Raging Bull Gorden Tallis finds love with Elder stateswoman

The new NRL Hall of Famer says life “has never been better” after finding love with the daughter of Labor pit bull Jim Elder.

Gorden Tallis with his partner Jemma Elder. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Two hard men of Queensland sport and politics were facing off in a private meeting for the ages.

Gorden “Raging Bull” Tallis and former Labor pit bull Jim Elder, knee to knee in a deep and meaningful about a shared love that, for once, wasn’t rugby league.

“Mate, I really like your daughter,” said the younger bull. “I think she’s the best person I’ve met in my life.”

The league powerhouse then nervously announced his hopes to marry his partner of almost 2½ years, Jemma Elder, the managing director of Personalised Plates Queensland.

The old bull nodded approval. If he had to express his views on the commitment and character of his daughter’s future husband, he need only have pointed to the Brisbane Broncos fan picture of history’s most destructive backrower that has long hung on the wall of his home office.

Jim Elder.

Tallis, 45, beamed on the eve of his induction last night into the NRL Hall of Fame: “I’ve been retired for 15 years and my life has never been better.”

On the outdoor deck of his inner-west Brisbane home, everything, including a warm winter sun, was coming up Gordy. The distinctly rage-free bull’s Sunday Triple M radio show was blitzing the ratings. He was negotiating a long-term contract extending his media commitments with Fox Sports. His lifelong hero, Wally “The King” Lewis, was about to formally welcome him into a sporting Hall of Fame alongside the likes of Clive Churchill, Johnny Raper and Reg Gasnier.

And his soon-to-be wife had just praised his ability to turn two families tested by divorce into their own special brand of Brady Bunch. “It’s not our first rodeo,” Tallis said.

“It’s both our second times around,” Ms Elder said. “I’ve got a seven-year-old boy, he’s got two boys ….”

“And now we have three each,” Tallis added. “For various reasons, we both found ourselves single and we bumped into each other a couple of years ago at the Magic Millions. We had a quick chat, had a drink that night and the more time I spent with her the more time I wanted to spend with her. It’s hard to be yourself sometimes, but you get older and you realise ‘Well, if they don’t like you for who you are, well, you can’t change. Just be yourself.’

“We’re both at an age where we didn’t have to bullshit and go through the small talk, which has been really refreshing.”

It was Ms Elder, said Tallis, who supported him through the days in recent years when the sun hadn’t shone so bright. “She’s helped me a lot. She’s been a massive rock. Separations are not good. To try to blend a new family together is difficult. But to have two grown-ups trying to do it, it’s been as easy as I could have hoped. I wouldn’t call us the Brady Bunch … but it’s real good.”

Ms Elder said: “He loves his boys and his family and he loves me and my son. That’s his most attractive quality, he’s such a loyal person.”

More kids are on the cards, they said, but first will be a marriage in the new year to formalise a “commitment ceremony” they shared in Las Vegas on a romantic whim in June. “We did the whole thing backwards,” Ms Elder said.

Gorden Tallis with his partner Jemma Elder. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Tallis added: “But now we gotta go back and make sure we do it the right way — for our parents and our kids.”

The deep and meaningful with Jim Elder was essential for Tallis. Mr Elder is a tattooed former rugby league manager whose years as Peter Beattie’s most trusted and intimidating right-hand man in the 1990s are the stuff of Queensland Labor legend.

“I don’t find him intimidating,” Tallis said. “But I don’t find too many people intimidating.”

Tallis played 214 NRL games, scoring 66 tries and winning three premierships for the Brisbane Broncos. He played 13 Tests for Australia and 17 games for Queensland but the statistics speak nothing of his gift for changing the fate of a game with a devastating defensive goal-line charge in the 75th minute or a bone-crushing, back-in-your-box assault on a bullying Kiwi front-rower or the ability to jersey-sling a nimble and doomed Blues back all the way to Birdsville.

“The reason I played the way I did was because I couldn’t play any other way,” he said. “I couldn’t play softer. And it all depended on who was in front of me, in what moment, and how pissed off I was. I didn’t play for Hall of Fame recognition. I just wanted to make my mum and dad proud.”

The bull shook his head.

“Family,” he said.