Steve Roach

Who's next? Okay,

blocker, big blocker, Steve Roach.

Again, he was one of the players that I used to model my game on or keep an eye on, seeing what he was doing.

Again, he was just a big human in the middle of the field and he was angry.

But, yeah, that often gets overlooked.

That's the side people don't see.

Alan Langer, Steve Roach, who's next? Oh, yeah, this

one's probably a bit left field, but Spencer Lenu.

Frano Batica knocked over four goals, a 24 to 8 stunner.

But I guess what a lot of people still remember the match for, the sight of Dean Lonergan convulsing on the ground after a clash with the rather large head of Blocker Roach.

It wouldn't happen now, but he got back up again, eventually made some sort of recovery, went out, played on, made countless tackles, made one especially strong second half charge, and the writhing on the ground bit prompted a brief trend of people doing it at parties.

Uh, the, the Aussies were rather stung, and they came back to win the next two tests, but by 40, but hey.

And I got to know, um, uh, Billy and his wife, and they run marathons.

Anyway, Billy's good mates with, uh, Ben Elias and Paul Sirinen and Steve, uh, Steve Roach.

Yeah.

And so he'd get 'em on the phone occasionally and let me talk to them.

You had Gary Freeman up against Ricky Stuart.

The great Steve Roach up against Brent Todd.

Benny Elias up against Steve Walters.

Steve Edmed, young son plays for the Wallabies, up against the great Glenn Lazarus.

[laughs]

Mate, I was-

We're brothers in crime.

[laughs]

...

I, I'll tell you now, it'd be 99% of them would be signing a waiver.

Mate, Steve Roach said this to me, oh, probably a couple of months back.

He said, "Mate, honestly," he goes, "I know it's, you know, a major con- health concern for people these days," but he said, "If I had to sign whatever to play back then," he said, "I just wanted to play."

There's lots more to come.

Steve Roach and Craig Gower will join us later, but more with the Journos in a second.

No finals footy, of course, tomorrow night.

But it is a Thursday night, which means finals footy with Matty Johns.