A humbling life on the Tableland has helped this former troubled NRL star grow up...

About noon most days, veteran bar fly Henry Pritchard hobbles through a flaming doorway of sunlight that engulfs Atherton’s oldest pub.

The locals reckon Henry has eaten lunch at the Barron Valley Hotel since the timber Art Deco building was erected amid the faintest warning sirens of World War II.

And yet they can’t tell us precisely how old Henry is. Nor do they know how he qualifies for a disability pension or why he can’t walk without a stick.

But Henry’s handicap is no impediment to his appetite. His favourite meal is grilled rump, a juicy sample of the Tableland’s finest cattle. Even with a serrated knife, Henry has trouble cutting through the lean meat, a task that has become progressively harder as his body deteriorates.

Nonetheless, he perseveres as the staff and patrons go about their own business.

Then one humid day in April, lunch got a little easier for Henry Pritchard.

A new kid working behind the bar noticed how the old timer struggled to feed himself.

He asked Henry if he’d like some help.

When Henry nodded, the new kid took the knife and cut up Henry’s steak.

After a few seconds’ work, the rump was returned to its owner in bite-sized pieces.

Henry smiled. The new kid smiled back.

They’ve kept the routine ever since, Henry eating his steak and the new kid cutting it up, feeling more at home with each chunk he severs.

Their first exchange was witnessed by publican Mick Nasser’s wife, Maree.

She cried at the time and is preparing for more sobs when the kid moves to Sydney next month after locking in a $1 million, three-year deal with the Sydney Roosters.

"That brought a tear to my eye," Maree Nasser says.

"Henry has been coming here forever and not one person has thought to do that until Todd came. I can’t tell you how much we’ll miss him when he’s gone."

The new kid was none other than Todd Carney.

But six months after settling among these misty ridges and coffee plantations that overlook Cairns from 450m above sea level, he no longer feels like a stranger.

He now feels at home. Not only in Atherton, but perhaps for the first time, in his own skin.

"I feel more confident as a person," Carney reflects.

"I’ve learnt how to socialise better. Sometimes there’s three different people sitting in the bar and you’ve got to talk to all of them.

"You’ve got to find ways to build relationships from nothing. That’s been a big thing for me fitting in up here and I’m getting better at it."

Pictures: Todd Carney in Atherton

In the most unlikely place and under the most unlikely circumstances, Carney has discovered a way to grow up.

When it was first revealed he would spend this season living and working at a pub, the reaction fell somewhere between ridicule and revolt.

He was, after all, rugby league’s pin-up boy for alcohol abuse. The Canberra Raiders star deregistered in disgrace after countless offences on the demon drink. Who threw away his final lifeline because it meant he’d have to stop skolling.

Who said he needed to drink to socialise, but then refused to admit he was an alcoholic.

No one believed him back then and it will take years to convince them otherwise.

But here’s a start: Last Saturday week, the Barron Valley front bar was awash with the sounds, sights, smells and delights of alcohol.

The jukebox pumps out alternative rock as attractive female backpackers pull beers and fill plastic shot glasses to the brim.

The scent of rum intensifies as the clock ticks past midnight. One young wag, a reserve-grader for the Roosters, tries to remove his shorts and continue drinking unencumbered. A grim-faced former inmate watches on with menace, tapping his tattooed fingers on the yellow bar mat.

Carney sits in the middle of this growing scene of drunkenness and debauchery.

Having worked 40 hours a week behind this bar for the past six months, he’s no longer at risk of being caught up in its dangerous cycle.

"You meet all sorts of people and have to deal with some pretty extreme behaviour," says Mick Nasser, whose family has been in charge of the premises, for 79 years.

"Todd’s had to negotiate his way around that without creating friction. It’s made him more mature. It’s hardened him up.

"People thought a pub was the last place Todd Carney should be living and working and I’ll admit I had my doubts, too.

"The biggest problem is that everyone wants to be his mate. The blokes all want to buy him a drink and the girls want to flirt with him.

"He’s a likeable character. It’s his way to be one of the crowd. The trick has been learning when to stand up to those temptations and recognise the bigger picture."

And that’s exactly what Carney did last Sunday week. He is an eye of sobriety in an inebriated storm.

After watching all three games of NRL Super Saturday on Fox Sports, Carney consumes copious amounts of water from pot and pint glasses alike.

