BARRIE McDermott is not the one-eyed monster of myth.

The Oldham, Wigan, Leeds and Great Britain front-row forward is the hard man of British Rugby League, with more proper fights to his name than Audley Harrison, but he is also a family man who regularly attends his Roman Catholic church. Above all, he has defied the loss of an eye at 15 in an air rifle accident to reach the pinnacle of one of the most bruising sports of them all.

"Is the real Barrie McDermott a hero or villain? Read this book and make up your own mind," advises the inner sleeve. McDermott acts as both prosecution and defence in conversation with Peter Smith, the Yorkshire Evening Post's no-nonsense Rugby League correspondent (who cut his sporting teeth covering York RL for the Evening Press).

As to be expected, Barrie Mac pulls no punches. "Throughout my career people have said I am easily goaded and I get wound up during games," he says on page 69. "That is true, but when it happens, whoever is doing the goading has to cope with the consequences, because I enjoy a fight."

Indeed he does, so much so that his career statistics cover only a page but his disciplinary crimes - Barrie McDermott's greatest hits, as it were - are spread over three.

Yet the fist is quick to turn to a handshake after the game, and there is nothing dishonest about McDermott (save when he is trying to save his skin on his latest visit to the Rugby Football League's disciplinary committee, which duly proceeds to laugh him out of court, with yet another ban to boot).

The book matches his playing style: big hits and a surprising sleight of hand in his ability to slip out a pass.

The hits are the stories of the fights at home and abroad and in nightclubs in his days as a bouncer; his drink-driving ban (stopped in a sponsored car with his name splattered all over it); his place in English history as the first man ever to be arrested by police using CS gas; and his blow-by-blow match analysis.

The slipped passes are the opening chapter on his eye accident; his other career as a joiner, plasterer and hod carrier; his candid assessments of foes and team-mates alike; his ready admission of his failings.

Truly a knockout autobiography.

Updated: 10:18 Saturday, December 18, 2004