He's da man: Darryl Brohman with members of the Kurnell Stingrays rugby league team. "I've always been relaxed with kids," he says, "probably because I'm on the same mental level." Credit:Tim Bauer "I think a girl wants strongness and sexiness," he says confidently. Brohman: "And what would you see as being sexy in a man?" "I dunno!" cries the kid. "I didn't think! I just said it!" Brohman slips the camera one of his comic looks, and another boy tackles the question.

"I think [girls] want someone so they can take care of them and they can love," he says. "And so they can speak to them if they're alone, and they can cheer them up." The Big Marn smiles fondly at this small piece of wisdom, his jowly face so expressive of nuance it actually serves him (and the camera) as an ancillary language. A bit later, the kids get to ask him questions. "Do you have a girlfriend?" ventures one. "I have a partner, a wife," Brohman replies. I'm still being bullied, mate... But I don't have any massive issues with it these days. Okay, I probably do... Darryl Brohman

"Nice," says the kid. "It is nice," agrees Brohman, and like me, the boys can see that he means it. Brohman points to another boy who's been thrashing the air with his arm. "Do you have enough money to manage your life?" this one demands, so earnest in his delivery that we onlookers, crammed into the shower recess to avoid being caught on-camera, have to stifle our snorts. "Of course he does!" another boy interjects dismissively, but Brohman doesn't join the hilarity. "That's a very good question," he says. "... I don't have that much money, but I'm managing my life okay. And money's important, but it isn't the most important thing."

"It's the love," suggests a different boy, but The Big Marn shakes his head. "No," he says, straight-faced, "I think money is more important than love." "Yeah," responds the original questioner, rescued from the mirth he hadn't anticipated, "because you need to take care of your girl or she'll break up with you." The boys ask Brohman, 59, about the worst injury he ever suffered during his own years as an NRL player. He tells them about a horribly broken jaw that had to be wired shut for weeks, forcing him to consume his then-favourite food, KFC gravy, through a straw. Earlier in the session, when the boys were asked what they liked best about playing rugby league, one tiny specimen shot back, "Smashing other people!"

Brohman stared at him for a moment but made no response. When another boy confessed that he liked being tackled, Brohman shook his head wonderingly. "Geez," he muttered, almost to himself, "that'll change one day." Darryl Brohman became a household name as a rugby league commentator, funny man and "fall guy" within Sydney's competitive and sometimes cruel sporting media. But long before that, his public persona was defined by a single brutal moment in Brisbane in 1983, when NSW player Les Boyd smashed his jaw in an illegal tackle during Brohman's State of Origin debut for Queensland. Even by the standards of the day, when dangerous tackles and on-field punch-ups were commonplace, it was an ugly thing to behold. Grainy footage shows the 27-year-old Brohman - an unusually skilled and agile forward - running the ball up for the Maroons when he is struck in the face by Boyd with what one sports writer called "a viciously cocked right elbow, unleashed with merciless intent". Boyd was banned from the game for nine months, and Brohman missed the rest of the 1983 season. The injury meant he also missed likely selection for the Australian team about to play New Zealand, an opportunity that never arose again. Boyd still maintains his damaging hit wasn't deliberate but when Brohman sued him over the tackle, the matter was settled out of court, reportedly for $35,000. A Penrith player in 1983, Brohman later joined Canterbury-Bankstown before ending his career back at Penrith in 1987. But the Boyd incident never really went away, and animosity between the two former players and their respective supporters continues even today. The kids whose insights and absurdities he extracts so skilfully for The Footy Show see The Big Marn as he presents himself: as a "big fat jolly fellow" without a care. But the reality, however uncomfortable he might be about acknowledging it, is that Darryl Gregory Brohman has been running into bullies for most of his life. We meet at an inner-Sydney photographic studio, where Brohman is doing one of his regular shoots for the Lowes' clothing catalogue. When I arrive, he's standing in voluminous undies, waiting to try on the next pair of king-size fluffy tracksuit pants favoured by the cut-price clothing empire. (In TV commercials, Brohman and other footy figures caper about, chorusing the catchphrase - "At Lowes!" - with frenzied zeal.)

