Shorn Baa-Baas bring yesteryear back to Ballymore

Shorn Baa-Baas bring yesteryear back to Ballymore
Wayne Smith | July 14, 2008

NOSTALGIA isn't what it used to be and arguably the same could be said of David Croft, but both of them excelled themselves one last time at Ballymore yesterday.

Age before beauty, so nostalgia first. It was in the air everywhere at the home of Queensland rugby, as evocative as the smell of sizzling onions from a hundred creekside barbecues.

Nominally, the 4969 paying spectators -- and you can be certain the late and legendary rugby scribe Frank O'Callaghan would have pushed that figure to upwards of 10,000 -- were there to watch Croft's Queensland XV play the multinational Australian Barbarians. In reality, for many the rugby was dessert, something sweet to savour once the last drop of sauv blanc had been shaken loose, the tailgate slammed closed and the fire extinguished.

Only three seasons have passed since Ballymore last served as the Reds' home ground but in its final years of active service all Super 12 matches were staged at night. Not for a decade has Ballymore regularly hosted major daytime fixtures and most of those indulging in the old winter rituals yesterday would have conceded their hair was just a shade greyer, their eyesight a smidgen fuzzier than on their previous visit.

It was not all about reliving old experiences. The children got to try something new -- running on to a ground at fulltime and not being hunted down by a private army of security goons.

Former Queensland and Test number eight Toutai Kefu, home from Kubota to reinforce Alan Jones' Baa-Baas, remembers when he was one of the anklebiters tugging at the jersey of his rugby hero. In the days of his youth, there was only one player from his club, Souths, in the Queensland side, so it was always Grand Slam captain Andrew Slack that he chased. Ever-considerate, Slack always made it easy for his young fan by wearing his jersey untucked.

For Croft, it was a whole lot trickier. Back in the days when he last proffered an autograph book, Brothers dominated the Queensland side. Who to chase, Paul McLean, Brendan Moon, Chris Handy ... or maybe the toughest backrower ever to wear the famous maroon jersey, Wallabies captain Tony Shaw?

How fitting then, in his last outing for the Reds before departing the representative scene, Croft should find himself playing alongside one of Shaw's sons, Liam, and opposing another, Andrew.

As for the match itself, well, it had everything, a tap penalty featuring the Wall, a Brentnall "over-the-shoulder" kick and even the sight of a trybound Queensland fullback Aidan Toua dropping the ball cold with no defender within 20m of him. Eventually fitness told. Or, as Queensland coach Phil Mooney wryly put it, the Barbarians were right in the hunt until their livers gave out.

Not young Brumbies second-rower Sitaleki Timani who, as Jones noted, is as good a player as you will see anywhere. Nor, at the other end of the age spectrum, Wallabies halfback Sam Cordingley who in his own farewell to Ballymore tried to the death to keep warm a Baa-Baas outfit that by that stage had been well and truly shorn, 61-17.

Metaphorically, it was Croft who had the final say, toekicking the final conversion, a trickier task than it should have been right in front of the posts given that he was being squirted with a drink bottle by a pesky waterboy, one Chris Latham.

But, inevitably, the literal last word belonged to Jones. "A wonderful venue and increasingly I believe that rugby belongs to grounds like this."


Shorn Baa-Baas bring yesteryear back to Ballymore | The Australian