I remember meeting Tommy Raudonikis when I was a kid. He wasn't a big man, nor did he look particularly athletic, in the sense we would call a footballer that these days, but there was something about him, an aura, if you like, something that made you notice him.
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Perhaps it was because I was a star-struck little kid, a 10-year-old girl who could rattle off the names of rugby league players but couldn't braid her hair to save her life.
Born in Bathurst, Raudonikis grew up in Cowra, the son of migrants who had made the central west their home, and I seem to remember Raudonikis stayed well connected to the area, helping out local clubs with appearances and the like.
I wish my own father was alive, his name was also Tom, because I can guarantee ymy old man would remember every detail of this particular encounter with Raudonikis. In his later years, my father could sadly not remember what he had for breakfast that morning, but he could recount anecdotes from decades ago with an eerie clarity.
I seem to remember them both perched on a bar stool at Kelly's Pub in Orange, talking about up-and-coming young footballers in the town, they shared a hatred for Queensland and a love for a smoke.
I'm sure they'll catch up for another one in the near future.
Raudonikis' death has got me thinking about a few things football related. And while Tommy would most likely be horrified this discussion is morphing into one about union, it is. There was an excellent piece recently in a rival paper, where Tim Elliott pondered the future of rugby union.
(It was one of my father's greatest disappointments that both of his daughters married rugby union players, perhaps some weird justice that neither of the marriages lasted.)
Elliott's piece looked at the myriad of reasons why rugby union is struggling, from financial woes, to changes in management, to infighting and old boys' networks and complex rules.
But there was one comment that reached out and grabbed me.
Love him or loathe him, and I love him, journalist and former Wallaby Peter FitzSimons was asked for his opinion.
"Rugby is on the bones of its arse right now," FitzSimons told Elliott. "There used to be a magic and romance to it, and now that magic is gone, and what you're left with is a bunch of huge men, who we don't know, running into one another."
There are a few things in FitzSimon's comment that need addressing.
Rugby first cast its magic over me on a balmy December night in 1984. We'd just finished our final Year 12 exams and had gathered at the home of our English teacher to celebrate. I had been 18 for four days and may have been engaging in my first legal shandy. At some point in the night, after discussions about Great Expectations and Heart of Darkness had slowed, someone turned on the television, and there, in the wee hours, we sat watching the match between the Wallabies and the Barbarians, at the end of what's now considered one of the best tours of Great Britain and Ireland the Australian team has ever made. We'd beaten, I later found out, England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, and this game against the Barbarians was to end the tour on a high. What was that gridiron-like penalty move?
I had no idea who any of the players were, but when David Campese weaved his way through the middle of the field before off-loading to winger Michael Hocker, I was under its spell. I understood none of the rules. It wasn't too dissimilar to league if you stripped it back to its basics. Back then, players in both codes were more likely to throw the ball around, take risks, try something that wasn't in the playbook. These have always been the players I've been drawn to. Those with just that little bit of magic tucked away in their boots. There aren't enough of them now.
FitzSimons also touched on the idea of how (and I'll branch out here by saying it applies to both codes again) the game is played by huge men we don't know.
I think back to the days when we'd all head out to the Brumbies because someone had played cricket with George Gregan, or played club rugby with Matt O'Connor. I remember watching Stephen Larkham as a gangly teenager running around with Wests. I marvel to this day that he made such a transition. Lord, I even played rugby with Manny Edmonds' mum Maxine. Now she was a good player.
For a long while there, there was no real connection to the game. No matter how long we had been connected to it. I'd listen to former players, some who had even pulled on an ACT jersey at some point during their career, talk about this disconnect, and it made me sad.
I am hopeful that perhaps rugby here in Canberra has found that reconnection and it's sparked a little magic. It's exciting to see real Canberra juniors in the line-up: Mack Hansen, Lachlan and Ryan Lonergan, Connal McInerney, Rory Scott, Tom Ross. Tom Banks has been swimming in my pool so he's almost family. Watching a game is always better when you know someone who is involved, whether it's your child's Saturday morning match, or the boy from down the road pulling on a national jersey.
I felt as though I had the right to say I knew Tom Raudonikis, and the handful of other players I met through my dad's connections, and it made it all the more magical.
Sport needs that.