Tag Archives: Broncos

Chance encounter with The King, and Review: Out Of The Shadows

1 Reply

During our Australian holidays, we had a chance encounter with rugby league great, Wally Lewis while walking into Brisbane Airport.
It’s interesting how sometimes you can spot a celebrity from a mere flash of them quite a distance away.

He was kind enough to pose for a photo with us.
In case he needed some convincing, to seal the deal I mentioned I did name my second son “Lewis” afterall.
I forgot to add that my first son is Myles, so we have pretty close to the famous Wally Lewis and Gene Miles combination.

Wally and wife Jacqui were lovely during our short interaction/interruption while they were on their way to the Dally M awards.
We were grateful, and it had me recounting to the boys again how inspiring he had been as a player.

 

Out Of The Shadows

A few days later at my parents’ place, the boys were flicking through some papers on the bookshelf when they came across the Wally Lewis book, “Out Of The Shadows”; by Neil Cadigan, and Wally Lewis.

We should ignore the fact that my Lewis saw the cover and excitedly exclaimed “Oh look, it’s Dr Phil!”

I decided to read the book before leaving Brisbane, as a result of our chance encounter at the airport.

When you’re like me and average reading 5 books a year, completing an entire book in just three days is what’s called a challenge.

Reading it was quite simple really. The book was a lovely and warm account. I’m probably similar to a lot of Queenslanders, who knew only some of the story of Wally’s epilepsy. The book gives great perspective. It shares the full chronology leading up to the diagnosis, and then living long-term with the disorder while still leading a busy professional schedule. I really had no idea how big an ordeal this was, and accounts from others supplemented the events along the way. It really uncovered my own ignorance around epilepsy. It’s no spoiler that the story has a happy ending. Many aren’t so lucky.

I’m glad I read this book, which I was certainly encouraged to do after seeing The King in the flesh. It made me appreciate how inspiring Wally is as a man.

A wonderful account of The King’s biggest battle outside of rugby league, epilepsy. It was nice to read more about the man who inspired so many on the sporting field, and now is arguably doing even more important work in lifting awareness of the disorder – and even taking control of your health generally.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

View all my GoodReads reviews

 

Also, I went through our Brisbane holiday photos from 12 months earlier.
On that trip we managed to catch a Broncos home match, where the boys got their first encounter with King Wally Lewis, the Emperor of Lang Park!

Wally Lewis statue

Broncos vs Parramatta Eels 24/08/2017

 

Australian holidays – August 2017

Leave a reply

Two weeks back at work, and I’m in danger of forgetting my two weeks holiday in Australia.

I arrived in Launceston for a change, as Elle and boys were visiting an ill family member. The next day was already arranged for the boys and I to go zipline-ing at Treetops in Hollybank forest.  It was a wonderful experience.  I really don’t know what age group had the most fun.

We had only another two days with family in Tasmania, before we flew up to Brisbane.

The next day we were “Show And Tell” at my nephew’s class when we surprised him at school.

We became quite odd objects for his classmates to ask some interesting questions. They were most interested in how far away is Dubai. How do you get to Dubai. How many minutes is that? How long does it take to get there. Then again, how many minutes is that??

It wasn’t until we mentioned the flight took enough time to watch eight movies back-to-back that the questioning moved on.

Then perhaps the last question was the most interesting to them, when they learned that I work at a theme park with LEGOLAND!  Lesson learned. I really should have led with that one.

Back in Brisbane, thanks to my parents we saw the Brisbane Broncos play at home against the Parramatta Eels.  The boys were super excited. It was the first live NRL match for Lewis & Owen. Well, for Lewis. Owen fell into a deep sleep soon after we arrived in the stadium.  Even with all the extremely loud cheering, he didn’t stir.

Sadly, most of the cheering from 12 seconds on, was for Parra.  Bronco Adam Blair thought it was a good idea on the first kick return, to pass it aimlessly to an opposition player to score the fastest try recorded in NRL history. I think Blair’s been in need of a Head Impact Assessment for all of his life.

Broncos eventually scored some points in response.  They even began dominating, until silly mistakes undid all the good work. The final score was 54-34.

The boys and I still came out victorious, thanks to a McDonald’s promotion.  The Broncos scored more than 19 points, so each spectator could take their match ticket into a McDonald’s restaurant and pick up a free Broncos Burger. Myles had already devoured one of those in our travels and was a huge fan. When we visited the city the next day, we got three … and then another, and another. Free food really sparked Myles’s imagination. We wondered how we could print and redeem the other 29,000 tickets from the game.

That day we visited the Gallery of Modern Art.  It happened to be hosting an Avengers exhibit.  They had lots of costumes and props from the movies. And we got to design and share our own super heroes (I wonder if my Library Woman character will ever hit the big screen). The most fun was certainly the BRILLIANT interactive character exhibit that mimicked whatever moves the boys would make. The boys (and I) could have stayed there for hours, dabbing and kung fu kicking as Iron Man, HULK, and Guardian of the Galaxy characters tried to keep up on the big screen in front.

On the Sunshine Coast we stayed with my brother and family. It coincided with the Caloundra Power Boat Club’s “Take a kid fishing” Day.  We had a trial run on the day before and caught a few fish each, which was promising for the competition.  On the day that mattered though, we caught almost nothing.  The boys were more than pleased to just catch a few toad fish. Three out of our four boys still won a rod & reel combo regardless.