For footy tragics, Brohman's homely visage is as familiar as the bunchy trackies and plaid shirts he models. The moment I'm in his company, I feel I've known him all my life. After the shoot, he emerges in one of his own Lowes' ensembles and we head for Kurnell, near Cronulla, in Brohman's Volvo wagon, racing the clock for his session with the junior Stingrays. Like his friend and co-host on The Footy Show, Paul "Fatty" Vautin, Brohman plays the role of amiable stumble-bum. Surrounded by ripped young footy idols, Brohman is the lumbering, putty-nosed clown who actually leads the mockery over his own appearance and comparatively modest sporting achievements. There have been times, especially during his other job as a commentator alongside Ray Hadley on Sydney radio 2GB's Continuous Call broadcasts, when the piss-taking has verged on abuse. Yet as The Big Marn (as Hadley dubbed him) reviews his life, it's soon clear that self-denigration is more than a professional act. His late parents, Lew and Coral, were working-class battlers in Brisbane's northern suburbs, where the "goody two-shoes" Brohman grew up wanting to become a vet. Later, realising he "wasn't smart enough", he settled for a job in a bank. He began playing league at age 11, progressing to first grade with Norths in the local competition where, at 20, he took out player of the year and best and fairest player in 1976. He married his first wife, Maureen, the same year, but resisted early overtures from Sydney-based NRL clubs. "I was a lazy trainer," he says, "and I'd look at those NRL players and think, 'Geez, I don't wanna train with those guys, it'll be too hard!' " Brohman eventually made the move south in 1978, playing seven years with Penrith and two premiership-winning seasons with Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. He played two State of Origin games for Queensland, yet still castigates himself for not doing better. "Mate, I was probably a back-rower in a front-rower's body. I was reasonably skilful, but I was just big. I wasn't fast enough to play at the back, and in all honesty, I should have been a better player. I was always last in training runs and stuff like that ..." (In his media roles, such self-analysis invariably boils down to something like, "Too fat, too slow, too lazy!")

The end of his playing career marked the start of a grim period. In 1987, Brohman's and Maureen's son, Gregory, then seven, died as a consequence of the epilepsy he'd suffered since birth; the following year, Brohman and Maureen split up. "I don't blame the passing of my son as the major reason for us parting," he says. "But I don't have much doubt that it contributed." Did losing a son have any bearing on his obvious connection with boys around the same age on Small Talk? "I'm not conscious of that, although I do think about him a lot. We knew he was very sick, but we never expected him to die. No one expects to lose a child ... it's just such a horrible thing to happen." Brohman and Maureen also have two now-adult daughters. He and his current wife, Beverley (or "Darling" as he calls her on radio), live at Caringbah in Sydney's south and have two daughters of their own. After the tragedy, Brohman tried his hand at coaching, but didn't take to it and ended up labouring and selling poker machines. Then he got a gig as a league caller with radio station 2KA for $60 a day. This led to his recruitment by Ray Hadley (then with 2UE), and - as his profile grew - to his current roles as a commentator/humorist with 2GB and Footy Show co-host. Asked what the term "fall guy" means to him, Brohman doesn't hesitate. "Oh, big fat jolly fellow, butt of all jokes, that sort of stuff," he says airily.

Was that always how his media role was defined? "No, but that's how it evolved ... At times, I did get the shits. I thought Hadley [notorious for his on-air bullying] was being grossly unfair to me. Hadley, and Bozo [former league player and coach, Bob Fulton, part of the Continuous Call team]. I was the butt of all their jokes. But I've turned that around a bit now. I fight back, I give it back to them, and I think people sorta respect that and enjoy it." Was he bullied at school? "I probably was, being a heavier kid. But in those days, I thought it was just the way things were ... you either put up with it, or took a stance. These days, people are encouraged to take a stance, and that's a good thing ... but I'm still being bullied, mate. That hasn't really gone away." After a pause, he adds, "But I don't have any massive issues with it these days. Okay, I probably do - but not [issues] that I want to tell you about!" In 2007, as community pressure grew to clean up dangerous aspects of rugby league, lingering ill-will surrounding Les Boyd's jaw-busting tackle on Brohman reignited. Boyd claimed publicly that before the fateful 1983 Origin game, three then-selectors for the Australian team told him that he could do whatever was required to ensure no Queenslanders were in the national side. (Meaning if they were injured, they couldn't be chosen.)

