Rugby league Immortal Andrew Johns nervous ahead of More Joyous inquiry Rugby league great Andrew Johns after a surf at Sydney's Whale Beach yesterday. Picture: Attila Szilvasi Source: The Daily Telegraph ANDREW Johns is nervous and so he should be. Don't worry about his State of Origin career. Today is one of the most pressurised days of his life. Johns' moment of reckoning arrives today when he will attend the second day of the More Joyous hearing, and his performance may be remembered ahead of any game of football he ever played. The former rugby league great has moved in so many different directions since the story broke he could hide behind a corkscrew. Johns has reportedly become acutely stressed at what lies ahead, and you can understand it because he has already told two different versions of his conversation with bookie Tom Waterhouse about the prospects of More Joyous in the All Aged Stakes. That spells trouble today, because no matter what line he chooses, he will poke a hole in one of his earlier defences. But saving face cannot be his priority. Today racing deserves the truth. Take it as read that whoever he supports owner John Singleton or bookmaker Tom Waterhouse his friendship with the other will be ruined beyond repair. Like many high-profile team sportsmen, Johns has spent much of his life in a bubble where his mess has been cleaned up by others. Few Sydneysiders are better connected. Despite the rule that claims off-field deeds don't matter, no other player would survive a drug addiction and a racism scandal to be judged an Immortal. For once he cannot say "sort it out with my manager" or "go and see the chief executive" the eternal cop-out lines of football stars backed into tight corners. He started the bushfire about More Joyous being "off" and now he is out there on his own, the world is closing in fast, and he has some serious questions to answer. Singleton yesterday turned the heat up on Johns by claiming he told him More Joyous would "finish nearer last than first" which she did. In contrast to the world of rugby league stardom, where players can hide behind iron curtains erected by their clubs, racing folk are used to being isolated, exposed and vulnerable, and it's why several other big players in this soap opera have handled the pressure better than Johns. Every racing person is an island buffeted by the gale-force winds of a volatile industry, and it breeds tough people. Most horses never win a dollar. Most tips fail. Most trainers end up near broke. In the Bible, the meek inherit the Earth. In racing, they get swallowed whole. You wouldn't call racing legends classical role models, but it's easy to admire their cement coating. Mega-rich owner Singleton could have afforded 10 lawyers if he wanted to, but he represented himself at the inquiry because he wanted his message alone to get through. His performance was not flawless, and most felt he was the loser on the day, but in some ways that made his decision to roll the dice and go it alone even braver. In the other corner, Gai Waterhouse hired a posse of lawyers and she has had some impressive moments too under great duress since the scandal broke. The racing world has learnt more about Gai in the past few weeks than we have in the last few decades. We always wondered who exactly was the real person beneath the plum accent who routinely tipped everything bar her clothes horse as "an exceptional winning charrrrrnce." Now we know. She is tough, combative and deceptively cunning, a true perfumed steamroller who will fight to the death for herself and her family. Her masterstroke at the first day of the inquiry was to wait until the final hour late in the day to unveil her killer lines "You're a sham, John," and "We're here because of Chinese whispers (between) a trumped-up little jockey, a brothel owner and a football player." It ensured she provided the freshest meat for the television news and the next morning's paper. Had she been a footballer, she may have been withdrawn from a commitment speaking to a lunch for 500 at the Warrnambool jumps carnival a few days after the scandal broke. While Johns told a television crew stationed near his home where to go with a four-letter word, Waterhouse told reporters at Warrnambool, "I'll have to love you and leave you, " proving there are times when middle-aged women can have slicker sidesteps than league Immortals. Racing's biggest names at war Meet the Press, Ep12, Seg 5