David Campese: Rugby league takeover has ruined union with no-arms tackles and a 'bash fest' - and no wonder Owen Farrell got a Lions call-up

David Campese is holding court in the bar at his home on the Gold Coast. On the top floor, we look out across the booming skyline they call Surfer’s Paradise.

‘The tape marks from the window are from a massive storm we had earlier this year,’ he explains. ‘You tape them up to stop them from shattering.’

The stormy weather has passed. Golden sunshine reflects off his memorabilia, featuring everything from old Wallaby photographs to Bill McClaren’s commentary notes from the 1991 World Cup final.

Look closely at McClaren’s old scribbles and you see the eulogy he prepared in case England won that match at Twickenham: ‘So England have completed their mission and brought ecstasy to their countrymen by writing the most memorable page in English rugby history. Maybe their style didn’t please everyone but to have beaten France, Scotland and Australia is some feat – England are the world champions.’

Campese takes a closer look. ‘Well, it’s a good thing England didn’t win, isn’t it!’

Australia’s rugby maverick has a reputation for shooting from the hip but here he is on a journey down memory lane. Every item in his collection has its own story and it is hard to top the one about Russell Crowe’s original helmet from Gladiator, which sits beneath a couple of bottles of Kahlua.

‘I used to own a shop down in the Rocks in Sydney which had a few rugby jerseys on the wall,’ explains Campese, 62. ‘It was Russell Crowe’s birthday and his personal trainer came in and asked if she could get one or two jerseys for a present. I told her they weren’t for sale but I’d swap them for something from one of his movies.

‘I thought I might have ended up with a vase or something but a few days later he rocked up to the shop in this car with blacked out windows. There he was with this helmet in a box, so I gave him one of Jonah Lomu’s old shirts and one of mine from the 1991 World Cup.

‘Russell’s a Kiwi, he’s a big rugby guy. It’s one of two helmets he used during filming. The other one was sold at an auction. It’s light, made of fibreglass, and it’s marked from when it took a knock on the movie set.’

Moving downstairs from his bar, Campese pets his two dachshunds, Fudge and Fritz. He offers to make a round of coffees, putting on a faux English accent when I ask if he has tea. ‘Tea? English breakfast tea?’ he spouts, always ready for an easy crack at his ‘Pommy mates’.

‘What have you made of the games then?’ he asks, not pushing back too hard against the suggestion that the Lions win the series 3-0 against his homeland, for whom he won 101 caps and scored 64 tries - still a national record by a mammoth margin of 24 over second-placed Chris Latham, the skill of whom he pines for.

‘Rugby’s just a bash fest these days,' he continues. 'That’s all it is. The skill factor of the Brian O’Driscolls and the Chris Lathams hardly exists anymore. It’s all about giving it to the biggest guy to smash it up.

'Pass the ball backwards, backwards, backwards. Every time the Reds got the ball in Brisbane (in defeat by the Lions last week) they ended up 15 metres behind the advantage line. They’re losing by 40 points and they’re just kicking the ball away.

‘There’s so many rugby league figures in union and Andy Farrell is one of them. His tactics will be, “At the breakdown, let the opposition have the ball, four opposition on the floor and 15 defenders”. You look up and think, “Where are we going?” The Reds were just running into brick walls the other night.

'We’ve got to change the style of the game to be entertaining. The waterboys run on and pass on the information. There’s half a dozen coaches running on. What happened to players being able to think for themselves?

'It’s taking the skill out of the game because it’s just so robotic. Let the players play the game. It’s all about barge, strength. Where’s the skill factor? That’s why it’s great to have someone like Finn Russell who has a bit of vision.’

Campese speaks with great authority: only two players have more Test tries than his 64 - Springbok flier Bryan Habana (67 from 2004-16) and Japan winger Daisuke Ohata, who racked up 69 in just 58 Tests from 1996 to 2006. No active player has passed 50.

In a week when Australia’s sporting agenda is dominated by rugby league’s State of Origin finale, Campese is not afraid of donning his Gladiator helmet and firing a few shots at the 13-man code. His thoughts on Owen Farrell’s call-up, and selection on the bench for Saturday's final warm-up game for the Lions? You can probably guess his feelings.

‘All of these no-arms tackles are a rugby league trait,' he says. 'There have been so many players offside on this tour. Elliot Daly got a late hit before he flew home. The referees are missing so much. It’s like they’ve been told to just let it go.

'Joseph Suaalii and Owen Farrell are both known for no-arms tackles. Suaalii is a great athlete who has played rugby before but he knocked himself out because he went for a no-arms tackle and missed.

‘If his dad wants Owen in the team, he’ll get him in the team. I said before the Lions squad was picked that Owen will go on tour because he’ll do what his dad tells him to do.

'The problem now is you’ve got four number 10s. Elliot Daly is a full-back winger so why did they bring another No 10? Daly’s a very nice rugby player; the game needs more players like that. Who’s going to run the backline if Owen plays? I don’t know.’

These days, Campese has got involved with coaching his son’s schoolboy rugby team. They lead an active lifestyle out on the east coast, with a small fishing boat parked up in his driveway.

‘We take the fishing boat down the canals around the corner,’ he says. ‘You can catch bull sharks. Two metres long. There was a shark attack down at Tweed Heads the other day, 40 minutes down the road. Careful if you boys go out for a swim, now!’

Outside, an Australian pelican flies past the window, coming in from the Pacific Ocean. A moment to reflect in nature’s beauty. Campese was one of the game’s great entertainers, bringing the rough with the silky smooth.

His memories of the 1989 Lions series fall onto the rougher side of things, dropping the ball as he ran from his goalline to hand the Lions victory in Brisbane, en route to a 2-1 series win for the tourists. But now, all these years later, he looks back on it with a smile.

‘After the last Test in '89, the crowd were giving me hell as I walked off, saying I lost another game for Australia,’ he recalls. ‘I sat in the dressing room and not one player or coach came near me for 10 minutes. I got dressed, walked off to the reception and just said “I’ve got to go home, I can’t handle this”.

‘I had a BMW at the time, number plate No 11 and I got booked for speeding by the coppers on the way home. I went home, had a few drinks, the phone rang and it was St Helens offering me a move to rugby league.

'I phone Bob Dywer and told him, “mate, I don’t think you should pick me for the last game, I’m not in the right frame of mind”. I rang him back and changed my mind and he picked me. I did exactly the same pass and it worked.

‘Listen, I’ve got my views on things and not everyone agrees and that’s fine. We’ve got rugby league and Aussie Rules on free to air TV. Rugby union’s on paid TV.

'I’ve been enjoying hearing the European commentators for a change. I just hope it’s a good tour and everyone plays well, because we need to entertain people.’

David Campese will be a special guest at a function at the Black Hops Brewery on the Gold Coast on Thursday, July 17.