One Two Three Four - We heard the wanderers roar.

As my head tries to distinguish between the haze that has been the last three days and the haze which is outside my front door, I can't help but make my mind go back four days to what was probably one of the best ever grand finals in the history of Newcastle Rugby. Firstly my apologies go out to those looking for the Munro exclusive interview. The only information I can give you is that he won't be buying a house in Blacksmiths. I also held back from printing this in the hope that James Gardner gets an award for his inspiring piece of writing on Monday. Its probably his best work. Ever.

Back to it. The weather was perfect, the crowd was big. Probably the best idea of the day was to have the two rival camps, Wanderers and Carlton, camping next to each other. It was good at the start of the day, 920am where Wanderers played Merewether in 4th grade and lost. The poons, with no one else to watch until the big one, then vacated the ground to do a spot of shopping at Marketown, or catch the view of Merewether beach at Strezlecki.

As 330pm arrived, the Wanderers had returned from wandering, and a bumper crowd gathered. It seemed from where we were standing, Rod Scott, had purchased some nice high heels, Dorian Simes a handbag and Andrew Fletcher a nice summer hat, fit for the ladies day, not Grand Final day. It was a bare divide, and the tension was stronger than an abseilers rope, scaling a 400ft sheer drop.

It was a game which neither side actually dominated or chanced their arm, yet, it was still an absolutely brilliant game. Coach Theckett was the winner on the day in this 21 - 20 marathon. Surely if he didn't coach Wanderers he would have won coach of the year. Yes, Dan Keivill was good, but Te Koati was easily the best. He wins the Hornet Hive, Man of the Grand Final. He is Merewether Carlton's Adam Princehorn, and by rights, all three should be the representative teams loose forwards. Wanderers scrum, which was dominated viciously by Merewether in the preliminary game, employed a wheel, that Merewether couldn't counter, making this dominance in-effective. The scrum for Wanderers only started to buckle when the old work horse Ian Gray started to tire after his 20 minute cameo.

Wanderers were looking strong in the first half, then on the other side of the break, Merewether came back and looked stronger. Then, in what made the Hornet look Nostradamus like, Merewether scored a penalty try, which was predicted the Friday before the match. Again Wanderers struck back after the break for extra time. Coach Munro's full time speech to lead them into extra time, "Watch them off the kick off" must have had him thinking, "I wish I had have given these kids there Ritalin."

Then after 100 minutes of Rugby, the whistle blowing, and both teams dropping from fatigue, despair and adulation, there was a winner. 21 - 20 to Wanderers. Congratulations to both teams for an inspiring performance that has made Gary Jones quit his post as skills coach for Merewether to pull on the boots to make it 8 grand finals next year.

It was also good to see some of the Wanderers old boys back at the Burwood Inn. Having played in winning Grand Finals before, these old boys probably knew that celebrating a losing grand final with Carlton, was probably going to be more fun than celebrating a winning one with Wanderers. They knew that there was a suburb to drink at, and non - sexual fun to be had with men who have made a career on mediocrity. They were right. As 100 men still standing at the beaches from Merewether, found two lone Wanderers left standing at the bar on Monday night, celebrating their big grand final win, they were jeered out, to wander the streets, to look for an identity, wanderers all the way.