For the past 40 years Australia's rugby union public has wondered why Aboriginal star Mark Ella retired so early from Test football.
It was said he needed to earn a living so to look after his new family and walk away from what was then an amateur game – and Ella has stuck with that line, at least publicly.
The end for Ella came after the glory of the 1984 Wallabies' grand slam tour of rugby's Home Nations, under coach Alan Jones, after scoring a try in each of the four Test match wins against England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, a feat that has never before been achieved before or since by a member of an Australian touring party.
But days after Jones, who has since built a longstanding career as a Sydney radio broadcaster, was charged with 24 historic indecent assault and sexual touching offences that involved eight victims that came to light last week, the Bidjigal-Yuin man has spoken out about why he quit the game he born to play.
"There were a number of things involved," Ella told NewsCorp.
"I was playing in an amateur environment, (was) not getting paid, and I got married a week after getting home from that (grand slam) tour.
"I needed to start the next chapter of my life, knuckle down, start working on a post-rugby career.
"(But) it's also fair to say Alan Jones wasn't my type of coach.
"I didn't retire because of him, but Alan being coach did make the decision easy.
"What he did for rugby was terrific, but one year of AJ was enough for me – I was ready to move on.
"If I'd been paid $1 million a year, I might have kept on playing but that wasn't happening."
Ella walked away at the height of his powers, with just 25 Test caps to his name, but extraordinarily already captaining Australia 10 times.
He was just 25 years of age when he left behind not only national duties, but also playing for New South Wales and club side Randwick.
Speculation continued that Ella and Jones had a strained relationship and while Jones has regularly adulated the genius of his former playmaker with ball in hand, Ella has come out and admitted he "disliked the intensity" of Jones's coaching.
Ella had three coaches during a Wallabies career that commenced in 1980 and coincided with Bob Templeton's third coaching reign until his time with the national side was over in early 1982 before Bob Dwyer took the helm for the first time for the 1985 Australian winter.
"I'm proud that we finally achieved a Grand Slam," Ella said under Jones's time coaching.
"We were there in 1981-82 with a great team that we thought would do it, (but) we didn't.
"It meant a lot to go back and win it (in 1984), and with every game, we got more confident."
Having achieved the peak of both personal and the team's plaudits while touring the other side of the world in less than hospitable conditions, Ella had enough.
Ella would argue that essentially the same group of players did not need Jones to improve on their flat Test record in the British Isles of one win against Ireland and three competitive losses in the slog to Wales, Scotland and England during that 1981-82 tour.
That turned around, like Ella predicted, but perhaps only because the flyhalf scored the four tries against each of the Home Nations and set up more for his teammates.
"As for a try in each Test, it's something you could only dream about," Ella said.
"I laugh now because in 21 Tests before that tour I'd only ever scored two tries."
Ella stayed in the UK for three months after that 1984 tour all to work for tobacco company Rothmans while not picking up a ball once.
There were massive offers coming from St George to switch to rugby league in addition to some interest from South Sydney, a club that always had a strong relationship with the Redfern Aboriginal Community, but the talent from La Perouse –the area where Gameygal clan of the Dharug peoples originate from – decided against converting.
Ella did eventually return to playing, but first only in Sydney club rugby in 1989 where he led the Randwick club to a Shute Shield premiership, but "never with ambitions of playing rep footy again".
At the end of that year, he sought a 'pay-for-play' opportunity – a common method for European clubs to induce foreign recruits during the amateur era by over-paying players to work in menial jobs to compensate for their rugby ability.
Ella not only joined Milan in the Italian championship, but ascended quickly in his time in the now Top 10 competition.
"We went for one season and stayed for four," Ella said.
The extra three years was as captain-coach after impressed former club boss, and future Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, paid Ella extra beyond his contract to mentor the team.
