WHEN it comes to bush footy, the Riverina's Eric Weissel and the Maher Cup are legend.
The Maher Cup might have been fought over by sleepy towns in southern NSW, but the footy was so tough and so fanatically supported that its fame spread far and wide.
As for the Cootamundra-born Weissel, he represented Australia without ever turning his back on the district he loved.
In his book about the history of rugny league in NSW, Ian Heads wrote: "Weissel was (and in legend is) the icon of NSW country football. He shunned all offers from Sydney and English clubs, preferring to stay in Maher Cup territory. There he played for a number of clubs - Cootamundra, Temora, Barmedman, Narrandera and Wagga Magpies. It was in Wagga in 1939 that he ended his career after a remarkable 18 seasons."
But the Maher Cup competition is no more and another tradition will end tomorrow when the Group Nine rugby league grand final is played at Cootamundra's Fisher Park instead of Wagga Wagga's famous Eric Weissel Oval, which has been sold to developers.
"[Weissel] would be turning over in his grave," said John Bond, secretary of Group Nine's Junee Diesels club.
"To see Eric Weissel Oval closed … it nearly makes you cry. It's like taking the Harbour Bridge out of Sydney. It's a landmark."
While rugby league has made a great show of celebrating its centenary this year - particularly in the bush - the code is doing it tough, even in the Group Nine nursery that has produced such greats as Peter Sterling, Les Boyd, Laurie Daley and Steve Mortimer.
Group Nine was formed at a meeting in Harden in 1923, but the Harden Hawks had to pull out last year due to a lack of players and a local economy pounded by drought and closure of the town's abattoir. Cootamundra, too, didn't have the numbers to field an under-18s side this season.
Tumbarumba has only been able to compete by relying heavily on players bought in from Wagga or recruited from New Zealand at great expense.
The western Riverina's Group 17 folded this year after 82 years.
The secretary of Group Nine, Leo McCarthy, said finding the players and funding was "a big struggle out this way, west of the mountains. Everything is against us: the cost of fuel and the distance our blokes have to travel."
Adding insult is NRL clubs taking promising bush juniors without giving anything back.
Such stars would commonly return to their roots to captain-coach. Mr McCarthy said an ideal "recompense" would be NRL clubs returning and subsidising players in the twilight of their careers to help foster bush footy.
In tomorrow's final, the Tumut Blues will take on Wagga Brothers. It was a Tumut publican who created the Maher Cup and Tumut was the first league team to win it in 1921 - and the last in 1971.
A Tumut official, Ray Carr, said league in the town was strong and the club was hoping to win back-to-back premierships. "We are pretty lucky we have so many young people proud to pull on the jersey and play for the town."
Local businesses were decked out in the club colours this week and there is also an active old boys' association.
But in years gone by, Tumut has struggled to find players and still fears the future, "like all the clubs", Mr Carr said.
The clubs of Group Nine don't expect their talented youngsters to behave like Eric Weissel and turn their backs on the big smoke, but Mr Carr insisted NRL clubs had to help country clubs, instead of just "raping the place".
Adam Perry, Junee born and bred, played 11 seasons for the Bulldogs in Sydney but returned this year as the Junee Diesels' captain-coach.
John Bond, of Junee, said Perry's influence led to "an exceptional year" for the club - "four or five years ago … it looked like we were going to fold for lack of players".
But reflecting on his own time living near the beach in Cronulla, Perry could see that encouraging more NRL players from the bush to do what he had done would be difficult. "I was very comfortable," the 29-year-old said of big-city living.
The ABC Grandstand rugby league commentator David Morrow will be in Cootamundra to call the Group Nine final. He grew up on the Northern Tablelands, played bush footy and knows its problems.
As a boy, he devoured stories of amazing Maher Cup games. On a wall of his home is a picture of Morrow drinking beer from the "Old Tin Pot" in Tumut.
But when it came to bringing back the glory days, he said, there were no magic solutions.