OPINION Meet the best regional footy player I’ve seen
As News Corp celebrates Indigenous Sports Month, we’re celebrating one special player who’d never ask for the recognition.
Fraser Coast
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How do you write an article paying tribute to someone’s incredible sporting prowess if that person would never ask for/expect the recognition?
A player who has both stood out and flown under the radar for more than a decade while also playing at the highest level of rugby league in the Wide Bay?
Shaun Collins, centre for the Maryborough Wallaroos, is described by most who have played alongside him – and against him – as the best.
At a time when the company proudly recognises, celebrates and advocates for the achievements of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander athletes, it felt like it was time to write an article about Collins that was well overdue.
As a natural leader and someone who can read the game like a book, he’s a player who can change a game in an instant.
The Wallaroos’ grand final win in 2009 is a case in point.
At one stage the team was down 30-16 against a red hot Past Brothers team.
That was before Collins played his hand, setting up two tries and scoring one himself.
The Wallaroos would go on to win the grand final 38-40.
Origin legend Colin Scott coached Collins that year and remembers him as being a unique talent.
There’s no question in his mind that Collins was NRL quality and could have played at the highest level if he’d wanted to.
“He was certainly in that class,” he said.
Instead, for the past decade Collins has provided a front-row seat to his incredible talent to people across the Wide Bay region.
Scott said Collins brought to mind other incredible talents, such as Mal Meninga.
There’s little doubt that if an NRL club had set up shop in the past decade in the Wide Bay, Collins would have been a front runner for the side.
But he was content to live and compete locally and his talents have long been applauded within the BRL.
“He was happy doing what he was doing,” Scott said.
For more than a decade, Collins has been legendary for two things – his dedication and his discipline.
Those ingredients would have made him one of the top players in the NRL, Scott said.
“He was always getting himself involved,” he said.
“He always involved himself and always followed the ball, which is what the good players do.”
Scott knows how reluctant Collins would be to talk about himself.
This reporter has spoken to Collins twice in a professional setting in all the years he has played in the BRL and they were short conversations.
Never one to welcome praise or accolades, even when it came to individual awards, Collins was always quick to put the focus back on the team.
In 2009, he was named Player of the Year in the BRL in the year the Wallaroos claimed the premiership.
I believe it was then I had my first awkward attempt at an interview with Collins in which he politely declined saying – well, anything really.
In 2011, he was playing for the team he had helped Wallaroos defeat – Past Brothers.
He won a premiership with the team that year and was again named Player of the Year.
Ahead of the grand final, which Brothers would win against the Hervey Bay Seagulls, I ambushed Collins to ask him about this accolade.
Again it was brief, with Collins saying he felt honoured given the strength of the competition.
The conversation was quickly turned to the subject of the upcoming grand final.
One of the other players in contention for the award that year was Collins’ Brothers teammate, Matthew Templeton.
He is now president of Brothers and fondly remembers his time playing alongside Collins from 2011 to 2014, during which the team claimed a number of premierships.
“Shaun was our main strike weapon throughout those years,” he said.
“You always knew you were in the mix to win the game if you had Shaun in your side.”
Templeton said he was one of those rare players that could turn a game on its head.
During his time at Brothers, Collins broke the club’s all-time try scoring record, which had been set in the ’60s.
He scored more than 40 tries that year.
“He would hands down be one of the best centres to play for country Queensland,” Templeton said.
Templeton had played representative football alongside Collins over the years and said he was a leader who didn’t say much, but was inspirational.
With young men in the side, Collins would help nurture their talents, he said.
“They looked up to him,” he said.
Templeton said Collins had always been appreciated for his ability but was never one to talk about his own achievements.
“He would be the prime example for that, he’s never blown his own trumpet no matter what his successes have been.”
In 2015, Collins returned to the Wallaroos.
Back playing alongside his mates in Maryborough, they have nothing but praise for the man who remains an essential ingredient in their side more than a decade after they won that premiership.
Fellow Wallaroos player Brad Davies said Collins was a natural born athlete.
He had a laid-back attitude, but when it came to competition, his brain and ability was second to none, Davies said.
“Playing alongside him and also against him, you can easily compare him to a Greg Inglis as they possess the same attributes,” Davies said.
“Anytime he gets the ball, anything can happen – with the click of the fingers, he is crossing the try line.
“As for defence, he’s dominant and hits like the biggest man on the field.
“You’d prefer to play with him, not against him.”
Josh Crowley played alongside Collins at the Wallaroos as well and said having him on the field lifted the rest of the team.
“I felt like I played my best when he was next to me,” he said.
“He made me step up my game and brought a lot of confidence to our sides, which was great.”
Getting a first hand experience of what Collins could do on the field was “unreal”, Crowley said
Wallaroos stalwart Todd Campbell lined up alongside Collins in the 2009 final.
He remembers him as “probably the best player I’ve ever played with”.
“When we won a premiership, he had a major hand in that,” he said.
“He’s just a natural leader in his own right.
“He made you look good.”
So here it is.
After more than a decade of wanting to write an article about the BRL superstar, the talent that has stunned crowds across the region, been named Player of the Year on multiple occasions and celebrated several BRL premierships, I’ve finally done it.
Hopefully it will be met with a smile rather than a frown.
I’ll finish with some words from the best judge of league flesh I know, my mother Julie Walker, who has bled blue and white for the Wallaroos for years, sat in the cold watching hundreds of games from the uncomfortable benches on the grandstand at Eskdale Park and long spoken about the asset Collins is to the game.
“He has got it all and makes most others in the BRL pale into insignificance,” she said.
“He’s only getting better with age.”
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