Eden, who played 119 first grade games between 1981 and ’89 for Manly Warringah, Eastern Suburbs, Parramatta and Gold Coast-Tweed, finished the 1983 season with 12 tries and 103 goals from 24 games in a highly productive campaign.

“I trained very hard and was very fit,” Eden shares. “Towards the end of the half, I would pick out the guys who were bit tired, the bigger players, and would just play what was in front of me and try and make a break. I was an attacking player. I did a lot of chips over the top and regathers, or kicks for my centres. I liked to set up plays. I liked to think I threw the last pass in a lot of movements for people to score tries. That’s how I remember it, anyway … the older I get the better I was.

“I didn't tackle a lot. I played in the second line, where most halfbacks played. I only recently noticed in a newspaper clipping from back in the day that my team-mate Alan Neil made four tackles in a game against St George and I made about six or eight. The top tackler made 25 tackles. I don’t know whether the counts were different back then, but the half and five-eighth didn’t do a lot of tackling. Kevin Hastings used to say he did all mine for me. That was probably right.”

Mike Eden (right) celebrates Manly's 1982 KB Cup Final win with team-mate Phil Blake. (Image supplied by Mike Eden)

Eden’s achievements across 1983 came despite the fact he carried a horrific injury which required painkillers each week. Nothing different there to many players, even in today’s so-called “softer” era, but the fact Eden today carries around a skeleton missing part of a bone is just incredible.

“What I do remember is playing with a needle most games,” Eden shares. “I dislocated my collarbone early in the ’83 season and ended up playing about 15 games with painkilling needles. That was tough. At the end of the season I had an operation where they cut two inches off my collarbone because it [the bone] had died, from getting bashed each week and from having the needle.

“To this day I’m missing a couple of inches from my left collarbone, which were cut off, leaving a big hole there. In those days you just played. There were no replacements. If you got injured you just stayed on the field.