Plenty of beer and pies for Big Dell’s return

Wendell Sailor will do his best to avoid them, but the Shellharbour Marlins have promised enough beer and pies for the club’s biggest game in 20 years when the dual international returns from a doping ban tomorrow night.

Sailor has been named on the wing and will wear jersey No.20 at Ron Costello Oval for the fourth-placed Jim Beam Cup side, a feeder club for St George Illawarra, in their clash against Erina.

Sailor signed a two-year deal with the Dragons this week after a ban for using cocaine while a member of the NSW Waratahs rugby side expired on Monday.

“We’ve pretty much got a handle on if a crowd’s going to be this size, we know really how to cater for it,” Marlins manager John Costello said today.

“And we’ve got good facilities, we’ve got two beer sheds and two canteens and a barbecue area and a social club.”

Sailor, 33, is on a mission to reach his NRL playing weight and match fitness after a stellar career in which he was a member of Brisbane premiership-winning sides, Queensland State of Origin and Super 14 sides, the Kangaroos and the Wallabies.

“We’ve got the ABC, Foxtel, Seven, Nine and Ten, they’re all bringing their camera crews down so we’re very excited, we’re hoping for a big crowd and we’re hoping Wendell turns it on for us,” Costello, a cousin of Ron, told AAP.

“It seems ridiculous that one person can have as much influence on something as Wendell has had but it’s certainly a big occasion for us.

“Whether it’s the biggest occasion, I can only go back about 20 years. Certainly the best in the last 20 years.”

So big, in fact, it has even been suggested the crowd could outnumber the Dragons supporters at their NRL clash with Melbourne at ANZ Stadium tomorrow.

“We’re getting bandied around that there might be seven or eight thousand,” Castleford-born Costello said.

“I doubt very much that there’d be that. We get an average of about a thousand to 1500 people come and watch our teams when we’re going really good.

“We’d be really ecstatic if that doubled and over the moon if it trebled so we’re probably looking realistically between three and four thousand.”

Sailor has trained with Dragons this week before his first run with the Marlins today.

“We play off the same style as the Dragons … a player coming back from the Dragons fits into our team structure easily,” Costello said.

“It could be the fact that his presence there lifts the whole side.

“Alternatively, I suppose, it could be disruptive as well.”