Seemingly muzzled by rugby officials over his code of conduct breach, Pocock is refusing interviews over Maules Creek matters but he did write a lengthy account of his motivations to chain himself to an “enormous super digger” on his tumblr.com page.

“The nonviolent direct action I was part of on the weekend was very well planned, with the safety of Whitehaven’s security, staff and participants our primary concern,” he wrote.

“We were a group of eight Canberrans, including public servants and a philosophy lecturer, and a local Maules Creek farmer who have grave concerns about the future of Australia and the legacy we will leave for generations to come.”

That only one of the nine people arrested in the equipment-chaining protest were from the local area further confirmed Whitehaven’s view that “anti-coal zealots” were making long journeys to protest the project.

“While the ‘fly-in fly-out’ protesters – funded by major offshore activists groups – have generated a fair amount of noise, Whitehaven has worked assiduously to involve the local townships of Narrabri, Gunnedah and Boggabri in this project,” Whitehaven chairman Mark Vaile said at the annual general meeting in October.

Pocock, who mentioned “climate change” eight times in his online missive, is scheduled to appear before Narrabri Local Court on January 14.

According to AAP, he was charged with entering enclosed land without lawful excuse, remaining on enclosed land without lawful excuse and hindering the working of mining equipment.

The $767 million Maules Creek project is considered more than 70% complete and is more than two months ahead of schedule with first coal exports expected to be railed in January instead of March.

The open cut project is targeting a rate of 6 million tonnes per annum of coal production over the first 12 months and has approval to ramp up to 13Mtpa run of mine.