Our first archive raid saw us rummaging through a cracking and fading black folder. Its contents: “INSIDE SPORT: November 1991 to July 1992.” Avid fans of our magazine will know that yep, those were the very first days of Inside Sport, which is now one of Australia’s great sporting publications.

Deep inside issue #3 (we just finished putting together #324), we discovered a gem of a story written by Graham Bicknell and titled “The Emperor Strikes Back”. It’s a ripping six-page yarn about how Wally Lewis had just given himself the toughest job in rugby league: player-coach of the Gold Coast Seagulls, and how he was going to mentor the NSWRL’s Tweed club despite being heavily involved in the action out on the field.

In his 1992 feature story, Bicknell wrote …

If Wally thinks he can take the Seagulls to the finals, he's not admitting it. "I set the target of at least eight wins to start with. Once we hit that target, I'll assess the situation, then try to line up another goal. I think it's basically a three-year plan for us to hit the five. I'm not giving myself an escape clause; if I find I don't meet the goals I've set in the first year, then I'll regard that year as a failure."

And then, of course, there's the central question: how will Wally, who is, after all, still one of the boys, cope with being the only playing coach in the League? It's not something that generally works well in the modern era; if it did, there'd be more of them.

The King defends: “A lot of people say that to be a successful coach you can't be one of the boys. I don't agree with that. Bob Fulton, while he doesn't do everything the players do, involves himself a hell of a lot with the team. I think he's of the opinion that if you get to know the players, it's a lot easier to express yourself. I agree with that. I think the coaches who have trouble getting respect from their players are the ones who distance themselves. I know a couple of coaches who get on all right when they're talking to the players, but when they go away and do their business separately from the team, the players will say: 'Jesus, he's a strange bastard, isn't he?"

Photo by Getty Images

Yes, but we're still off the field. How is Lewis going to throw passes, make tackles, puff and pant and still direct the entire Seagulls show? "No matter where you play on the field, you can never see as well as you can 25 metres high in a box away from the pressure situations and blokes clouting you around the ears. I'm going to be needing some assistance from the sidelines. I've said that from the start."

That's where Graham Eadie, the Reserves coach, comes in. "With him on the sidelines, it's extremely important for us to think the same way. We've got to spend a hell of a lot of time in each other's company between now and the first game so I can relate to him what I'm thinking and vice versa."

Inside Sport, March 1992 edition