By Rob McLean
Rugby league in Northern NSW lost one of its finest, with the death last week of Robin Gourley, of Narrabri.
Irish-born Robin was an outstanding footballer – twice a member of St George premiership-winning teams, during that club’s magnificent span of 11 straight triumphs in the Sydney competition, he also played nine times for New South Wales, and must have been on the verge of Australian selection.
In the north, though, he is remembered as captain-coach of the Narrabri team which put an end to the five-times premiership run of West Tamworth and its captain-coach Bill Bischoff in 1970.
In front of a huge crowd at Collins Park, Narrabri won the match 32-9. It was a memorable day for Narrabri supporters.
Robin was a former Irish international, who came to Australia in 1958. He played league in Toowoomba, Thirroul and Grenfell, and with the Wagga Kangaroos, before linking up with the mighty St George in the mid-1960s.
He played in the 1965 and 1966 premiership sides – he and halfback George Evans were the only two players who didn’t play for Australia in those two years, but he played nine times for NSW, once as vice-captain.
The first time I saw Robin play was against my hometown Cootamundra in the early 1960s. I can’t remember who won that day but I can certainly remember Robin.
He was a wrecking ball – a fearless ball-carrier and a ferocious tackler, as he was all through his illustrious career.
That was his style – fast and furious. He was the toughest, hardest footballer I had ever seen.
When I came to Narrabri in 1968 Robin was already there – and two years later, he delivered what Narrabri supporters had been seeking for years, the Group 4 premiership.
That 1970 side was the best I have seen in a lifetime of watching bush football, although it would have been pushed to its limits by the 1973 Gunnedah side, coached by Roger Buttenshaw.
Robin could create mayhem on the field but off it he was entirely a different person.
He was softly spoken, in the rolling Irish brogue that lasted all his life, and was always pleasant, a likeable, yet undemonstrative man who was respected right cross the community.
He became a highly successful cotton farmer, one of the early “Australian” growers after the arrival of Californian growers Paul Kahl and Frank Hadley in the Namoi Valley in the early 1960s.
Robin and his wife Nerida raised a family of four, including second son Scott, who went on to become a dual international, rugby and rugby league. Robin was 85.
To order photos from this page click hereFOOTNOTE. Man of the match on grand final day 1970 was Narrabri’s Harry Cameron.
Harry joined Eastern Suburbs in Sydney in 1971 and played in Easts’ 19-14 loss to Manly in the 1972 grand final.
The following year, he went to Brisbane, winning a premiership in 1975 with Brisbane Wests, also representing Queensland in five interstate matches in 1975-76.
Sadly, Harry died in Brisbane on June 19 this year aged 73.