Our nephew’s Poppy opened up his arms wide and asked Owen how big was the fish he caught.  Owen felt compelled to correct him, “It wasn’t nearly that big!”  Quite an honest boy, but not a real fisherman. Yet.

We tested out the rods a few days later. Again with very little success, except for a couple of toad fish.  Myles was so proud that he was able to catch one with his bare hands.  It might be the only thing worse than catching a toad fish with a fishing rod.

Then our time in cool Australia was over.

It was an enjoyable, relaxing time.

For our flight home I saved almost two thousand dollars and flew China Southern Airlines, via Ghanzhou.  Apart from a few minor peculiarities (like people’s carry-on luggage being a 12kg box of peeled garlic), I thought it was pretty cool. Their premium economy seats were better than any other I can recall. I thought we found a wonderful alternative, until at the baggage belt in Dubai one of our bags was missing. We learned that it was safe and sound, but still in China.  Perhaps it’s an indication that you get what you pay for.

On the plus side, it was nice to have a good excuse for not shaving on my first day back at work.

Suncorp Stadium given ARL honor

Suncorp Stadium, or the new Lang Park, was today provided with an Australian Rugby League plaque to signify its importance to the game of rugby league.

I have no issues with this at all.  The ground at Milton is one of my favourite sporting venues. I’ve experienced some great sporting moments sitting in this amazing stadium. There’s also been some not so great games, such as the 20 to 4 qualifying final loss to St. George on the 9th of September 2006.  I bring up that Saturday night, cause my disappointment made it to the television coverage when the daft camera man focused in on me looking dejected with my head in my hands.  Who cares, the season ended well.

What strikes me as odd though with the plaque going to Suncorp Stadium is that it is one of around 180 plaques being given out around the country.

Why so many?

It’s deserving for each significant home ground for each notable, or feeder rugby league club, but surely 180 is going beyond this measure.

I wonder if they’ve branched out from home grounds, and installed ARL plaques into the likes of the Dubbo hotel room of Julian O’Neill’s infamous poo in the shoe incident?

Broncos vs St. George – 15 August 2008

A few of us decided to catch this Friday night game at Suncorp Stadium.

It’s always good to watch us play St. George.  And at the moment there’s an extra level of interest due to ex-Bronco Wendell Sailor now playing for them after a period of retirement from active sport by playing internation rugby union.  And, also our founding and long-standing coach Waybe Bennett has decided to leave at the end of the season for the Dragons.

The game started well for the Broncos with two opening converted tries.  My mate and I thought it was the start of an easy victory for us.  Unfortunately the Broncos appeared to think the same thing and relaxed – not a good thing to do in any professional sport.

We still led at half time 12 – 6, but to cut a frustrating story short, in the end the Dragons rolled us 24 – 20.  We scored the final points which made the result appear closer than it was. Unfortunately we had massive defensive holes, and again we failed to score or provide at least a satisfactory attacking play when needed.

Another unfortunate part to the night was a minor clash with the people sitting behind us.  They were St. George supporters which wasn’t the problem.  The problem was they had a supporter’s flag which continued to be waved across my mate’s sister’s face. When she turned around to make them aware of this, the guy apparently called her a grumpy slag or words to the effect.  When my mate questioned him about it, he denied everything and couldn’t offer any construction explanation .. The guy was in his 50s, yet acted like a 10 year old wanting to start a school yard “did not, did too” debate. I’m glad we rose above it, and quickly moved our focus back to the game.

As we left, the guy behind built-up his vocabularly to sarcastically say it was nice to meet us.  Perhaps it was his version of the school yard “nyah nyah”.  We didn’t let it spoil the night, but they certainly changed the mood which certainly wasn’t needed.

Broncos vs Cronulla – 25 July 2008

I managed to get a free ticket to see the Broncos play the Cronulla Sharks Friday night at home.  The weather wasn’t great throughout the day. But that was of no real concern as the seats were undercover of the Eastern stand.  It hardly rained during the match, but the ground appeared a bit wet.

The Broncos were boosted by the return of a few players. The team won pretty comfortably in the end, enabling me to leave before the finish only to sit on the first train out of Milton for twenty minutes. Despite it being a good finish for us, the commentary between my friend and I referred to an arm wrestle for most of the match.  Contrary to others’ reports, I felt the Broncos were quite flimsy in defense a few times. They only just managed to do enough to prevent several tries through broken play.

Man of the match for mine was Greg Eastwood. He did loads in defense, and as per normal he also attacked strongly.  In fact, against all odds he supplied a pin-point kick to the corner for a much needed try, then he followed-up with the match winning try.  “Slammy” Thaiday also had a blinder getting over the line, and keeping the Sharks forwards on the backfoot.

Paul Gallen had further evidence of getting priority treatment from the referees.  They certainly seem to target him.  Almost every time he was a wanker, the referee penalised him. The pinnacle was a high shot on David Stagg that made Stagg see stars, and hopefully sees Gallen get a week or two in suspension.  Poor old Gallen. Quite a drop after his man of the match performance in State of Origin 2008, almost single-handedly providing the Maroons (his opposition) that series.