by Terry Smith –

The Prime Minister followed a happy afternoon at the rugby at Manly by heading across town to Double Bay where he sculled a beer at the Royal Oak hotel.

No, it wasn’t Bob Hawke in his heyday. Simply Tony Abbott enjoying a few hours with his mates as an aperitif to heading off to Gallipoli to head Australia’s representatives at the Anzac celebrations.

The PM, NSW Premier Mike Baird and Alan Jones were among the glitterati at Manly Oval last Saturday for the launch of ‘Sun, Surf and Scrums’, an irreverent history of the Manly Marlins which fully captures the lifestyle of the knockabout seaside suburb.

After the book was launched, Abbott, Baird and Jones, who coached Manly to a first grade premiership in 1983 which led to a Wallaby coaching job a year later, moved from the Manly Bowling Club to watch the Manly v Gordon game at neighbouring Manly Oval, won by the Marlins 22-13.

Of course, Manly boy Abbott, who played 15 lower grade games for the club, was the star of the show.

Happy and smiling, he signed a host of autographs and was photographed with admirers young and old, including Baird, Jones, Wallabies John Coolican and Steve Williams and the former NSW Liberal leader Kerry Chikarovski.

“A great day at my old rugby club,” Abbott declared after going to the Manly room and congratulating the players on their five out of five start to the season which had been preceded by a rev up from Alan Jones.

Then it was over the bridge to the Royal Oak at Double Bay where the Prime Minister caught up with some of his old cronies.

As Abbott sculled a long, cool beer, the moment was captured by photographers, with Bill Shorten rushing to take a pot shot when it wound up on national TV, with the Labour leader declaring with an air of mystery: “Now he can drink a beer without adding lemonade to it.”

I managed to get the Prime Minister’s ear as he watched the footy with Manly president David Begg and enquired if Abbott found it tougher to be a rugby prop than attend to the duties of the country’s No 1 citizen.

“Too hard to call,” he said. “I played 150 lower grade games with Sydney University and another thirty in England but none were as enjoyable as the fifteen-odd matches I played in fourth grade with Manly.”

Oddly enough, Joe Hockey and Malcolm Turnbull are other Cabinet Ministers who played down the grades with the University club.

There is a famous tale that Abbott, who was coaching reserve grade, once figured in a punch-up with the bigger Hockey, himself an ambitious prop who demanded to know why Abbott continually ignore his claims for promotion.

Talk to University alumni on the day and they will tell you that Abbott, who represented Oxford University as a boxer, clearly gained the upper hand.

NSW Premier Mike Baird side-stepped the question whether rugby was rougher than politics, explaining: “Playing in the backs, I avoided all the aggro in the forwards, so my choice was not as difficult as Tony’s.”