Poetic justice for Wagga City

The most unlikely of culprits, a passion-fuelled adaptation of Banjo Patterson's classic The Geebung Polo Club has put Tahs offside with one of their greatest SIRU rivals.

Written by former president Dave Mundy, the poem was trotted out at the traditional post-game presentations as the Boiled Lollies celebrated a second consecutive victory over Tahs in round 13.

"We were all sitting at pressos and Dave got up and said he had something to say, it took us all by surprise, actually," Wagga City coach Mick Small told The Daily Advertiser yesterday.

"He just came out with this poem and caught us all on the hop, it's something we hadn't heard before and the boys loved it."

Intended as a motivator for the Boiled Lollies, Mundy's poem was a club secret for several years before its timely reveal at presentations four weeks ago.

"I think it's always such a passionate butt of heads between the two clubs, it's heart-on-your-sleeve sort of stuff," Small said.

"Dave is like that, though, he's one of the most passionate people I know and he took it upon himself to do the poem."

While the Boiled Lollies revelled in Mundy's clever adaptation, Tahs coach Mick Barrett insists the haunting message of the poem will be ringing in his players' ears on Saturday.

"If anything, I think it'll be a bit of motivation for some of the boys," he said.

Hitting the business end of the SIRU season, Mundy said the timing was perfect to roll out his stirring poem before Saturday's sudden death clash with Tahs at Conolly Rugby Complex.

"There's a long history there,"Mundy said.

"I originally heard it when I played football 20 something years ago and then I adapted it to Wagga City.

"It's been around for a while but I guess it's about time it was brought out."

Read the poem below

The Wagga City Rugby Club

By Dave Mundy

It’s where they breed sports heroes, in the land of many a pub

They formed an institution called the Wagga City Rugby Club.

They had tall and robust forwards who hunted as a pack 

And never was formed a team that could match them in the backs

For their style of playing rugby was irregular and rash

They had mighty little science but a mighty lot of dash

And they wore these funny jumpers, looked like lollies too hard to bite

Some say a vision splendid, but I’m not the one to skite

And they used to train those players chasing women in the pub

They were demons were the members of the Wagga City Rugby Club.

Now, it was somewhere down Romano’s way, in the late night smoke and steam

A football team existed called the Waratahs Rugby Team

As a social institution was a marvellous success

For their members were distinguished by exclusiveness and dress.

They had natty little jumpers that were blue and bright and sleek

For their cultivated owners only wore them once a week.

So they set off up to Conolly in pursuit of sport and fame

For they meant to show the City boys how they ought to play the game

And they took their girlfriends with them just to give their boots a rub

Ere they started operations on the Wagga City Rugby Club.

Now my listener can imagine how the contest ebbed and flowed

Once the City boys got going it was time to clear the road

The game was so terrific only half the time was gone

A spectator’s leg was broken just from merely looking on.

They rucked with one another till the field was strewn with dead

And the score was kept so even that they neither got ahead

And the Waratahs Rugby captain, when he tumbled down to die,

Was the last surviving player so the game was called a tie.

Then the captain of the City boys raised him slowly from the ground,

Though his wounds were mostly sprig marks, yet he fiercely gazed around

There was no-one to oppose him, all the rest were in a trance

So he struggled to his feet for his last surviving chance

For he meant to make an effort to bring victory to his side

He made the line and scored it then he tumbled down and died.

By Conolly Rugby Complex where the goal posts gently sway 

There’s a row of little gravestones from which the payers keep away

For they bear a crude inscription saying “Stranger, drop a tear,

For the Waratahs Rugby players and the City Boys lie here

And on misty, moonlit evenings when the stray dogs howl around

You can see their shadows flitting down that phantom football ground

You can hear the loud collisions as the flying players meet

And the rattle of the knuckles and the rush of forwards feet

Till the terrified spectator runs like blazes to the pub,

He’s been haunted by the spectre of the Wagga City Rugby Club.