Long lost rugby league team revives outback competition

ABC Western Qld

Topic:Rugby League

The Thargomindah Bulls took the field for the first time in 24 years on March 14. (Supplied: Thargomindah Bulls)

In short:

The Thargomindah Bulls have re-established a senior rugby league team after more than two decades.

Locals say the revived team is uniting the community, a year after flooding devastated the town.

What's next?

The first season of the revived south west competition is only four rounds, but there are hopes it will grow next year.

In any outback town, the local footy club is more than just a weekend fixture — it is a social hub where mates gather, rivalries are born and a little hometown pride goes a long way.

But in the tiny town of Thargomindah, 935 kilometres from Brisbane, the field has sat empty for two decades.

Thargomindah is in south-west Queensland. (ABC News: Sharon Gordon/Supplied: Daniel Roy)

"It was a Friday afternoon, and we were all just sitting around having a beer after work … I was like, 'It'd be cool to get the team back up,'" resident Dylan Andrews said.

Mr Andrews had just moved to Thargomindah from Toowoomba and noticed the startling lack of rugby league.

"Everyone said yes and then I printed out a sheet and just went around town," he said.

Dylan Andrews moved to Thargomindah from Toowoomba with his partner last year. (Supplied: Thargomindah Bulls)

"It was the talk of the town. Everyone was very excited."

About 30 names later, the town had enough people to field a team — a ragtag group of tradies, ringers, players from the original team and former NRL player Mack Mason.

Mr Andrews's spark even caught on in neighbouring towns like Cunnamulla and Charleville, where residents could not resist a bit of friendly competition.

Coaching a community

The Thargomindah Bulls may not have claimed victory in their debut clash against the Charleville Comets last weekend, but the loss has only fired their underdog spirit.

Training began on a battered oval.

The entire town has been recovering from devastating flooding that tore through the community almost one year ago.

Training on the flood-damaged field started in January. (Supplied: Thargomindah Bulls)

The man who stepped up to coach the Bulls only ended up in Thargomindah last year from Brisbane, when he answered a call for flood clean-up help on the ABC.

The 63-year-old put his hand up to coach after finding out he had a cancerous tumour on his kidney.

"I was a bit out of sorts," Mr Stitt said.

Liam Stitt moved to Thargomindah to help with the flood clean-up last year. (Supplied: Liam Stitt)

He said some players caught him in a moment of distress and encouraged him to come to the first club meeting.

"Half an hour later, I put my hand up," he said.

Mr Stitt travelled back to Brisbane in January to have the tumour removed.

"By February, I was back out here to start coaching because I'd given the community that commitment … they had everything bar a coach."

Mr Stitt has experience coaching regional football teams from Bundaberg to Weipa.

"The good news is that the cancer is all under control now … I'm coaching and I feel good again."

'It just gives everybody something'

The Thargo Bulls team pictured in the 1990s. (Supplied: Thargomindah Bulls)

Club president and long-time local, Tamie Warner, remembered when the Bulls played in the 1990s, and said sport was an important social part of small towns.

"As a community, we were missing in that, if you didn't ride a motorbike or if you didn't ride horses, there wasn't a whole lot of other sports for them to do," Ms Warner said.

"To get this up and running, it just gives everybody something, some sort of sport to do or to go along to.

"We've got people from everywhere, you know, on the properties [300 kilometres away] coming in to play as well that we didn't think we would initially get, but they're all really keen."

From weekly community fitness sessions to meat tray raffles at the pub, the Bulls are working overtime to get the whole town involved.

The whole town has rallied around the Thargomindah Bulls. (Supplied: Thargomindah Bulls)

"When I volunteered as coach, I said, 'Well let's make it a community-based team, not just a group of 20 men who get on the grog and have a game of football,'" Mr Stitt said.

"It sort of seems to have given the town this purpose where everyone's got a role to play and everyone can do something.

Queensland Rugby League outback coordinator Tim Wood has been helping the Bulls, Comets and Cunnamulla Rams revive the Western competition.

"When a whole comp sort of falls over, it's kind of rare for them to come back like the way that they have," Mr Wood said.

The first season of the revived south west competition is only four rounds, but there are hopes that will grow next year.

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