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By Josh Massoud
May 28, 2008 12:00am

IF Peter Holmes a Court is guilty of anything, it's trying to do too much too soon. And trying to be too many things to too many people. And trying too hard.

Damned if I know how he lasted this long in rugby league. If there's one occasion that summed up Peter rabbit it was the eve of South Sydney's exhibition match in Jacksonville, Florida, earlier this year.

The modest lobby bar of the Oceanfront Comfort Inn was throbbing with excited Souths fans from all over the world when Peter sent the general frisson to another level.

Usually a picture-perfect melange of shiny cufflinks and crisp business shirts, he fronted up with the crumpled air of a man who had not slept in days.

Several hairs were out of place. Stubble was evident. His eyes darted, spun and skipped like championship yo-yos.

His conversation was rambling, barely able to stay on topic for more than a couple of seconds. And that was before his first beer.

He had spent the previous week bouncing between university lectures, media interviews, sponsors' dinners, media interviews, players' meetings and media interviews.

He bounced everywhere, it seemed, except between the sheets of his queen-size bed at the Comfort Inn.

Having regularly dealt with Peter since he and Russell Crowe launched their bid for Souths 2½ years earlier, his hardwired edge was no surprise. But this time he was more than wired. He was possessed.

Peter sacrificed himself to the task at hand as if his entire reputation hinged on its success. Failure was a personal affront and that's why he is hurting so much today.

The West Australian might have been a league layman, but that only increased the demand to devote more of himself to achieving the unthinkable - making Souths strong again. In the end, it was a dangerous obsession - for him and the club.

When he and Crowe were trying to convince Souths members to sell in early 2006, Peter pushed the word harder than a Mormon on Saturday morning rounds.

He visited members in cities all across NSW and Queensland and when all appeared lost, stayed up until the wee hours before the vote personally phoning them to plead for their ballots.

The next day, he and Crowe defied all sober predictions to claim 75.8 per cent of the vote - just 16 ballots more than they needed.

In hindsight, it might have been a good idea for Peter to quit while he was ahead.

His business partner Crowe insisted on being detached but Peter took the opposite tact.

He threw himself into Souths as executive chairman for the past two years. Thrashed himself against its cardinal and myrtle walls for not a single cent. Event leant the club another $4 million.

It wasn't always appreciated.

Staff claimed Peter "micro-managed everything". Having invested so much of himself, Peter wanted everything to plan and seemed to not always trust a subordinate to do the job as well as he thought he could.

He would call staff late at night and talk to them endlessly about the finest details, like the placement of tables and chairs at an upcoming event.

At the same time he was always thinking big, like putting on a centenary concert for the team's 100th birthday or a re-enactment of fans' 1999 march through the city.

The problem was, he missed the important bits in between. Although the office headcount was doubled, long-serving staff were annoyed by an influx of US marketing-speak that arrived with their new colleagues.

Fan days were suddenly branded as "fan appreciation days". One recent addition did not even know who the late and great Jack Gibson was.

The fact Souths made their first finals appearance in 18 years only wallpapered over what was festering above.

In their zeal to turn fortunes around, the new owners had overspent and the returns simply didn't compensate. Although sponsorship was strong, it could not begin to cover a huge spike in wages and the cost of new gadgets and upgrades for their training ground at Erskineville.

Peter and Crowe lost $4.2 million. Painful staff cuts followed and office morale inevitably suffered.

Through it all Peter kept pushing, jockeying to be heard above the din in league land.

If he was growing unpopular with his own, he was well and truly on the nose with bosses from rival NRL clubs who viewed him as an arrogant upstart. But they were wrong to completely ignore him.

Advocating poker machine bans and breath-testing, Peter was too confronting for many of league's blazer brigade who dearly hang on to justify their relevance.

The sad thing is that the game - decaying in Sydney because of complacency and cronyism, could do with a revolutionary voice. Maybe Peter's problem was that he was heard too often. Love him or hate him, league needs people like him.