FAMILY TRADITION
DRIVES Capra Coach
By Milton Bristow
For Capricornia Opens
coach Neale Crow, family league tradition is a driving force. His father, uncle and
grandfather all have given extensive service to rugby league in Central Queensland.
And now this former Opens and
15s Queensland Schoolboy representative wants to give something back to the game which has
meant so much to him and his family for many decades.
Now a teacher at The Cathedral
College in Rockhampton (also the school of QSSRL president Steve Parle), Neale was a State
schoolboy representative in 1986 (15 Years) and 1988 (Opens). Parle coached the '86 side.
Neale remembers well the national championships and in particular the traditional
"first tests" against New South Wales Combined High Schools. He quietly
"mentions" that these two Queensland sides won their respective championships.
In '86 the five-eighth played in
the 15s' test at Orana Park Campbelltown, home of Sydney Wests, en route to the nationals
in Perth. Playing alongside him were a couple of handy tough men - Alan Cann and Peter
Ryan. Opposing him for CHS was a young speedster named Tim Brasher. Neale says Brasher
still owes him a video of the '86 test, after promising to send it to him.
Two years later Neale was a
member of the Queensland Open Schoolboys' team which played "the old enemy" at
Dubbo, before heading over to Canberra for the nationals. In that team he was in the
company of Brett Horsnell (captain) and Jason Smith. Appearing in the lineup for NSW
Catholic Colleges at the nationals was a young upstart named Brad Fittler.
Neales' family ties with league
go back a long way. Long before Origin times his grandfather Jack Crow was a Queensland
selector, and for many years was president of the Rockhampton Rugby League. Neale's father
Robert later followed in Jack's footsteps as president of the Rockhampton League.
Neale's uncle, Des Crow, has the
distinction of being the first Queensland coach of pre-Origin days to guide the Maroons to
victory over the hated enemy from over the border..... "the days of the
no-names" says Neale, when a Queensland win was almost unheard of.
Des also was a Queensland selector, and was instrumental in picking a young winger named
Wayne Bennett in the Queensland team. Bennett went on to represent Australia on a tour of
New Zealand in the early 70s.
After his school football days,
Neale's family intended for him to attend university in Brisbane, but he says he didn't
want to leave home..... "I am a bit of a home boy," Neale concedes. Instead he
stayed around Rockhampton and played club football.
In 1996 Neale was captain/coach
of the Rockhampton Brothers' A grade side which won the local competition. The following
year he was non-playing coach of Brothers' A grade when they won the extended competition.
Today Neale is in his second year as assistant coach of the Capras in the State League,
under coach Brad Hopes.
From his first taste of coaching
a schoolboy team for a state championships, Neale has achieved some satisfaction, and
plans to use the experience to establish some credentials for his ultimate goal of
coaching the Queensland Schoolboys.
Should he realise this goal -
and who is to say he can't? - the rugby league wheel will have turned full circle for
Neale Crow. And the proud rugby league traditions of the Crow family will continue into
the new millenium.
