As we worked our way through the NRL Grand Final reviews last Thursday, a story within the stories emerged. It panned out something like this:
Our regular columnist Prop in the Canefield spent the long weekend on a ‘grand final tour’ with three of his mates, travelling from the Gold Coast via Ipswich and Toowoomba, then on through Dalby to the town of Bell, to finally arrive at the hamlet of Kaimkillenbun to watch the big game. (Yes, there is such a place – it’s in Queensland!) Before leaving Toowoomba they indulged in a late breakfast at the Coffee Club at Clifford Gardens shopping centre. Resplendent in their Wests Magpies replica jumpers, they made a bit of a statement among the Sunday morning crowd. Here they are, caught in informal pose by a passerby.
L to R: Prop, The Crabman, The Prospector and Tiny.
The passerby happened to be our other regular columnist, Rabbit in the Vineyard, who was also in Toowoomba that day. Up from the Barossa Valley for the long weekend, he was attending a 40-year school reunion and visited several old haunts from back in the day. As circumstances would have it, he happened to drop by Clifford Gardens shopping centre to pick up a few items for a task he had to undertake. He wrote, ‘Whilst striding through the shops, I noted four men enjoying a late breakfast at the Coffee Club. All were decked out in retro Wests ‘Victa’ sponsored Magpies’ jerseys, and shorts, from the wilder days of rugby league! The Roy Masters era at Lidcombe. In hindsight, I should have introduced myself as a fellow rugby league fanatic, however I was conscious of my return trip to Brisbane via Wayne Bennett country (Allora and Warwick). I did pause long enough to notice the player names Donnelly, Boyd and Cooper on the backs of three of the jerseys!’
Earlier this year, Prop and Rabbit attended State of Origin Game 2 at the MCG together with Almanac head honcho JTH. They also spent some time together on a tour of the MCG Library. But 3 months later, 1600 kilometres away, both quite some distance from their respective abodes, both focussed on their respective tasks at hand, and hardly expecting to see each other so much out of context, the moment passed and no-one was the wiser…until our Thursday editor randomly saw a post on X/Twitter by Rabbit recounting his weekend and including the above image. Our editor put two and two together, ripped off a few texts, and ‘voila!’, the non-meeting was confirmed.
Time, place, people, context – to paraphrase Mcdonough and Higgins, ‘things just don’t seem to work out right’.
By the way, here’s the ‘formal’ Grand Final Tour photo of Prop and his gang:
Images courtesy of Russel Hansen and Matt O’Hanlon.
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Would Prop and his gang been a match for the likes of Donnelly, Boyd and Cooper? If looks count, then maybe! Or how would they have shaped up against Canterbury’s Dogs of War from the 80s?
Looks more like the Cholesterol Kids !!!