ll look back on when I’ve finished in 10 years, hopefully, with fond memories.

“It’s good I’m achieving this while my kids can see it and my family, just to make them proud and show them I’ve achieved something in my life and my career.”