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With the Panthers and the Sharkies goin’ bush on Saturday arvo, it’s time to face the west and doff the cap to one of the great fertile beds of footballery – the beautiful Bathurst area and its surrounding counties.
This picture-perfect region west of the Blue Mountains cops some rough raps for being supposedly behind the times, but I’m here to kneecap these rumours before forcing you to stroll with me through the district’s revered museum of rugby league memories.
Being a chunk of earth that isn’t Sydney, the real West doesn’t get the props it deserves, and to those ignoramuses who mock this inland country district by talking slow and hitting on a dairy cow, here’s a slap of education for you.
While ‘misconceptions’, ‘generalisation’s and ‘personal experiences of actually visiting the locations’ may tell you otherwise, Bathurst isn’t just a racetrack around a goldfield, Orange definitely isn’t a frozen piece of fruit, and from what I’ve been told, Lithgow is possibly more than a train station with a KFC.
That’s right, these places and their surrounding regions are on the rise like a good piece of damper. In fact, it’s expanding so rapidly that the Bureau of Statistics has officially classed the area as ‘off da hizzle’, and in addition to this dynamite prosperity, there’s also a long and proud scrapbook of top-line league dalliances that propels a passion for the game among the local folk like no other.
So while Penrith and Cronulla spend the arvo beating ten shades out of each other on the famous Carrington Park turf, why not make your viewing time authentic.
Freeze your palm with a can, toot the car horn for every try and immerse yourself in the location’s undefinable magic with this guide to league in the Central Tablelands.
The Tussles
Due to the blood of local derbies clotting many of the playing surfaces and rendering them unfit for elite footy over the years, the region has been on a drip-feed of the class-A gear coming from the east.
However, dig in to the archives and you’ll see the games handpassed from the big smoke like discarded scrap are undoubtedly more quality that quantity – if you like pre-season trophies and a concept that is on its knees.
While Orange and Bathurst possess a rich past of hosting many Tooheys Challenge and Panasonic Cup showdowns as well as the odd stinking hot trial game, it’s the region’s sojourns with the City versus Country fixture that the locals look back most fondly upon.
Of the most notable, Glen Willow Oval at Mudgee hosted a heartbreaker in 2012 when the those dastardly City punks pipped the local goodies with a 24-22 win. But the pick of the bunch has to be the 2001 ‘Shellack by the Track’ when the Tractor Boys sent the Slickers away from Bathurst’s Carrington Park with a slamming 42-10 beat down.
The Talent
It’s simple – plot your trip due west and you’ll find a burgeoning display window of all-weather performers. Every product in-store is reinforced with outback steel and riverbank clay and guaranteed for 1200 years or your brown paper bag of cash back.
If it’s a granite pylon you’re looking for, then there’s beefed-up Bulldogs like Darren Britt (Orange) and Paul Dunn (Molong), plus some of Cowra’s finest cinder blocks in the form of Tommy Raudonikis, Andrew Farrar, and the man who played a grand final minus 50 per cent nuts, Chris Flannery.
There’s also the sweet mix of rough’n’tumble and nous in the form of Gooloogong’s Royce Simmons and a handsome utility in Orange’s Daniel Mortimer. I dare you to not be captivated by those sexy rural eyes – and Daniel’s not a bad sort either.
Or maybe you are looking for a skilled jokester who can torment the opposition at game time while keeping the sheds light and airy when it’s time for a post-match bevvie?
Get yourself some of Bathurst’s best with George Rose or some dude-power to barbecue your homegrown beef with Orange’s James Maloney. Alternatively, if it’s the young guns you need to keep the city mirror-boys in check, then flash the chequebook for Josh Jackson (Gulgong) or Jack Wighton (Orange). There’s truly something for all.
The Teachers
According to ‘Respectable Horticultural Monthly’, the soil in these parts is abundant in minerals, nutrients and finely-tuned footy smarts. Mind you, it also states the land holds a lot of decomposed cow dung and burnt-out Torana clutches too, but that’s another story.
Good nurseries produce good players who then sometimes go on to become good coaches – unless they are snapped up by the media, the corporate world or a criminal organisation. Some local greats who have trodden the well worn path from first-grade gun to first-grade stressball include Raudonikis, Farrar and Simmons, a trio who all hold satisfactory records in the 40-50 per cent success range, just the way the country likes it – sturdy and not too flashy.
However, the greatest piece of coaching grey matter to come from the loins of the Tablelands is Portland’s Craig Bellamy.
After taking up rugby league for Oberon in an attempt to simply thaw himself out, he moved on to be a premiership winning player with Canberra before neurotically redefining modern managership at Melbourne with his unique style of attention to detail and match-day tourettes. A worthy rural representative.
The Travellers
Many a legendary league legend has returned to the country lifestyle post-career, mainly to fulfil their responsibilities to the Greatest Game of All by spreading the gospel to the bush while picking up glasses at the Leagues Club on inflated wages.
There’s a long list of former first-graders who have completed their canonisation to the church with a stint in the sticks, namely blokes like William ‘Bubba’ Kennedy (Bathurst Panthers), Michael Sullivan (Orange CYMS), Paul Upfield (Bathurst Penguins) and Joe Williams and David Peachey (Cowra Magpies), plus former Tigers Paul Sironen and Kerry Hemsley (Blayney Bears).
Special mention must also go to former Canterbury stalwart Peter Mortimer, a man who captured the hearts of locals by moving to the sticks post-career to produce industrial quantities of plonk in Orange. Country to the core.