Russell Crowe Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Last week SI writer Richard Deitsch interviewed actor Russell Crowe for the magazine's Q&A. The 3:10 to Yuma star co-owns an Australian rugby team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs. Here are additional excerpts from their conversation:

SI: Last March you and a business associate (Peter Holmes a Court) purchased 75 percent of the South Sydney club. Why did you want to be a sports owner?

Crowe: Basically, because if I didn't do it, no one else would and the team would be left to the situation it was already in, which was being run by a management style that wasn't focused on the players. Your players are your lifeblood. How they perform and how they relate to the audience is what your focus should be. For so many years the focus had been on the administration and not on the players and the fans. That's probably the biggest change we made. This is now a players' club. When I was a kid this team was an indomitable force. In the years since, that reputation had been eroded. We wanted to bring the club back to when the red and green [the team's colors] and the rabbit were symbols of power in the game.

SI: South Sydney is the most successful professional team in the history of Australian rugby league with 20 first grade premierships, but you have not won a Premiership since 1971. However, for the first time since 1989, the Rabbitohs qualified for the playoff finals. How gratifying is it to be in the playoffs?

Crowe: We have tried to put in place a lot of big ideas, so it's been kind of gratifying to see that culture grow around us. We are seeing the results on the field and off the field, touch wood. The culture change is beginning to take place. I'm not sure the New York Yankees have ever been through a dark period like we have been through, but I think we have reset the culture of the club.

SI: If South Sydney is the Yankees of your sport, does that mean you are the George Steinbrenner of the Rugby League?

Crowe: No, because it's not that sort of money. We are heavily controlled by a salary cap of $4 million. You have to make your club attractive on many levels. What we are working on at the moment is purely our instincts on what was not there and should be there. We are trying to provide the right platform for our coaches and our administration staff to set for our players. And the players have responded accordingly.

SI: How did you make the playoffs?

Crowe: We beat a team called the Wests Tigers 37-12 to jump into position seven of the top eight. [Note: The Rabbitohs play the Sea Eagles on Sept. 8 in the opening round of the playoffs.] That is a gigantic step forward for the club considering we were dead last the year before and have finished last nine times in the past 15 years.

SI: What would a championship mean to you?

Crowe: The aim is to make your squad enjoy being together, enjoy the style of leadership, and to achieve because you have set the platform clearly for them. If South Sydney achieves its 21st premiership under our stewardship, that's going to be an amazing thing.

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