Old Age, Gender and Physical Activity The 'older the more valuable' Philosophy and Golf The Allurement of Golf The Moral Value of Golf Every Golfer His Own Doctor The Up Swing - Golf Different forms of Swing - Golf The Making of a Putting Green A Few Golf Maxims Watering Greens The Right and the Left Hand "Strength is Health”: George Barker Windship Health Through Sport Learning to Svim Svimming Learning to Svim - Complete Confidence of Pupil Swimming - Dog Fashion The Great American Spa Boom How to Train the Body for Health and Poise Medicine, Science and Sport Running Back to Nature The Changing Face of Rugby League The Bicycle and Tricycle as Aids to Health and Recreation Passive Smoking What is Strength? Health Insurance Decisions What Makes Man a Sprinter? What to Fish for in February? Sport and its Economic and Social Importance Use of Weights for Health Long live the Revolution British Football Does Ageing Drive Health Expenditures Medicare: Policy Issues Indoor Training for Outdoor Sport Starting and Starters Insured versus Not Insured A Case for Bilateral Taxation and Amenity Rights Theories of the Universe Babylonian Astrology The Wrath of Heaven The Displaced Zodiac and the Beginnings of Astronomy The Duty of the Son of Heaven: Orientation Time Was Once Relative Why Mohammed Needed Astronomers Hamburgers - Sunday and Holiday Variations	The Changing Face of Rugby League It is a great privilege to be invited to be part of the evening to recall and be thankful for a man of Tom Brock's ability as one of the great historians and admirers of the rugby league game. In sifting through a mountain of records to prepare for tonight I could not help but wonder if Tom was still with us, if he would be happy about the present state of the game. Tom was always the gentleman, but some of the problems that have surfaced over the last couple of years would undoubtedly have tested the patience of even this wonderful person. Tom and I had one thing in common, we were involved in rugby league when it was a game ... and not a business as it is these days. Rugby league has faced, and survived countless dramas over its history and I have no doubt the Canterbury Bulldog cheating, which exploded on the league scene, will rank up there with some of the biggest scandals in our time. As far as the most important people in the game ... the public ... are concerned, the fact that Canterbury abused the salary cap system has nearly the same impact as the introduction of the four tackle rule in 1967 and the takeover by Super League in 1995. Following the initial revelation talk back radio was deluged with calls on the subject with most wanting blood and for Canterbury to lose enough points to prevent them playing in the semi-finals. In his straight from his shoulder style, Mike Gibson in his column in the Daily Telegraph wrote: As revelations unfold, as the ethical standards of the Canterbury administration are left in tatters, you can't help but ask how many other people in Rugby League were aware of what was happening. The Bulldog players plead ignorance but what about their managers? How about this mob who have emerged in recent years, squeezing every buck they can out of the game for their clients and themselves. They know where the honey pot is and obviously they were never going to dump on the Canterbury club or any other club rorting the system. The NRL unfortunately is in a no-win situation and whatever action it takes in the crisis will be wrong in the eyes of some but realistically it cannot ignore the confession of the Canterbury club that they exceeded the salary cap...CASE CLOSED. But what about the dedicated army of Bulldog supporters who have been drooling at the prospect of cheering their team on that unforgettable victory lap on grand final day. Using the word, unfortunately again, they will have to wait for next season for the very basic reason the club cheated and they have to pay a very heavy price. Ray Chesterton, in his article in the Daily Telegraph, put it well, as usual, when he wrote: In 48 hours, the Bulldogs have gone from glorious to notorious, their ambitions this season crippled by the arrogant disregard for ethics, integrity, fair play and sportsmanship on their salary cap breaches. While we can jump up and down because of what has happened, let us hope the NRL will keep a keen eye on the other clubs because there is little doubt that a number of them could be in breach of the salary cap. It won't come as a surprise to many that I have been a great admirer of Souths for many years, and like so many, I was devastated when they were omitted from the premiership competition by those who have no idea of the wonderful history of the club, and as I suggested earlier, it was further proof that rugby league was no longer a sport but a business. What my good friend, Ian Heads suffered in the lead up to that magnificent rally in October 2001 was appalling. He had written a story for the Sunday Telegraph about the fight for life by Souths and their march through the Sydney streets on that Sunday but the story was