Through the seasons since 1980, a torn quick on a NSW toenail here, a Queensland hamstring tweak there, an annual rising tide of faux (or real?) hatred, a provocative word at a press conference and perhaps even – praise be! – such richness as a curfew broken on a team night out! All such offerings  have been swooped upon gratefully by the over-stretched, hard-grafting media army. These crumbs of news are grist to the mill, fuelling a ravenous hunger that must be attended to daily, spawning stories that appear beneath mandatory steepling headlines. In the triple whammy of previews, the actual games themselves and the vast match reviews and reflections that follow, the carnival stretches each year beyond two full months. It is the game's golden goose and cash cow wrapped in one. 

The hoopla and appeal of it all drives home the certainty that Origin football (state against state, mate against mate, hate against hate, etc) truly is the game's Great Idea of modern times and very likely the stand-out since 1908, the year that James J. Giltinan, Dally Messenger and some other good ol' boys got together in Sydney town to kick off the 13-a-side version of rugby. 

However, with all its hustle and bustle and hyperbole, the Origin Daze can be wearing, too – even for one who has been somewhere in the vicinity of the game since a wet Saturday in 1950 when two uncles steered me through the gates of the SCG to an Australia-Great Britain deciding Ashes Test match that would assume a standing years later as the most famous day in all Australian rugby league.  Something akin to an eternal flame was lit in me that afternoon as a flock of Fedoras flew high above the Sydney Cricket Ground in the moments after full-time, acclaiming a thrilling Australian victory. For me, the contract was in place: Rugby league, the old "working man's game", would be my winter sporting diversion. And still is.  

Feeling nonetheless the need for solace in the shadow of the likely arrival of the Next Great Origin Bombshell, I slipped away from Sydney on a recent Saturday, waved down a passing time-tunnel – and headed south to revisit rugby league the way it once was, parking the car comfortably within five-iron range of Michael Cronin Oval, Gerringong, where the Lions, coached by the aforementioned, legendary Cronin (aka "The Crow"), were to take on near neighbours and fierce rivals the Jamberoo Superoos, for boasting rights atop the competition ladder. 

My trek came in the wake of depressing recent times in the rugby league arena when it seemed there was never-ending squabbling daily at lofty levels of the game, snippy enough to bring to mind the image of seagulls and cartons of chips. All of it was further fanned  by the daily dismal updates on a scattering of players, who, herded by managers, were discarding contracts and scurrying mid-season from one club to another – or threatening to. The per-season dollars under discussion in the game had by now soared into seven-figure territory and across the kingdom the business of money reigned. 

On top of all of that was the fact of the recent killing off and burial of the ancient and annual City-Country game, an event with roots tracing back to 1911. The Powers that Be had deemed it no longer viable in rugby league's modern world, although steps would certainly be taken to help boost country football, they promised. 

The jury remains out on that.  

All of it was chipping away at the sport – with the defining equation for league edging away daily from Game/business to Business/game. 

It was in that climate I decided to give Sydney a flick pass and head to the green and rolling hills of the South Coast on the invitation of a mate, Noel Walsh, lifetime club stalwart and a driving force within the Superoos club, alongside President Trevor Dallas and his wife Connie and a hard-working committee. In his passion for his club and team, Walsh has long reminded me of a larger-than-life character of my acquaintance of earlier years, the nuggety front-rower Eddie Burns, a legend of his club Canterbury. It was said of Eddie that the weekly rise or fall of his beloved Berries was mirrored with remarkable accuracy on his craggy dial. So it is with Noel Walsh. On the faces of such men at the close of big-match afternoons, there is either sunshine . . . or storm clouds. 

On a picture-perfect autumn afternoon the game that unfolded on the Michael Cronin Oval, set on a hill top above the town, was a beauty, intense and fairly fought to the final hooter and with some real edge-of-the-seat moments. The playing standard was strong, the tackling brave, the spirit terrific as I stood with a notable man of country football, Lionel Simmons, who had been captain-coach of Jamberoo the last time they won the premiership, way back in '74.  

The ebb and flow of a desperately close game was irresistible fare, the standard a tribute to the young men of the two sides. A single referee handled the action, and did it well, sans high-tech bunkers or the need for anything more than a couple of good "touchies". Play-the-balls seemed crisper and closer to the rules than the laissez-faire NRL approach.   

In the end it was the home team which clawed back from 12-6 down to win 18-12 on a late surge.

For their weekly labours in this era of the $1 million-a-season NRL player contracts, the Jamberoo boys receive match payments that are infinitesimal by comparison. "Essentially, they play for the love of the club, and the town," Walsh says. 

For the little (but growing) village the annual challenge of raising enough money to sustain a rugby league club has always been a tough one. Walsh remembers 1974 when a star signing, lock forward Graham Chaffey (now Dr Chaffey), was paid in cattle instead of cash.  After a whip-around by the club among local farmers, Chaffey was offered a unique contract: a calf for every try he scored during the year.  At season's end he had had 26 tries on the board, and so, 26 high-quality calves that would be progressively trundled north and become the nucleus of the breeding herd he was establishing at a newly purchased property at Guyra. 

At Gerringong today, the deal for players remains even more remarkable in a money-focused game, and it has been that way for a decade or so. Coach Cronin is happy to outline the arrangement to any potential new player who raises the question of money: "You'll get the same as the coach," he explains (i.e nothing).  

It is surely said with a smile. Cronin, who has coached Gerringong for nine successive years, to considerable success, has not received a single cent in that time for his labours. His club, well-run and enthusiastically supported, is a rare bird in the rugby league context – a strictly amateur outfit.   

Many young fellas line up to play, however, keen to have the chance of learning the ropes under the firm guidance of Cronin, a man possessing much wisdom about the game on top of his status of being one of the greatest of all goalkickers and a centre three-quarter champion of his era. Numbers of his Gerringong men have gone on to play at higher levels. An example of the sort of spirit generated in such clubs was on display that Saturday when one of Gerringong's best, Corey Mulhall, rushed back after playing in a representative trial match at Shellharbour, changed into his Gerringong Lions togs   and played the tense last 20 minutes. 

In recent years, clubs such as Jamberoo and Gerringong have been admirably pro-active off the paddock, supplementing the weekly football  by tapping into the reality of an exodus of people from overpriced, traffic dead-locked Sydney. Both have drafted to club and cause experienced senior people who have moved house to the area and who are now making enthusiastic contributions at both administrative and game-day level. Young families, no longer able to afford Sydney prices are in the mix, too – providing a steady flow of youngsters for junior grades. 

 For rugby league it is a positive trend, of people drawn together by what becomes a beloved cause getting on with the task of sustaining, as best they possibly can, clubs that have been around for scores of years – although, just as it is with the tough game at the heart of it all, the going is never easy.

The football on weekly display in the bush might not quite scale the lofty Origin heights of the professionals, but as the Gerringong match emphasises, it is vigorous and good and real – and I would enthusiastically recommend the occasional get-out-of-town experience to anyone with a hankering for league and some of its old ways.  

Head north or south or west, and there you'll find tough, hard rugby league that somehow survives strongly, despite the paucity of support from the big end of town. There, too, grafting away as they do, you will find the true believers.