FIRSTLY ADRIAN, THE BIG NEWS: THE BEARS ARE BACK IN THE NRL. AS A NORTH SYDNEY LEGEND AND SOMEONE WHO SPENT SO MUCH TIME AT THE CLUB, A PRETTY EMOTIONAL ANNOUNCEMENT?
It’s very rewarding for those who have invested a lot of time and effort in it. It’s great to see that the red-and-black’s going be running around again in the NRL. What they’ve done is so great for the game – [every few weeks] we’ll have a team we can go and watch here in Sydney, it’s a great reward for those old Bears fans. There’s a few people I think are a bit disgruntled, but if you look at the [AFL’s Sydney] Swans, they were South Melbourne and moved up here; they go and play in Melbourne and still have a big supporter base there. The Bears might have set a precedent for an easier path to follow – they’ll be the first to do this [in the NRL] but I think they might not be the last.
IT’S NEARLY 30 YEARS SINCE YOU HUNG UP YOUR WELL-WORN BOOTS – WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO SINCE?
I always worked when I played, in IT for the NSW government in various roles. After 1995 with the Bears, I played a couple of years at Huddersfield then came back and started working in a small company, which I ended up buying and then merged it with a bigger company. I was also on North Sydney’s board of directors after I came back from the UK. I put myself through university, grew that company over the years and myself and a couple of business partners recently sold the company. I’m not in retirement – I’m still with the new entity three or four days a week, providing a bit of consultancy and leadership. That’s a short description of what I’ve done in the last 30-odd years!
I’m from Forbes, a town in NSW between nowhere and somewhere. I grew up on a farm, married a girl from Forbes and we’ve had three magnificent boys who are playing a bit of rugby, playing a bit of golf and enjoying life. I’ve lived on the northern beaches of Sydney since I got back from England, fantastic spot.
HOW DID YOUR MOVE TO NORTH SYDNEY FROM FORBES IN THE EARLY-1980s COME ABOUT?
My dad was a farmer, I wanted to be a farmer and there was a bit of a drought at the end of ’82. He said, just go to Sydney for six months. I was a soccer player – played a little bit of footy in my last year of school because that’s what the girls used to watch. I tried out in Year 11 but broke my hand and said, ‘This is a stupid game’.
I came to Sydney and a few mates had already been here and they said the best way to meet people is to play rugby league. So in ’83, I started playing local juniors with North Sydney Brothers … got a job in IT. A good mate of mine, Kevin Marr, who ended up going to the Bears took me under his wing, said ‘You’ve got some size you might be able to do something with’. So he and his family directed me down the right path. The following year I was playing for the Bears’ Presidents Cup side, then the next year a few games in first grade.
I had a bit of size on my side, six-foot-four … and probably not a lot of brains when it comes to getting the ball and running forward. So a meteoric rise, it’s very surreal when I look back.
AFTER A HANDFUL OF TOP-GRADE GAMES OFF THE BENCH IN 1985-86, YOUR INTRODUCTION TO PREMIERSHIP FOOTBALL AS A RUN-ON PLAYER IN 1987 WAS MARKED BY A SUCCESSION OF KNOCKOUTS. TELL US ABOUT THAT.
My first game, against the Bulldogs – my cousin, Andrew Farrar, was in the opposing side – and Peter Kelly got me, absolutely smashed me. Then a couple of weeks later, [Western Suburbs’] John Elias got me in the midweek comp. Then the following weekend I had a head clash with the cricket pitch at North Sydney Oval – so not a great start to my first-grade career. North Sydney were fantastic, they put me through an MRI and had the experts looking at it, who said take a month off. I came back in reserve grade and got a collapsed lung, so that was another trip to North Sydney Hospital – and a very short year for me.
YOU GOT SOME TRACTION AFTER THAT, THOUGH, AND WERE PART OF A CORE GROUP OF BEARS FROM THE LATE-1980s FRANK STANTON ERA STILL WITH THE CLUB DURING THE WATERSHED 1991 SEASON UNDER STEVE MARTIN. THAT MUST HAVE BEEN A HELL OF A RIDE?