"With this in mind, Les unleashed hell on Queensland," Brohman responded in his Sunday Telegraph column the following week. He mocked Boyd's continued assertion that his tackle on Brohman wasn't deliberate, listed some of Boyd's many suspensions for foul play, and called him an embarrassment to his family and rugby league. On the same day that Brohman's column appeared, Judy Boyd rang 2GB's Continuous Call team on air to defend her husband. This led to what reporters like to call an "almighty stink", with team member Bob Fulton calling Brohman a "coward" for suing Boyd instead of letting such incidents stay on the field. It was an unconvincing argument that went nowhere for Fulton, except to show what Brohman had been up against over the years. From the Continuous Call transcripts that day: Bob Fulton: "I know exactly why you [sued Boyd]." Darryl Brohman: "Why?"

BF: "Do you need me to go into it?" DB: "I want to know ... Tell me." BF: "Well, what have I called you on this program any number of times?" DB: "Oh, fat flea, fat slob, which one?" BF: "No, the one that really hurts you."

DB: "Coward?" BF: "Yep." DB: "You believe I'm a coward?" BF: "Yeah ..." DB (A bit later): "... and Judy [Boyd], I'm sorry for doing this to you, you don't deserve all this stuff, but ... to me, rugby league is not about elbowing blokes ... [or] gouging them in the eye. You don't have to be tough to do that, you have to have something, in my opinion, that is wrong, and the quicker we rub that out of the game the better."

Bob Fulton later apologised for calling Brohman a coward. The Big Marn survived a prostate cancer operation in 2010, then went on a health kick, losing 20 kilograms. But his passion for fast food soon had him back to 145 kilograms. "I just, well, started eating shit again," he sighs. "It took me six months to lose it, and I put it all back on in three months!" When he was dieting, Brohman vowed he wouldn't lose his funny "persona" along with his weight - which, of course, has been the element behind both his popularity and his susceptibility to abuse. Fellow Brisbanite Paul Vautin - another comic fall guy who Brohman lauds as "The King" - believes it is his friend's self-mocking, jolly-fat-man role that kids love. "Darryl is a very kind man, an endearing man," Vautin tells me. " ... he's got a little round face, he's inoffensive-looking and he's always happy. He's a happy fat man, and the kids warm to him because of that."

As we approach the Kurnell Stingrays HQ, Brohman seems somehow revived by what lies ahead. "I've always been relaxed with kids," he says, "probably because I'm on the same mental level. I love that they have no inhibitions. Some of the stuff they say is quite racist, and I know a lot of it is bullshit, but I also know a lot of it is true." Most of his questions to the boys are prepared by a producer, but it's the way Brohman teases out their responses that elicits the best stuff. Today, when the freshly scrubbed young Stingrays are packed into their dressing room during Sydney's unseasonable heatwave, Brohman asks if they think the ocean is rising, and why. One boy reckons it's because there are more fish in the sea, pushing water levels up. "Water is attracted to the moon," ventures another. Brohman: "Who told you that?"

Boy: "My dad did." Brohman: "But if water is attracted to the moon, why is there water here and none on the moon?" Boy: "Because water can't float!" When everyone spills outside for a break, the would-be footy stars of the future surround their gentle giant, grabbing at his hands and high-fiving his legs. Similar scenes unfold at club after club across NSW, Queensland, even New Zealand - in what has apparently become The Footy Show's most popular segment. "Well, Fatty reckons it is," concedes Small Talk's ever-reluctant hero. "But he might just say that to give me a bit of a leg-up."