He's got no qualms in stepping in the ring with the best boxers in the world but Dave Toussaint laughs he wouldn't be too keen to throw on a jersey and mix it with some of rugby league's most menacing stars.
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The South Sydney Rabbitohs have spent the best part of a week in Canberra tapping into the capital's best sporting coaches during a camp at the AIS.
They finished a five-day camp with a boxing session under the watchful eye of Australian middleweight champion Toussaint on Thursday, who boasts a 12-0 record with eight knockouts.
The unlikely partnership came about through Souths assistant coach David Furner, a passionate boxing fan that drops into Stockade Training Centre for the odd session when he's back in Canberra.
Toussaint wants to crack the top 15 in the world by the end of 2018 but he kicked off his year by putting the likes of the Burgess brothers, Greg Inglis, Robbie Farah and Adam Reynolds through their paces.
"I wouldn't want to get a hit off a few of the bigger fellas, and even though the shorter dudes weren't as big, they were still pretty strong and ripping in," Toussaint said.
"They were a great bunch of blokes. I know they're all pretty into their boxing as well so I was pretty happy to get the call up and actually go and work with the guys so it was good.
"I was just making them work most of the time, they stopped and talked to me a little bit about boxing and where I'm going this year, and my career and everything.
"I spoke to them a bit about how footy is looking for this year. They said they're all looking pretty good so we'll see how they go for the year."
The Rabbitohs had a training session in the morning before lifting weights in the afternoon, straight after which they proceeded to the AIS combat centre to meet Toussaint.
Toussaint had the players pair up in the midst of the hour-long session with one pressing forward with a shield and the other trying to keep them away.
The undefeated Canberran usually does eight to 10 three-minute rounds - the Rabbitohs did one minute at a time with a minute's rest and "they were all pretty cooked by the end of it".
The Rabbitohs have done sessions in Sydney with boxing royalty in Jeff Fenech and Johnny Lewis, while plenty of them have thrown support behind Australian heavyweight Jai Opetaia.
Furner laughs it has a few of them thinking they're just about ready to step inside the squared circle, and they couldn't stop talking about the session as they made their way back to Sydney.
"There's a few that think they're pugilists," Furner said.
"Dane Gagai, I'll tell you what, he's as quick on the fists as he is on the field so he was going alright. John Sutton, GI's not too bad because he's got a bit of height about him.
"A lot of rugby league players do boxing but it's just great to have good technicians, good trainers and good boxers - Dave is one of those.
"I think he's such a very humble person and a very good fighter. In my eyes he's one of the best fighters coming out of Canberra.
"He was really professional with the players, the players really enjoyed him being the trainer. They really enjoyed it, so it was a credit to Dave.
"He's really very humble and the players were excited afterwards, they were talking about it. I hope he goes on, and I think he will, to have some really big main event fights."
