Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC)

This reminds me of '97 and 2001, the groundswell of support that, uh, that region of diehard rugby league rusted-on fans are currently experiencing.

Choc, what did you think of this game yesterday?

Yeah, I thought it was brilliant.

Um, I think the, the best thing that come out of it for me was just seeing how much further they got in growth.

You know, there's, there's multiple things that happened throughout the game where could've been that, could've been a penalty, and then the Knights would've been in a better position.

But, you know, like you get, you get the rub of the green sometimes.

No, you're bang on, Choc.

Like, yeah, there were three calls that we can pick apart and dissect to within a millimeter of their life, but at the end of the day, their halves didn't aim up.

Is there something that may be personal that happened with you?

Yes, but the day they actually hired me on as the director of marketing, I got another call from an oncologist at Children's Hospital of Orange County telling me my 12-year-old son, Reese, was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer called osteosarcoma.

So it threw me into this world of...

Not any parent wants to get a call like that.

We started driving up every day.

She was outpatient to Children's Hospital of Orange County here in Orange County, California.

And a couple of weeks into our treatment plan, we were leaving the parking garage and Jesse was in the back seat.

My wife, Stacy, was next to me and she said, Mom, Dad, when do all the kids get to come home? And so we shared with her that there's children that...

But yeah, I, I, I think the more the talking point is, is him being limping for pretty much, what, 30 minutes of, of that second half.

Um, either it's his calf or, or Choc reckons it's, um, it's his hip pointer, but I think that's the talking point in they've [laughs] they're gonna hope and cross every single finger that he's right to go in two weeks.

Choc, what did you make of it? Uh, it's gonna be the flashpoint moment out of the game.

Obviously, the huge talking point is Penrith win, they march on to another preliminary final.

They earn a hugely important week off, uh, which is critical at this stage of September.

I'm fearing I've got no idea.

Uh, but, um, yeah, he definitely didn't look 100%, uh, certainly for the final 10 minutes of the game.

Yet still, Choc, we see he's good enough.

Nick Stevens, we were pretty sure he was going, Kimbo.

It was just a matter of where to, and then he handled his last month at the club so poorly that Choco didn't do a trade for him, just put him in the, in the draft-

Mm

...

No.

And like a lot of it was around Mundine as well, Choc.

Yeah, Mundine and-

That, like-

Talk about a special send-off.

That's eight-month-old Juventino Moreno graduating from the NICU at Children's Hospital of Orange County after more than 240 days.

His mom, Katie, overwhelmed with joy when staff surprise them with a parade.

And when they got home...