Where I grew up, it wasn’t an aspiration for me to play rugby league or in the Sydney competition but to be exposed to that experience [in 1991] … it was hard to appreciate at the time. I look back now and say, ‘Boy, I wish I’d appreciated it a lot more’. The prestige and the support of the fans – I think now, ‘How good was that? How much fun did we have?’ We had a great group of guys. ‘Jacko’ (the late Peter Jackson), God bless him, he was the fun man; we had Mario [Fenech], Billy (Moore), ‘Daisy’ (David Fairleigh), Tony Rea, Gavin Jones.
[The finals losses] weren’t easy to take, especially the Penrith one – we felt we had it in our grasp but we didn’t nail it. Against Canberra [in the preliminary final] we were just battered. We had to try and move on, but ’92 was a very ordinary year and Steve Martin got shown the door.
YOU FELL OUT OF FAVOUR IN TERMS OF FIRST GRADE IN 1993, BUT YOU WON A RESERVE GRADE GRAND FINAL WITH THE BEARS – WHERE DOES THAT RANK IN TERMS OF CAREER HIGHLIGHTS?
We had ‘Jacko’, Les Kiss, Paul Conlon, myself – so it was a great side. In the grand final we played Newcastle, who had the Johns boys. It is good…but when we get together all we do is talk about ’91 when we went close [in first grade] – not to belittle it, but we don’t talk about ’93 when we won the reserve grade grand final.
THE SUPER LEAGUE WAR BROKE OUT DURING YOUR LAST YEAR WITH THE BEARS. WHAT WAS YOUR ROLE THROUGH THAT TUMULTUOUS PERIOD?
I was the Bears’ club captain in ’94 and ’95, so I got all the players together and we met with John Ribot and Lachlan Murdoch, went through their vision. Then we went to the North Sydney club offices and met with John Quayle, ‘Gus’ (Phil Gould) and [Norths CEO] Bobby Saunders was there, and went through their vision. I put it to the team and said, ‘Which way do you want to go, guys?’ They said, ‘We want to go with the ARL’.
I said, ‘if anyone wants to go to Super League, here’s the address you go to’. A few players went down there and they rung me at stupid hours of the night saying, ‘How good? Thank you very much, you’ve just set me up for life!’ I signed with the ARL, but the Bears said to me I didn’t have a position there next year. I didn’t want to play anywhere else so I went to Huddersfield over in the UK.
WITH THE UNFORGETTABLE ‘TOOOOOOLLE’ CHANT RINGING OUT AT NORTH SYDNEY OVAL, YOU’RE ONE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED RUGBY LEAGUE CULT HEROES OF THE ERA – AND ARGUABLY ONE OF THE MOST UNLIKELY. WHY DO YOU THINK THE BEARS’ SUPPORTERS AND THE WIDER FANBASE EMBRACED YOU?
I’ve got no idea how it started. I loved it. You’re running off the back fence and you’re picking out someone to run at as hard as you can, get the knees up high, get the elbow down and just go for it. It was such good fun. My sons now, when they’re playing their rugby at school, it pops up every now and someone will start [the chant].
In the 1991 finals, a heap of my Forbes schoolmates came down to the Sydney Football Stadium. They’re sitting there together with the North Sydney fans. I was running it up, the big chant went up and my mates thought they were booing me! So they got up, turned around and just told them to f-ing shut up, he’s not a bad guy. [The fans said], ‘No, no, no, mate, we’re saying ‘Tooooolle’’. But it was great and I’ve got no idea how it started. I was one of those people that fell into it. I was right person at the right spot at the right time.
COULD IT BE AS SIMPLE AS YOUR SURNAME BEING PERFECT FOR A CHANT LIKE THAT?
That’s exactly right. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve been blessed with my life since I left the farm. Work, football, kids – life’s so good. The only thing I would really want to change is just beating Penrith in ’91 to get into the grand final, that would have ticked all the boxes.
