By James Hooper
From: The Sunday Telegraph
July 12, 2009
MICHAEL Ennis still harbours the internal scars of an adolescence afflicted by alcohol.
You will never catch him complaining about it. But the new NSW hooker understands the ugly side of the devil in a bottle. "I saw a lot of things growing up through my teens that made my eyes open pretty wide,'' Ennis said.
"Mum and Dad had a business and things didn't always go that smoothly there. The stresses led to Dad drinking at times, which is obviously why I don't drink a lot. When you're trying to get somewhere in life you've got to be strong and deal with those things."
"So it was me and my brother who really had to hold the fort at home.''
Call it a by-product of growing up fast; the 24-year-old is today blessed with a wise head on his young shoulders.
In the Ennis household, family always has and always will come first. Happily married to Simone, his wife of two years, and with two children Jack, 3, and Koby-Fox, eight months, Ennis loves nothing more than playing the doting father.
But his story bears so many similarities to the teenage path of former Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett, who was also forced into the role of family figurehead at a young age. "Wayne certainly put a lot of things in perspective for me. Off the field, how to deal with a lot of things and how to really believe in myself,'' Ennis said.
The image of Ennis making play dough figures at his Peakhurst Heights home with his kids is a stark contrast to the knock-em-down style of football he is famous for. Injected into the NSW pack to add whack to the middle third of the field, if there is a stink at Suncorp Stadium this Wednesday you can guarantee Ennis will be front and centre.
Even Simone admits: "If anyone was to throw a punch he'd be the first person there. But he's not a dirty player. Anyone that's ever met Michael knows what a great guy he is.''
It seemed a bit heavy when Ennis was recently voted one of the NRL's dirtiest players in a Rugby League Week player poll.
Tough and uncompromising? Yes.
But a grub? "I don't hide behind the fact that I'm always in the
thick of things on the field but that's just me being me and playing the way I do,'' Ennis explained. "People
say that it's skating a fine line but I think it's just football and you do what you can when you're on the
field to win.''
A fierce competitor on the field, one place you won't catch Ennis leading the charge is on a 5am bender. Watching
his dad, Brian, lose his fight against alcoholism five years ago, when Ennis was still playing lower grades at
Newcastle, guaranteed he would never be a big drinker.
Brian Ennis bled to death after falling over in a caravan in the Hunter in 2004. Michael and older brother Todd had to identify his body. Ennis doesn't use this as an excuse. Rather, a form of inspiration.
He says simply his mum, Dianne, was the constant rock of their close-knit family. "The hard thing was you knew at times Dad probably brought a lot of it on himself, but deep down I've still got a hell of a lot of good memories from my early childhood with him,'' Ennis said.
"I wasn't living with Dad at the time he passed but to see the slow deterioration in him from my early childhood to where he was at then was pretty significant and pretty sad.
"I'm not a bloke who says I don't drink but I certainly pick my moments and don't write myself off.''
In a year littered with off-field atrocities, Ennis's story is a timely reminder of why you can't paint all NRL players with the same tainted brush. "Looking back I can start to see why people always say things happen for a reason,'' Ennis said. "Now I've got my own family I'm starting to see why. I won't make those same decisions - and to some degree, mistakes - with my family.''