spiked probably because it did not fit into News Limited thoughts. Ian, as usual, showed his class by resigning from his role with the Sunday Telegraph because of what he termed a 'seriously slanted approach and the disrespect shown to a club with the background and incredible history of South Sydney'. I make no apologies for the fact that I am a blast from the past and while there are some really superb players in the game now, and they deserve the accolades they receive, I believe I was involved in the finest era of the code and the mind boggles to try and estimate what Johnny Raper, Reg Gasnier, Graeme Langlands, Ron Coote and the incredible Clive Churchill would earn these days. My interest in Souths really started when the club signed Clive Churchill, a genius of a footballer and a great friend off the field. I went to the same school at Clive, at Marist Brothers, Hamilton, and even in his early teens, he had that very special aura about him. I remember one year he was a key figure in the Dodd Shield team which was a school competition for players 9 stone and under. Clive was the dominant player, especially in the final and for good measure kicked goals from all over the field, barefooted. The team won the Dodd Shield and Clive was named in the 8 stone team for the premiership decider the following week and despite the howls of protest from the opposition coach, Clive played and once again, he was brilliant. When he came down to join Souths I was at his first match and when he came out on the field after halftime, I bellowed 'Good on you Tigger' which was his nickname at school and he knew there was a Novocastrian there to support him. Not that Clive needed any support. As you know as well as I do, he was an incredible footballer, brilliant in attack and devastating in defence. The tackling skill was learned at school from Brother Lucian, the football coach who drove home to his players the need to tackle low in what he termed 'daisy cutters' and this lesson was something Clive carried through his superb career with one famous exception. That was in 1955 when he suffered a broken wrist in a match against Manly when he attempted to tackle an opposition players a little high. In those days there were no substitutes so Clive strapped his wrist at half time with some cardboard and went back out for the second half. He played his usual involved game and for good measure kicked the winning goal for a desperately needed victory. Souths went on to win the premiership, their third in succession after they were back in second last place on the competition table after the first match in the second round. A loss in any of the last 11 games would have put them out of the running. In the last months of his life my Sporting Editor suggested I should write an obituary and have it ready for the inevitable but a couple of weeks later I suggested it would be nice to run the piece so Clive could read it and thankfully he agreed. We sent out a photographer and Clive, as usual, co-operated walking along Coogee beach to give some graphic pictorial impact to the story which did win the league award for the best feature story of the season. My journalistic career began with an organisation called Australian United Press which was a press agency supplying news to country papers. It was a marvellous training area because in one working day, for example a Monday, I could be covering an industrial court case, re-writing some of the stories from the afternoon papers, reporting on the fight at Sydney Stadium that evening and then calling into the NSW Rugby League on the way back to the office to pick up what happened at the meeting. In 1954 I was approached by the Sydney Morning Herald to join them and I pondered about that for roughly a tenth of a second before agreeing. My first major assignment was at the Australian Swimming Championships in Adelaide in 1955 where I met such great champions as Dawn Fraser, John Devitt, Jon Henricks, Murray Rose and Lorraine Crapp to name just a few. The following year I was one of the sporting scribes at the Melbourne Olympics and our staff was about 25 which included copytakers and car drivers. For the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the Fairfax organisation had hundreds running round, but I suppose that comes under the category of progress. I covered another two Olympic Games for the Herald and the Sun Herald at Rome in 1960 and Tokyo four years later and for the Sydney Olympics I had the privilege of being one of the media liaison officers helping with tennis, taekwondo, table tennis and shooting. These sports earned Australia two gold, three silver and one bronze medal. It is not everyone who can regard, as a days work, covering a rugby league grand final, or a Davis Cup match or a rugby league Test match in England on a Kangaroo tour, or perhaps the final of the Olympic 1500 metres event in Rome in 1960 or Dawn Fraser winning her third successive 100 metres freestyle gold medal in Tokyo in 1964 or that great lady, Betty Cuthbert winning the 400 metres running event in Tokyo.