NRL: Coronavirus restricts access to Australian sport’s Eighth Wonder

After 20 years turning tin numbers, Leichhardt Oval’s knockabout scoreboard attendant has vowed to be in place again this weekend

• How COVID—19 will impact your NRL side.

• TIPS.COM.AU: Over $2 million in prizes to be won

Only one man is allowed onto the Leichhardt Oval hill this weekend.

Which is apt.

Especially when you consider how for 20 years, this unassuming Balmain boy has religiously, purposely, and largely anonymously worked rugby league’s most iconic piece of real estate – the Leichhardt Oval scoreboard.

Watch the 2020 NRL Telstra Premiership on KAYO. Every game of every round LIVE & Ad-Break Free during play. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >

Big Bazz has been manned the scoreboard at Leichhardt Oval for over 20 years. Picture: Brett Costello

Doesn’t matter if the game involves Wests Tigers, Balmain Ryde-Eastwood, even junior grand finals, big Bazza has worked them all.

Same deal Harold Matthews, SG Ball, even Arrive Alive Cup.

“Have only missed a handful too,” he tells The Saturday Telegraph. “It was a few years back, after my knee reconstruction …”

Knee reconstruction?

“Yeah,” he shrugs, “there were three weeks where I just couldn’t climb the ladder to get up there.”

But as for this growing COVID-19 pandemic?

Not a problem. Or almost no problem.

“Like everyone, I’ve been battling to buy hand sanitiser,” Bazza explains.

“I tried Woolworths the other day and one of the staff, they just looked at me and said ‘you’re kidding aren’t you?’.

“Same when I went to Chemist Warehouse – you had to put your name onto a list.

“I guess if anybody approaches me on the hill this weekend, I can always give them a fist bump.”

Increasingly though, it seems he won’t need to worry.

While Round 2 of the NRL is continuing unabated this weekend – including two games at Leichhardt Oval – a series of strict protocols have been put in place, most significantly that all games are effectively lockouts.

Nick Walshaw in the scoreboard Leichhardt Ova in 2011.

FOOTY TIPS! Join Australia’s best footy tipping competition for your chance to win big. Add our experts to your league and join now at TIPS.COM.AU.

A history-making decision which not only sees Leichhardt Oval hosting Wests Tigers versus Newcastle on Sunday afternoon, but also the Roosters 24 hours earlier – with the reigning NRL premiers having switched their Central Coast match against Manly to the Eighth Wonder.

Yet regardless of how many games are played in the heart of Tigers territory, that crowd on the hill will number just one.

Big Bazza.

An unshakeable Tigers stalwart who has not only cheered scores of players from that best of seats – think Benji Marshall, Robbie Farah, even Ciriaco Mescia — but as a kid, and more than once, cut through the Leichhardt Oval fence to watch AMCO Cup games.

Better, his presence continues an unbroken run of two decades for this fella raised who was raised 900m from the ground, knows most players personally and gets paid each year with a Tigers T-shirt.

“And I know there are plenty of people hurting because of the lockouts,” the Leichhardt Oval institution concedes. “Not only the fans, but the guy who sells the hot dogs, the fella in the ice cream van, even all those pubs along Darling Street that would normally be packed.”

Still, Bazza has a job to do.

Robbie Farah drank beers on the scoreboard to farewelling his beloved home ground in 2016. Picture: Gregg Porteous.

MORE NEWS

The only place to see live NRL this weekend

Revealed: what your NRL club’s home ground advantage is worth

Quizzed his role during this craziest of health pandemics, the Tigers volunteer shrugs: “Well, I think it’s important the scoreboard operates.

“Even if it’s just so the players and coaches can glance up anytime throughout the game.

“And I’ll keep the game clock going too.

“Basically I’ll just lob up and do what I always have.”

Originally published as NRL: Coronavirus restricts access to Australian sport’s Eighth Wonder