Devils Ready To Rumble

John Manchester gets set to fire a pass away while Clint Stevens covers the ruck area against West Wyalong at home this season. The Devils will be taking on the Temora Tuskers in the Central West Graincorp South Grand Final, this Saturday at Robert’s Park at 3:15pm.

When training commenced before the 2018 season, the Harden Red Devils set one goal. That goal was to win all their home games. This was designed to make Robert’s Park, their home ground, a fortress, a place to be feared for opposition teams. Sometimes football players will defend their home turf a little harder than an away game. No-one likes being beaten at home. The sound of the opposition screaming their team song on your dirt and your grass, can be very upsetting to some.

The Devils didn’t quite reach their goal but they went on to exceed expectations and are now just days away from playing in the club’s First Grand Final in 12 years. The township of Harden Murrumburrah consists of just 2500 locals with a number of small villages surrounding the twin towns, set between Wagga and Canberra in what is referred to as the best wheat growing land in Australia.

The Devils have often played a Forwards orientated game over the last 4 decades and they can revert to this when things don’t go to plan. However, this year’s side has a slick backline to back up the ‘Piggies’. Names which are synonymous with football in the area: O’Connor, Lenehan and Quinn to name but a few. The backline is now a strength, not a weakness for Harden and it may be the difference if the Harden forwards can set a platform for their flashy and traditionally more ‘handsome’ teammates. Well, there has always been a rivalry in Rugby between the Backs and the Forwards.

Hooker Charlie Butt gets a pass away.

Regular season home games often traditionally deliver more players than away games. It’s easier for local players to make the local game if they work a Saturday morning or have other commitments to which they need to attend. Some are out fencing, some are feeding sheep, some of our Devils are attending to sick animals. Some are providing medication to sick humans. Some have been planting crops in dry ground in what appears to be a ‘green drought’ on the south west slopes of New South Wales. These men don’t know what their efforts will yield come harvest time, if anything. All have one way or another been affected by the drought which has taken hold of 99% of the state. Some Devils spend their entire week feeding stock. Some see the rise in mental health issues come through their front door at the local pharmacy.

Winger Josh Quinn breaks a tackle.

Rugby Union has become a welcome distraction for these young, and not so young men. The ages for players in this year’s side seems to have stretched a little further than your usual country side. Some players are in their late teens. Their Coach Adam Walsh is 38 years of age and has seen more Rugby than most. He was here in 2006 and played Prop in the Premiership winning side among two other current players.

Adam Walsh prepares for the kick-off as the Devils go ahead 27-5 at Temora.

A former Australian Schoolboy and Randwick First Grader, he hasn’t strayed too far from Rugby but has raised a young family over the last couple of years. He has played with Wallabies and Super Rugby Players. He’s seen it all. Been there and done that. The local Pharmacist, he plays a vital role in the small community.

Half-Back John Manchester embraces Inside Centre Jack O’Connor after the opening try in the Major Semi Final at Temora.

The side’s Half-back John Manchester was also there in 06. He has been breeding and raising Corriedales at the family property at Kingsvale with his family, most of his life. Manchester is a superb Half-Back, although his chit chat throughout the regular season can be lower than what would be expected by some for a man of his experience. He doesn’t have to be noisy, he leads by example. If there aren’t enough Forwards at the Ruck, the diminutive Half will dive in and clean out, and will leave the pass to another teammate. Manchester will revel in Saturday’s match. He has waited 12 years to again taste the success of a home Grand Final win. Expect more chatter and an increased work-rate, he is a big game player.

Number 26, Danny Flanery is in his mid-forties but still the fittest in the side. Also there in 06, Flanery played for the NSW Country Cockatoos in the golden age of Australian Rugby in between World Cup wins of 1991 and 1999. He played Inside Centre in 06 but as a coach you could put him anywhere. Flanery is an athlete. His skill set honed during time spent at boarding school in Sydney, his representative career and on the farm. Danny’s family don’t have a small farm but that wouldn’t stop him jogging around to complete tasks often requiring a utility vehicle. He wanted to be the best and pushed himself hard. He continues to do so to this day.

Jason McGuigan suffered a terrible injury very early in his career. Although he is also on the wrong side of 35, it won’t stop the former Boorowa local from doing his best on Saturday. He is a Devil through and through and first started with the club in the very early 2000s. Too much has happened in recent years for Jason to take a backward step. He lost his niece after the four year old was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Annalee endured numerous radiation treatments before passing away in 2015. A fundraiser in May this season in a trial match against his old home town saw $6,727.75 raised for Ronald McDonald House. Country people can be generous.

