Jack "Bluey" Watkins is one of the Roosters' early greats, touring with the Kangaroos, serving in WWI and captaining his club. Picture courtesy of Ian Heads Source: Supplied
St George's Len Brennan pictured in 1933, the year the fledgling Saints made it to the premiership decider. Picture courtesy of Ian Heads Source: Supplied
FOR almost 90 years now rugby league's corner of the Anzac Day remembering, every April 25, has been the most fair dinkum of occasions - one that is imprinted on the tribal memory of the game.
So it will be this afternoon when the men of the St George Illawarra Dragons (originally just St George, the "Dragon Slayers") and the Sydney Roosters (originally Eastern Suburbs, aka "The Tricolours") face each other at Allianz Stadium on the footprint of the old Sydney Sports Ground.
In a sport which increasingly has its share of spin and contrivance and hoopla attached, today is the real deal. It holds up a mirror to so many years in which rugby league has been enthusiastically played in the Moore Park area on this one day of the year.
Through the ceremonial moments pre-game today, there will be respect and emotion - from the new generation of players and fans alike - as the haunting strains of the Last Post ring out across the ground.
The long link between rugby league and Anzac Day in Sydney goes back to 1926, spot-lit in detail in recent times by some forensic research undertaken by sports historian Sean Fagan.
Reported Fagan: "In 1926, the NSW parliament acceded to the wishes of the Anzacs, and football and horse racing were to be permitted."
Anzac Day that first year fell on a Sunday and, in line with Sunday observance laws, sport was held back to the holiday Monday - with league played at the SCG and Wentworth Park - and races at Rosehill.
So it began. Former NSW and Australian coach Terry Fearnley, who played in Anzac Day games for Easts during his premiership career (1955-64), recalled yesterday the pattern of those days, how service personnel from wars all the way up to the Korean War who had attended the morning march in downtown Sydney, would arrive "in droves" at the game.
"They'd come by train and walk up from Central, or catch buses or trams (until 1961). At some stage, the two-up games would begin," he said.
The players of two enduring clubs and the fans who will cheer them on may care to pause briefly this morning and consider the disparate stories of two rugby league men from their clubs who went to war for their country, one in World War I, the other in World War II. One of them came home to continue his life, and his career in league. And one didn't.
BLUEY WATKINS
Jack "Bluey" Watkins (Easts) was one of the very great players of early rugby league and unquestionably one of the finest lock forwards - although, sadly, his name rings few bells today.
Identify the great locks of the game's 106 seasons - Cann, Burge, Prigg, Norval, Cowie, Raper, Coote, Clyde - and "Bluey" is right up there with them. A demon tackler, his career with Easts spanned a remarkable 14 years (1913-26).
But he was missing from the club for 2 1/2 years - overseas "playing the other game". Jack enlisted in the AIF in October, 1916, and sailed to England the following year. As a member of the 2nd Division ammunition column he served in France, supplying shells to artillery units during such actions as the decisive battle of Amiens.
Finally home, after playing in a famous AIF team in England after the war, he promptly made the Australian team to tour New Zealand. Returning to the Tricolours he played on until 1926, captaining Easts that year - and having been a member of the premiership winning side of 1923.
LEN BRENNAN
The career of Leonard ("Len") Reginald Brennan did not scale the heights attained by Easts' legend and 1921 Kangaroos star Watkins.
But he was a fine contributor in the early years of the St George Club, a winger with the knack of grabbing tries.
His record showed he scored 20 of them in 40 games in the red and white (1932-34). From Ramsgate, Len enlisted in the RAAF in 1941 and trained as a pilot. On the night of June 7/8, 1943, he was second pilot on a Wellington bomber shot down over the Mediterranean during an attack on the island of Pantelleria, between Sicily and Tunis.
All the crew survived the crash - but by the time a destroyer found them the following afternoon, Flight Sergeant Brennan, 32, and all but one of his crewmates had died of the cold.
There should never be any hint of a parallel drawn between "war" and "football" in the telling of stories such as these. One is mankind's most dreadful running sore, the other just a game. The thread is no more than of rugby league played as an afternoon entertainment on Anzac Days.
The real significance lies in the historic nature of the afternoon - and in the chance for successive generations of young footballers to quietly reflect - to consider stories of the past and the tales of men such as "Bluey" Watkins and Len Brennan who went away to war.
For this afternoon's 34 Roosters and Dragons it's a chance to ponder a wider truth: The fortunate, random spin of the wheel that sees today's generation of players able to live their lives, play their game (and be handsomely rewarded), in times of relative peace.
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