His head is wrapped like a mummy, more befitting of a forward hiding cauliflowered ears. The bandages are a little skewed, it almost blocks part of his vision from his left eye. You sort of expect him to start squinting so he can see better.
Underneath, the strapping is hiding a rugby league rite of passage: stitches. During the week, he’d suffered a head clash in training and received heaps of them. That was nothing, though, compared to the mental torment of a long recovery from an ACL tear before that.
So, if Adam Reynolds looked like this and had been through all that even before running out for his NRL debut, then what was he going to look and feel like at the finish?
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“So, I pretty much remember all of it,” Reynolds says of his debut, a game in which he was “solid” and set up a couple of tries, but ultimately lost to South Sydney’s bitter rivals the Roosters, who scored twice in the last 140 seconds, including the matchwinner when Reynolds missed a desperate late tackle on Anthony Minichiello.
“It was a dream come true. You pretty much work your whole life to be in a position to play first grade and to be given that nod was a proud moment.”
Life as a child for Reynolds was about the three “R’s”: Redfern, rugby league and the Rabbitohs. He lived a lot of his upbringing across the road from Redfern Oval, the spiritual home of South Sydney, before moving. His next home was 250 metres from the ground.
He obsessed about rugby league, and particularly, how to master kicking an oval shaped object prone to funny bounces. Street lights, bins, cars, they were all challenges when it came to kicking a footy.
“I didn’t leave home without (one),” he tells foxsports.com.au. “You see kickers these days aim for goalposts to throw the fullbacks off, that’s what I was practising back then with lightposts on the street near Redfern Oval.”
Nathan Cleary is known to sit on his lounge holding a Steeden while watching television. It’s almost like an extension of his right arm. Andrew Johns would argue it helps when a halfback is gripping a ball as often as they can, not just during training. Reynolds knows the feeling.
It only took him a few years after his NRL debut to lead the Bunnies to their drought-breaking premiership in 2014. The following days and weeks were a blur. He jetted off to Las Vegas to celebrate with a bunch of teammates and got a tattoo of the Rabbitohs logo on his left foot, which remains to this day.
No one would have thought the boy who grew up in the shadows of the Redfern Oval grandstand, and then helped them win their first title in 43 years, would finish his career anywhere else. But Reynolds will.
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The NRL is full of cold-hearted business decisions on player contracts almost every day. During the 2021 season, in which the Rabbitohs would lose a grand final cliffhanger against Penrith, Reynolds and South Sydney agreed to disagree. Reynolds wanted a two-year extension, Souths would only offer him one. He left.
It’s still hard to believe it happened.
“I don’t have any feelings towards it,” Reynolds says. “They made a decision. I made a decision. If it worked out, they were geniuses and everyone would have stopped talking about it. If I went to Brisbane and I was a bust, then they’re in the right as well. There are a lot of ifs and buts.
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing. They had a lot of good young players at the time who they thought would kick on and do wonderful things – and I felt the same.”
One of them was Lachlan Ilias, Reynolds’ immediate successor who is now languishing in NSW Cup at the Dragons.
One day, former Rabbitohs coach Jason Demetriou said Ilias would be the best halfback the club has had for a long time. Whether it was said in frustration at persistent questions from reporters about letting Reynolds go, or whether because Demetriou truly believed it, it was a disservice to Reynolds.
For his part, Reynolds holds no grudges. He would rather talk about his magnificent time at the club and his enduring respect for Wayne Bennett, who returned to coach South Sydney for a second time this year. Sometimes, players and coaches just hit it off. Reynolds and Bennett did from day one.
Reynolds’ famous tattoo collection ranges from the beautiful to the bizarre. He has had portraits of Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan and even Jack Nicholson as the Joker, two koi fish for luck, and the standard tributes to his kids. While they were at Souths together, Reynolds even joked he was going to get one of Bennett.
“Somewhere where I’m wrinkly,” he laughed.
Now: “I don’t know (why), I always gravitate to older people. I love hanging around older people. Even at Souths, instead of going to nightclubs I would hang out at the RSL and have a beer with the old boys. I’m a bit of an old soul.
“If Wayne was to stay at Souths and had been the head coach for another year or two, I probably would have stayed knowing the relationship we had. It was honest trust.”
So how does he feel about the Rabbitohs now?
“I still love the place,” Reynolds says. “It would still feel like home if I was there. I owe a lot to them, and that area shaped me who I am today.”
The fact Reynolds has not only survived but thrived in the NRL for 14 seasons without superior size, speed or strength is a testament to his smarts.
At some stage this season, there’s a chance teenager Lachlan Galvin will be wearing the No.7 on his back at the Bulldogs. He’s 6’3” in the old scale. Reynolds is just 5’8” and 85kg.
There’s a new breed of No.7s once thought of as running No.6s – Luke Metcalf is having an outstanding season at the Warriors, Tom Dearden has traded numbers at the Cowboys, Dylan Brown will take over halfback at Newcastle on a mega money deal next year, Galvin. The game is always changing and obsessive coaches always looking for their next edge.
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But Reynolds’ mantra to halfback play has been simple: why use a sledgehammer when you can use a surgeon’s scalpel, kicking teams into corners and death by a thousand cuts?
“It all comes with experience,” Reynolds says. “What I know now, even compared to my later years at Souths, it’s just so much greater than it was.
“Even when I played (State of Origin), I was a bit immature as a footballer. I knew my craft well and the good parts of the game, but I didn’t understand the game as well as I did later on.
“I’m just happy I got a chance in Origin, but I would have loved to have played a few more games.”
Perhaps it was only when he arrived in Brisbane did people truly appreciate Reynolds for his craft, guiding a young team to within three minutes and a Cleary masterclass of the 2023 title. Has his legacy been enhanced by the move to the Broncos?
“To be fair, I don’t know,” he says.
“We were in a patch to do something great at Souths. We’d just made the grand final the year before and there wasn’t a turnover of too many players. I believe if I stayed at Souths, we might have played in another, potentially even won one, I’m not too sure.
“I just like to think I can add value to teams, moreso bring the players up (a level) around me, rather than myself. I want to enhance the rest of the playing squad.”
This Saturday, rugby league will have one of those full circle moments when Reynolds runs out for his 300th NRL match wearing Broncos colours … but still coached by Michael Maguire, who gave him his debut all those years ago.
Maybe it’s not even the spookiest co-incidence of his career.
Later in Reynolds’ debut season, he scored the famous “take me now, I’ve seen it all” try. South Sydney trailed by 10 points with two minutes left and scored the winner off the kick-off … to beat the Roosters.
“I ran to the Souths fans,” Reynolds says. “I thought we won the game from the try, but I had to go back and kick the goal, which in hindsight, it could have been ugly if I missed.”
But there’s been little time for sentiment at Red Hill this week.
The Broncos are a club trying to avoid a crisis, losing six of their last seven games. Much like 14 years ago when he just arrived as an NRL head coach, Maguire is trying to prove himself again. Reynolds is trying to stave off Father Time that little longer.
Turning 35 next month, Reynolds wants to play one more year and has been locked in talks with the Broncos for a new deal. “When you lose that drive, you hand the jersey over to someone else,” he says.
He’s not quite ready yet – and he might even run out for his 300th game looking better than he did for his first.
