RYLEY BATT is nowhere near as well known as Lote Tuqiri or Stirling Mortlock, but at another level of the rugby code he is the ultimate world beater.

For anyone who watched the ABC's excellent television coverage of the Paralympic Games in Beijing, Batt was the Australian standout. It took only a few minutes of watching any Australian wheelchair rugby match to realise that the youngster in green and gold was something extraordinary.

Batt was the antagonist. The enforcer. The master of fearlessly smashing into opponents. The speedster. The try sneak. The man with guile. The one player each opponent wanted to nullify, but each time failed. And he came so close to winning Australia a gold medal, succumbing only in the final seconds of the final to the US.

Wheelchair rugby is a madcap spectacle as it is, resembling a wham-bam, crash-em, man-dodgem derby, but what made it even more memorable was the daredevil antics of Batt as he scored an abundance of hair-raising tries. The highlight was his match-winning try against New Zealand, achieved with just two-hundredths of a second to spare.

No wonder the Wallabies yesterday made a big deal of Batt and the Australian coach, Brad Dubberley, when the pair spent the afternoon with the Australian squad.

If the Wallabies require any inspiration before they head off for their end-of-year tour of Hong Kong and Europe, Batt is the man to provide it in abundance.

As Tuqiri, who had lunch with the pair yesterday before they all headed to a Wallabies training session, explained: "Meeting guys like Ryley brings you back to earth, and you can only be enlivened by what he has achieved. We are really honoured to have him here, because he is clearly a freak in his own sport. It also makes you realise how lucky you are to be able to walk around, and be able to train when the sun's shining."

Batt was born without legs, and required surgery to separate his fingers. Until he was 12, he refused to use a wheelchair, instead using a skateboard to negotiate his way around his home town of Port Macquarie with his mates. If he wanted to stop the skateboard, he would scrape his hands along the ground.

But that changed when Dubberley, a notable international player before he became the national coach, visited Batt's school to give a demonstration of wheelchair rugby. Batt was immediately hooked. He loved the aggression of the game, hopped into the wheelchair and within a year was in the NSW team.

By 14, he was an Australian representative. Now 19, he is rated the world's best, and in a few weeks will be heading to the US to play for the San Diego Sharp in wheelchair rugby's biggest league, which comprises 50 teams.

"It's the only wheelchair contact sport, and that's pretty much why I play it," Batt said yesterday.

"I love that physicality, but it still probably doesn't hurt you as much as rugby union. You do get jarred a lot in the back by the big hits, and you break a lot of wheelchairs. There's a fair few injuries in wheelchair rugby, but you get over them. It's part of the game, so why complain?"

Dubberley, meanwhile, remains ecstatic he made that school trip in 2002, and that it led him to a special athlete.

"Ryley is an unbelievable player," Dubberley said. "But the really good thing about him is that he is such a great team guy. He may be the most dominant player, but he's no big head.

"We did play really well as a team in Beijing, but he probably got us a better result. In several of our matches, including the New Zealand match, no one would have been able to do what he did in those final stages."

Yesterday's training session ended with a moment of rugby brotherhood when the Australian players presented Batt and Dubberley with signed jerseys. It was a timely reminder as to why sport is so important, and that inspiration can work in many ways.