THEY sit second on the ladder and have caught the NRL by surprise, but not all of the rugby league faithful south of Sydney can get behind the St George Illawarra Dragons.

The union of an ultra-successful club and its iconic Red V jersey to a team fostering one of rugby league’s great breeding grounds made sense to rugby league’s powerbrokers of the late ‘90s.

Yet the addition of the word Illawarra to another team’s logo and the retention of a pair of socks was never going to placate diehard Steelers fan Tony Mather.

One St George Illawarra premiership and 18 seasons later, nothing has changed for him.

The Steelers supporter still bleeds scarlet and white for the club that played its last NRL game in 1998.

Nestled away in an Illawarra suburb, Mather spends hours in his shed that houses a history of a rugby league club that has been out of the competition longer than it was in it.

Like those who still pine for lost lovers, he is not ready to move on.

Though the Steelers were largely bereft of success in their brief but memorable tenure, they stood for something greater in the community according to Mather.

He hasn’t forgotten and he’s not alone.

His Facebook group for likeminded Illawarra fans is on the verge of swelling to 3000 members.

Some days it’s not hard to see why.

A meagre four home games a year for the region that gave rugby league two Immortals in Bob Fulton and Graeme Langlands hardly seems fitting. After all, as it stands there are only two Queenslanders on that same list.

To Mather, a home video of a Steelers loss still speaks more to him than an out of town team usurping his local neighbourhood ever could.

The sight and sound of travelling fans making the midweek journey to Parramatta Stadium to watch the Steelers play the Brisbane Broncos in a 1989 knockout cup game says it all about the Steelers.

They lost 22-20 on the day, but gained the respect of the rugby league public.

“Dragons, you’ve got a lot to learn guys,” he says as the Steelers chant roars from his TV.

To those that still leave their porch light on for the return of Stanley the Steel Avenger, he’s 100 per cent correct.