Colman’s Call: Still marvelling at Brett Kenny’s brilliance

COLMAN’S CALL: It seems only last week that Sunday nights were spent sitting in front of a TV watching Brett Kenny cutting a swath through the Sydney competition.

Parramatta great Brett Kenny. Picture: Phil Hillyard

• From the bush to Black Caviar

THIS week’s news that 56-year-old Brett Kenny is battling cancer led to a mixture of emotions.

Concern, of course, that one of the most naturally gifted and entertaining players of any generation should be struck down with such a horrible illness.

And shock that Brett Kenny is 56.

It seems only last week that Sunday nights were spent sitting in front of a TV watching “Bert” and his teammates at Jack Gibson’s magnificent Parramatta Eels cutting a swath through the Sydney competition.

While his forwards bashed their way through the opposition, Bert preferred to rely on a swerve of the shoulders and hips, incredible acceleration and an uncanny sense of anticipation.

Brett Kenny is battling cancer. Picture: Phil Hillyard

With Peter Sterling inside him and Steve Ella, Mick Cronin and Eric Grothe outside, every week was a combination of circus, ballet and acrobatics.

That’s how I remember it anyway, and I wasn’t even a Parramatta supporter.

Skills like that transcended club loyalty.

When I got to speak to Bert towards the end of his career I found him to be much as he seemed on the field. Laid back, quick-witted and totally without ego.

I remember him telling me the story of the night following the Eels first-ever premiership victory in 1981.

Bert had scored two tries – just as he would in the next two grand finals. The second, in which he threw arguably the biggest dummy ever seen on the SCG and galloped 60 metres to the tryline, is probably the most memorable of his career, but it had to beat out a big field.

Anyway, so Bert told me how he went back to the leagues club after the game and celebrated long and hard. In the early hours of the morning he decided to walk home.

Brett Kenny playing for the Eels in 1987.

He hadn’t gone far when a police paddy wagon pulled up and the coppers kindly offered him a lift, which he gladly accepted thinking he would be sitting upfront with them.

No such luck. They put him in the back, along with someone they had picked up earlier – a Parramatta supporter who had obviously been toasting the team’s success from before kick-off.

For the next hour Bert and his new best friend were thrown around the back of the van as the police finished their shift – all the while the bloke telling Bert about his own brilliant football career, from the under-8s onwards.

The way Bert told it, it was one of the funniest footy yarns I ever heard.

When I read about Bert’s illness, I looked up the 1985 Challenge Cup final between Wigan and Hull on YouTube. When he walked out on to Wembley with his hands in the pocket of his jacket and wandered off as the players lined up to be introduced to officials, the TV commentator said that Kenny looked disinterested.

Just over 80 minutes later that same commentator was calling him the best player in the world.

Do yourself a favour. Call it up and have a look at poetry in motion.

Thanks for the memories Bert, get well soon.

Originally published as Colman’s Call: Still marvelling at Brett Kenny’s brilliance