There’s a famous yarn from Brisbane and coach Kevin Walters, back when one of rugby league’s great comedians and competitors saddled up for his 14th first-grade season in his 33rd year on this rock.
Walters had spent the majority of his career running alongside fellow jester Allan Langer at the back of the training pack, cracking gags and winning premierships for the Broncos in the process.
But when Langer left the club, Walters was captain for the 2000 pre-season, and strode from the back of the pack to the very front in the club’s infamous seven kilometre bush run around The Gap.
He was rarely headed in any fitness drill that season, leading a star-studded roster of internationals and Origin stars to yet another title.
Possessing a supremely talented young squad but needing a captain of similar ilk a few years ago, Walters went to market and bought a 30-year-old Adam Reynolds when South Sydney wouldn’t offer him more than a one-year extension.
On Thursday Reynolds squares off with his old halves partner Cody Walker, another ageless clown prince in a season featuring more players aged 30 or over than ever before in the NRL era.
The stakes are raised by one veteran playmaker and one of the NRL’s glamour clubs walking away from Suncorp Stadium with a 0-2 start to the season.
Walker (34) and Reynolds (33) have seen it all before though, and lead a clutch of Tom Brady-esque playmakers in the game right now, with Daly Cherry-Evans (35), Ben Hunt and Shaun Johnson (both 33) all playing the best footy of their careers as they grow slower in the legs but quicker between the ears.
Is 40 the new 30? Not quite, but it’s getting closer in a brutal NRL world
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13.03.2024
There’s a famous yarn from Brisbane and coach Kevin Walters, back when one of rugby league’s great comedians and competitors saddled up for his 14th first-grade season in his 33rd year on this rock.
Walters had spent the majority of his career running alongside fellow jester Allan Langer at the back of the training pack, cracking gags and winning premierships for the Broncos in the process.
But when........
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