It was a story of fourth grade club rugby. It was a story of a much-admired and seriously injured hooker. It was a story of a patched-up Northern Beaches rugby club that made the Shute Shield grand final on spirit, fumes and emotion.
It was a story of a thousand “Hillbillies”, the flannelette-shirt-wearing supporter brigade who travelled in buses to the Inner West and commandeered a section of grass at Leichhardt Oval, and attempted to will their team home through the power of beery cheer.
It was not, alas, a Cinderella story, as powerful Eastern Suburbs Beasts confirmed heavy pre-match favouritism by knocking over Warringah Rats, 31-15, in Saturday’s Sydney first grade decider.
It had started out gloriously for the Rats’ faithful, however.
Rewind, first, to August when Wes Thomas suffered a central cord syndrome neck injury in a game against Sydney University – and the northern beaches and rugby communities rallied for his family as good people do. With Thomas out, the Rats looked down into second and third grade for replacements, but found them thin on the ground.
Tom Gee, a 27-year-old data centre site-selector and the very definition of the rugby term “Thirsty Third-grader”, texted Rats head coach Josh Holmes – did he need him to sit on the bench? Holmes did – but there were concerns…
“Normally by the time first grade’s gone on, he’s had about 10 beers,” Holmes told rugby.com.au. “I wrote back and said, ‘how many beers you had?’ and he said ‘four’ and I was like ‘okay, you’ve had eight; I’m not going to go down that path’.”
But Gee’s initiative impressed the coach: “Straight away he was thinking: how can I help out?,” Holmes said.
Holmes’ faith in the new guy bore fruit. Gee scored a double in the semi-final against Randwick and got through plenty of grunt work in the preliminary final against Gordon.
On Saturday, when he caught Byron Smith‘s cross-kick, powered through Easts’ star fullback and slammed the ball down for the opening try of the grand final, the Hillbillies roared fit to burst.
Easts hit back immediately with two tries, before Rats front-rower Pat La Torraca scored to move his side within four points just before half-time. When five-eighth Smith hit the post with the adjacent conversion, the worm turned its head to the east – and didn’t look back.
If you wanted a turning point, that was it.
Easts went down the other end and scored a converted try. Rats No.8 Charlie McKill was sin binned. Easts scored again and converted again. All of a sudden it was 28-10. With 35 minutes to play, with a hot and strong west wind buffetting the ground, there were fears the dam could burst.
To the Rats’ credit they hung in and competed. And with better execution, may have snuck up to put the frighteners on star-studded Eastern Suburbs.
Backrower Luke Reimer scored the Rats’ third try and made several powerful plays, while flanker Zac Barnabus, lock Sam Thomson and halfback Ben Fuhinui – a hot tip for Rats’ player of the year – all peformed strongly.
Alas, after Gee was taken off at half-time – fourth grade fitness is quite different to first – and with a prop throwing the ball in, the lineout fell apart. Rain pelted down. Smith missed three conversions. And Easts played no-mistakes rugby.
Rats captain Ben Marr offered no excuses.
“I’m really sorry we didn’t get it done,” he said. “We tried our best but it wasn’t good enough. We really appreciate you guys supporting us.
“I’m so proud to wear the jersey with you boys.
“It’s going to hurt for a long time.”
As the saying goes, winners are grinners and losers can please themselves. According to club legend and Friends of Warringah Foundation Secretary, Brendan Paddison, most at Warringah will choose to reflect on how far the club came in such trying circumstances.
“It’s been a very emotional month for the club; Wes’s injury rocked everyone,” Paddison told The Manly Observer. “And with all the other injuries, we had so many guys stepping up or playing out of position.
“Seb Wileman hadn’t played in two years – he came back, he was just going to play fourth grade on Saturday mornings for something to do. Then he’s in a Shute Shield grand final.
“We also lost a lot of quality guys to Europe in the off-season.”
Paddison added that the club has now made five grade finals in 10 years “without 20 Waratahs”.
“We’ve got a good mix of young blokes and hard heads. We had nine local juniors in the starting XV. We had a colt on the bench, Riley Whitfield.
“And you’d much rather be in a grand final than otherwise. It’s always a great week. And once you’ve lost a grand final, the feeling is, stuff it, let’s enjoy it.
“As a supporter, you wake up this morning and you’re proud of them.”