"Our team rule is not to drink after Tuesday and definitely not the night before a game," he explains.

"Plus, I need to put on 2kg of fluid to cope with the heat tomorrow."

s the Atherton Roosters perform their final stretches under the shade of a poinciana tree, you wonder how they will survive the next 80 minutes.

It’s almost 3pm and the mercury is nudging 30C at Stan Williams Park.

When the star attraction arrived an hour earlier, the gate attendant quipped: "A bit hotter than from where you’re from, eh Todd?"

He then extends a creased palm.

In his previous life as an NRL player, Todd Carney was flush with footy boot contracts and free drink cards.

But today the 23-year-old pulls $12 from his kit bag and pays for not only his own entry, but that of William Nasser, Mick and Maree’s youngest son.

Carney takes a seat in the corner. He inserts some iPod earphones and tapes both wrists. He then covers the tape with two words: "Must win."

With that credo in mind, Carney is filthy when the game against Brothers ends in a 32-all draw.

Although he scored a try and set up three others, his mind is haunted by a missed sideline conversion three minutes from fulltime. He now rehydrates with generic-brand soft drinks instead of the latest isotope-drenched fluids, but remains intensely professional.

"You play the game for opportunities like that," Carney laments.

"You dream about it as a kid, winning the game with the final kick. It burns when you don’t take that chance."

fter the 100km climb back to Atherton, Carney has brightened. He intends to treat himself with a few drinks on the other side of the bar, which groans under mountains of crumbed calamari rings and cheese balls.

The jukebox is again pumping, but it’s an otherwise subdued night reserved for the team, staff and a dozen locals.

One of the players is a kid called Micky Lay.

Micky is deaf and can’t be easily understood when he speaks. So it’s inevitable that he starts to become detached as the evening wears on. Then Carney turns and notices.

He calls Micky over, buys him a can of Jim Beam & Cola, and fetches an extra stool.

It’s a simple gesture that no one else in the room was considerate enough to make.

Like the time when Carney reduced Maree to tears by cutting up old Henry’s steak all those months ago.

And like the time a few days earlier when jockey-sized bar hand Dougie Goddard, also the Atherton Roosters mascot, won $2000 on Keno and began handing it back to the pub.

When he didn’t heed Carney’s advice to stop, the footballer forced him out the door and up to Big W to buy some new clothes.

"I like to see people happy, or at least comfortable," Carney says.

"There’s a few guys here who do it tough. You get a new perspective from behind the bar, watching them.

"Henry sometimes struggles, so you open the toilet door for him or cut up his steak.

"The meals here are pretty big and he needs a hand. Micky can get left out a bit because he’s deaf, so I try to include him.

"It’s something I don’t like to see … people being left out. People sitting on their own."

Those words ricochet off a raw nerve exposed by Carney’s exile from the NRL and his home town, Goulburn, over the past year. He now lives in a tiny room above the bar that makes a Tokyo capsule hotel seem spacious.

It reverberates with the din of 400 people every third Friday night of the month, when top-line bands and DJs perform in the auditorium below. Alone and cramped, he’s been through some "ups and downs".

The nadir came in May, when a mobile phone he lost was passed on with lewd
self-portrait photographs still on file.

They were leaked to the press, and Carney nearly cracked.

"Todd was too embarrassed to come down and work that day," Mick Nasser recalls.

"He wanted to stay in his room . He was shattered. I said, ’Mate, you’ve got to face it’.

"And you know what? He did. It was a good thing, too, because the first bloke he bumped into made a big joke out of it.

"No one took it seriously. People were mature enough to realise he hadn’t hurt anyone, hadn’t done anything wrong and wasn’t a bad person because of it."

Carney adds: "The reaction was totally unexpected. The locals cracked a few jokes and couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

"Until then I’d only been kicked when I was down by people who didn’t know me. That was a turning point."

As Carney prepares to resume his NRL career with the Roosters next year, Atherton holds its breath.

Mother-of-six Maree Nasser has one piece of advice for Carney’s new club: "He needs to be surrounded by people who give a s---."

Forget the words, Carney’s actions show he cares for others. You see it through Henry’s steak, Dougie’s shopping trip and Micky sitting at the bar with his teammates.

Now, Carney reckons Atherton has given him the confidence to care for the most important person he can ever hope to help.

Himself.

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