By Daniel Boland – Originally published in 2018

I have lived in Manly for 11 years, and on very quick calculations been to about 20 Manly v Rats games.

I’ve probably played in nearly that many curtain-raisers, almost exclusively for the mighty 4^th grade, and even then I understand that I am a complete newcomer when it comes to the history of this fantastic fixture.

To those with memories much longer than this period, I apologise, but I can’t talk to those times – all I have to go on are the stories I hear, and I believe most of those even less that I believe the claims from those north of the Narrabeen Bridge who refer to their part of the beaches as “God’s Country”. Maybe the Aztec God Tlazolteotl (don’t google it).

Even still, so many memories.

I remember Beau Robinson and Tyrone Smith knuckling up in the early minutes a few years back in Rat Park, to the delight of a crowd quick to bemoan the softening of our sport, when a good old donnybrook was something even the ref liked to see.

I remember Matt Cleary in the Guardian in 2014, covering the game from our little corner of the globe for the masses and forever deifying Dane Maraki by comparing him to “one of those axe dwarves from the Hobbit”.

I remember my own long-standing, lower-grade battle with a lovely bloke who, probably like myself, developed recidivist felonious tendencies come 10:45am each beautiful Saturday in the winter.

I forget his name but I thought of him as the character Magua from Last of the Mohicans, as he seemed obsessed about taking off the top of my (greying) head with a swinging tomahawk arm. I still have a chat with him when I see him in the Steyne.

I remember when the entire crowd at Rat Park forgot what colour they were wearing, and to a person helped in a hunt for a lost child in the dusk after the game.

Myself and my great mate Steve Trower found a 6 pack of Carlton in the bushes. Little Finnegan was found, safe and sound having walked home on his own, bored of the spectacle.

Legend has it that his father has never been allowed back out to the football though.

I remember the vitriol which still lingers in the voices of some of my friends, more than a decade after the fact, when they recall the year Sean Maloney ventured north. I know for a fact there are groups of mates scattered all the way up from Fairy Bower to Newport who tell the same story, one direction or the other.

I remember the days when the Marlins won at Rat Park, when you could sail south on a cloud of VB and bliss, when you could feel the tightness in your shoulders lift as you know you had bragging rights for up to a year. I also remember skulking home from that Warriewood wasteland, down the Pittwater road drainpipe to the comfort of the Round Bar to lick our wounds, and plot for the next meeting.

And I remember less than a year ago, unbelievably, screaming at the television and cheering for the boys in green in the Grand Final, hoping from afar that their year from Hell could end in something incredibly special, and being delighted when it did.

This year is different from most in recent memory, in that the Rats arrive at the Village Green full of confidence, as reigning Premiers and carrying the Mounties Cup and the Shute Shield (their first, for we do not speak of the Tooheys Cup on this end of the peninsula) in their arms.

Club Rugby is bigger than ever and the Matchday experience at the bottom of Sydney Road has changed immeasurably.

The steak sandwich of old has been replaced by prosecco carts, cappuccino corners and gourmet food options, including the patented Hill Burger created by Marlins stalwart Adam Hill, but the atmosphere is still as vibrant and partisan as ever.

I wouldn’t miss it for the world, and neither should you, or your neighbour.

Do I like the Rats, even remotely? Of course not.

But I respect them, and the history of this derby game, more than I can ever express.

I’ll welcome them, as ever, down to Manly Oval and I hope I’ll wave them goodbye just as enthusiastically.