'Pie' brings greats to HayJAMES BUCKLEY
05 Mar, 2011 01:00 AM
The last time Mal Meninga, Laurie Daley, David Furner, Ken Nagas, Quentin Pongia and Bradley Clyde lined up next to each other on a footy field, they won a premiership for the Canberra Raiders.
More than 16 years on from that memorable 36-12 hammering of Canterbury to claim the club's most recent title the Raiders greats will reunite in this afternoon's annual Pie in the Sky clash against the Hay Magpies.
Meninga may be past the days where he could intercept the football and dispose of a chasing Jarrod McCracken in one herculean motion. And Nagas has dropped a few yards of the electric pace he boasted in his prime. But according to Daley, a few of his ex-teammates will pick up right where they left off.
''I would think that Bradley Clyde would still have most of the NRL covered,'' Daley said. ''He is a machine. He would be the best trainer I have ever seen ...
''I can't play a lot in these types of games because my knees are crook but I'll look forward to getting out there and having a few minutes running around, and hopefully not getting tackled or making a tackle.
''I don't want it to turn into a tough game because I don't really want to get the shoulders working that heavily.
''We'll leave it to the younger guys to do a lot of the running and tackling.''
Organiser Ken Beissel is expecting about 5000 spectators to pile into Hay Park Oval in anticipation of the Magpies' return to top-grade country rugby league.
Like all clubs in the lower Riverina, the folding of group 17 five years ago was an almighty blow to Hay's players and fans.
But the Magpies clung to life with a move to group 20, and were given five years to rebuild a competitive first-grade outfit through the under-18s and reserve grade competitions.
For more on this story, see the print edition of today’s Canberra Times.
Source: The Canberra Times
Topic: 'Pie' brings greats to Hay
