It’s a family: Healey lauds Jackaroos culture
Commonwealth Games silver medallist and Right at Home Jackaroo Carl Healey has lauded the national team culture and labelled it a family due to the closeness and care each squad member has for each other.
Speaking on Bowls Australia’s (BA) ‘The Right Line’ podcast, the 35-year-old has nothing but praise for his teammates and how the group conducts itself not just on tour, but in general.
“First and foremost, we’re a family,” Healey said.
“We play for each other, we play for our country and we all know we’re ambassadors for Australia, our clubs, our states and for the game in general.
“But I think the number one word there is family, we all have such a great relationship all round, and I mean paras as well, we all get along really well and we play for each other.
“You see a few players at the Commonwealth Games walk around away from the rest of the team but we actually move as a pack and whenever someone was playing we were there watching.
“Everyone was in, there was nobody left out.”
The open men’s team at Royal Leamington Spa looked a little different than usual with the quintet deciding to colour their hair blonde to adhere to a tradition of Australian bowlers at the Games.
Healey was the original master mind behind the idea in 2022, but it took a little convincing.
“Initially I brought the idea up and I didn’t think we’d get it past a couple of the boys,” he said.
“I know Corey had coloured his before and I’d coloured mine before but I wasn’t sure if we would get it past with the others but the closer we got and as soon as Disco said yes we were all in.
“It’s a bit of tradition as well, you have a look at the 1994 Commonwealth Games Cameron Curtis and Rex Johnston coloured their hair blonde and won the gold medal in the pairs, in ’98 Brett Duprez and Mark Jacobsen coloured theirs before winning gold and finally in 2006 Bill Cornhels, Mark Casey and Wayne Turley coloured theirs and won gold as well.
“So there’s a bit of tradition there and I think we’ve carried on that tradition especially with Disco winning the singles and Ellen is a blonde so we’ll take it.”
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Caption: image owned by Getty Images.
