This was published 2 years ago
‘What do you do?’ she said. ‘Oh, I play a bit of rugby.’
By Fenella Souter
Former Wallabies captain David Pocock, 34, has often spoken out on issues beyond rugby. Now the environmental activist is running for the Senate. His wife Emma, 34, runs an organisation helping sportspeople to act on climate.
David and Emma Pocock: “Initially, Emma wasn’t sold on the idea of me running for the Senate – but we had a lot of conversations and decided it was well worthwhile.”Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
David: I met Emma in Perth in 2009 through a friend. They were running workshops in schools around conflict management and non-violence. He set us up to meet at a school where I’d done some rugby coaching. When we went for lunch in the canteen, Emma said, “What do you do?” I said, “Oh, I play a bit of rugby” and she said, “So what do you do for a job?” I said, “I play a bit of rugby.”
I found her interesting and we had similar values, although we came from different worlds. With three boys in my family, life was chaotic. There’d be 10 different outdoor activities in a day, then more sport. In Emma’s family, a great day would be going for a walk, reading books and then doing a puzzle.
I’d be lying if I said it was love at first sight. We became friends first but, over time, I realised like, wow, she’s amazing. In 2010, we had what I guess was a wedding, with lots of friends and family, in a local park in Perth. But we didn’t want to sign papers when some of our friends didn’t have the same right. At the time, it was just a personal stand but, as the debate around marriage equality heated up, the media saw it as newsworthy.
We both grew up in pretty conservative Christian families and I’m grateful for the grounding it gave me, the sense of community, going to church as a kid. We tried to honour some of that tradition in the ceremony. [They married again, officially, in 2018.]
“We didn’t want to sign papers when some of our friends didn’t have the same right.”
Ever since I was a kid, I’d wanted to play rugby at the highest level. When I had to miss the 2013-2014 season because of a torn ACL, I was awful to be around, especially when it happened a second time. I had done nine months of rehab and felt great. Then, a few games into the new season, I did the exact same thing, same knee, and had a bit of a crisis. It’s like, you’ve done all the right things; why do these bad things happen? You’re forced to face the reality that they just do. All you can control is how you respond. Realising that was a real shift for me and probably helped our relationship.
Em was incredible. She researched rehab and diet, and supported me the whole way. Individual achievement is the biggest myth. Anyone who achieves will likely have a few people who make sacrifices to help them get there.
Initially, she wasn’t sold on the idea of me running for the Senate [as an independent in the ACT]. She knows just how gruelling it is – and she’s busy with her work, heading FrontRunners – but we had a lot of conversations and decided it was well worthwhile; an opportunity to contribute to the community and improve our democracy.
Emma is very bubbly, very comfortable in her own skin. She knows she’s good at a lot of things. If she has a weakness, maybe it’s a lack of humility! Still, I’m in awe of how she doesn’t feel the need to constantly try to prove herself.
Emma: I realised when we met that he was a pretty serious person, and the caricature of a footballer is not of a thoughtful, bookish person like Dave. There wasn’t an immediate attraction. At first, it was a bit odd that he was just so big. Even other athletes revere his physique.
He is unusually disciplined and was like that all through his childhood and teens. On the day we met and went to lunch, there was pasta and all this food at the buffet and Dave just had this cartoonishly large plate of salad.
His family have stories, like when they were going on holiday to the Whitsundays and Dave would only go if they took a bench and some weights, so he could keep up his gym program. He was 14 when the family left Zimbabwe under difficult [political] circumstances and I think he used obsessive training and diet to mask a lot of his trauma and anxiety. So the discipline has a dark side, even though it made him one of the world’s best rugby players for over a decade.
Dave has been criticised for speaking out on things like homophobia in sport, but while he gets some snarky comments, he also hears privately from parents or young men telling him what a difference it made.
My grandfather was a Baptist minister and that’s the tradition I grew up in. Dave’s family went to a few different evangelical churches. We don’t attend any church now in Canberra, but when we got married that first time we were 22 and part of a “home church” [which congregates in private houses]. Washing each other’s feet is part of the peace church tradition. Baptists and Quakers often do it as the first act of marriage. It’s a gesture of service, at once intimate but also practical. That’s probably a good description of our relationship.
“We’re still not sure about having children ourselves. You worry about the world they’ll inherit.”
Growing up in Zimbabwe, Dave had an incredible connection to nature. He’s still involved in a conservation project there. He feels it keenly when a new UN climate report comes out – especially now we’ve got nieces, nephews and friends having kids. It’s not just our future, but theirs, too.
We’re still not sure about having children ourselves. You worry about the world they’ll inherit. Statistics show one third of Millennials are wondering whether they should have kids. But when we talked about this to a journalist once before, we woke up to a headline saying, “Pococks say children are ruining the planet”.
Like any couple, you have times when you’re projecting your own insecurities, but we’ve done a lot of therapy to try not to waste time on that. We had some great advice early on that the best thing you can do for your partner is to be responsible for yourself. Of course, you should be kind and generous, but your partner can’t fix everything for you.
We’re not competitive, although when we first moved in together, we used to play cards every night. He taught me this game and at first I wasn’t very good, then I was really good. It got out of hand because Dave had to keep playing until he’d won.
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