Marcus Ashton charges onto the ball against Temora.

On June 16 this year, the tight-knit community of Harden-Murrumburrah lost John Ryan in tragic circumstances. A much-loved young man who passed away at just 27 years of age. John played with the Devils over a ten year period and only this year had pulled on the jumper of the Burrangong Bears after a move to Young. His death rocked both the team and the surrounding communities. He will continue to be sorely missed.

There is another ‘old’ fella on the wrong side of 35 who plays in the engine room for the Devils. Ben Brady is a mountain of a man. Standing at 6 foot 5 and weighing in at over 135 kilograms, the man with the deepest, yet softest voice in the competition, has been providing the grunt which sets the platform for Harden for years. He is the brother in law of Captain and Prop Forward Clint Stevens. Ben spends his working life between stints in the local bakery as a baker and outside in the sunshine as a fencer. He has been fencing for the last couple of years.

Clint Stevens takes a hit up whilst being backed up by, from (left to right) Jim Honner, James Wallis and Ben Brady.

He is employed by Club President Harry Sachs and both men had recently grown very fond of a young man who had been working with them for the last 6 months. Isaac Paterson had recently joined Sachs’ Rural Contracting and was a dedicated employee before he passed away in an accident in the early hours of the morning of Harden’s Major Semi Final with Temora at Temora, just 11 days ago on July 28. He was 24 years old. The details of the tragedy were worsened when news spread around the town that two local men had been lost. Jamie ‘Bushfire’ Graham was also taken from the community on the Currawong road in the early hours of that Saturday morning. Both young men were well-known and the tragedy has impacted all who live in the area. Jamie was 32. With the coroner based in Newcastle, the families of these two young men are yet to lay them to rest.

This is what faces those who live in the country areas of NSW. Something must be done to ease the suffering endured by loved ones. Another coroner located in Wagga would make plenty of sense but this need has not been addressed by Government.
 
   The Harden Red Devils are a side which has risen from nowhere last year, where they fought on courageously but were unable to win a game, to become Grand Finalist against a town twice their size, in the Temora Tuskers.
   The ability to take on a larger town against the odds is part of the makeup of Harden locals.
   In first Grade, they went to Cooma in 2004 and defeated the larger town on their home soil. Flanery had a half-cast on a broken leg and still sat on the bench willing to do anything to help his side. In 2006 Harden hosted the regional city of Goulburn and defeated them 5 tries to nil at Robert’s Park. A win, which in many people’s minds, especially Goulburn’s, they had no right to take.
 
But they say it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
 
Aaron Seaman celebrates a try.
 
This Saturday the Harden Red Devils will be heading onto Robert’s Park on the banks of the Murrimboola Creek. A town this size certainly hasn’t deserved the tragedies and setbacks it has endured recently. It has been kicked in the guts time after time lately and still the townsfolk drag themselves off the canvas and face what is in front of them.
 
   I have written this work with the intent of focussing on the older players in the side. They will be the ones who the younger players will be looking to for direction when the chips are down. They have been there and done that. They can handle the pressure and focus. 
 
Shahid Khalfan puts Jack O’Connor through a hole.
    I hope I can write about the younger players and their exploits next week. They don’t need any pressure now. The younger players  just need to make every second count for the whole game. The younger players just need to make the one percenters like they have been all year. Try that little bit harder and do their job as best they can.
 
    In 2006 It took those with a few more years on the clock  to chip in with some short sharp directions, to re-focus before the second half onslaught when not much was being said at
half-time.
 
   That’s all history now. The Devils will be out to create their own history. The dirty red carpet has been long gone from the clubhouse and it kept plenty of secrets amongst its fibres. Although, If the men in Red win, they will party like it’s 1999.
 
 
   Nothing changes for the 26 players heading into Saturday’s clash. A game of Rugby Union will need to be played by two sides and won by one.
 
   They say Rugby is the game they play in heaven. For the Devils and the local community it has been a Hellish year. Let’s hope the boys in red can claim a win and add another Premiership to the cabinet. If they can’t, it won’t be the end of the world. Something tells me Harden and the Devils will keep fighting in the most difficult of circumstances.
    They don’t know any other way.
 
MS.