rugby league, country nsw, peter beattie, editiorial, opinion, western advocate

IT’S more than 40 years since the great Western Division team shocked the rugby league world by winning the inaugural Amco Cup in 1974. The first edition of the the mid-week competition (played under lights and broadcast in prime time TV) featured all the strong Sydney clubs plus regional teams and a side from Auckland. Western Division – and all the country teams, for that matter – were rated no chance against the greats of rugby league but they came together under coach Johnny King and captain Paul Dowling to play a hard, unforgiving brand of football that saw them defeat Auckland, Canterbury and Manly (on a penalty count-back) on the way to a final where they downed Penrith 6-2. The giant-killing run was the stuff of legend, and the players became heroes across the Australian bush. Their success also kept alive the dream that Country NSW might one day field a team in the Sydney competition, giving raw-boned country players the chance to pit their skills in the Big Smoke without making the move to Sydney. Country NSW has always been a rugby league nursery but many country clubs face an annual struggle to stay afloat even as their best talent is snapped up by the city teams. But a bush team in the big league has never been more than a dream and even as the nation’s premier rugby league competition has expanded, reduced and expanded again the idea of a Country NSW side has never really gained much traction. So it must have gladdened the heart of every old bush leaguie to read a report on Tuesday that quoted incoming Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter Beattie including Country NSW alongside Perth, Papua New Guinea and a second Brisbane team as possible targets for a new National Rugby League expansion model. Let’s be clear: Mr Beattie’s suggestion is little more than a thought bubble at this stage and other regions across the nation will be well ahead in the pecking order. Then there is the vexed question of financing a bush team and building a single club from the many regions, not to mention the logistics of where the club might be based and where the team might play. There are plenty of hurdles in the way, just as there have always been. But the fact Mr Beattie would even mention the possibility should be reason enough for us to again dream the Impossible Dream.

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