“There were the haves and the have-nots. This was reflected in the appointment of referees and the selection of international and representative teams. It was a view that all was not equal.

“I knew that the Western Suburbs players all came from a certain socio-economic group; if it was about money, they didn’t have much. Many had come from the country: John Donnelly from Gunnedah, Les Boyd from Cootamundra. Tommy Raudonikis, of course, had come up from Wagga via Cowra. Even the players who were Western Suburbs born-and-bred products who lived around Lidcombe and Auburn, suburbs like that, they were all pretty much solid, labor, blue-collar working-class people. So there was this natural match of a philosophy that we were, to some extent, under-privileged people. Certainly economically, and also at the same time we were playing in an environment where the decisions were favouring the privileged.

Masters, ecstatic, with Wayne Smith and Ron Giteau after a win at the SCG in 1980. (Image courtesy of Wests Archives; as appeared in the book Clouds Of Dust, Buckets Of Blood, author Gary Lester)

“So it seemed fairly natural to me that we should take a theme that would gel the players along those lines, and so began the Fibros vs The Silvertails, which was essentially the people of the western suburbs and the poorer country areas, and the rich people of the north shore of Sydney.”

Masters made the most of perceptions of Western Suburbs Magpies players as ogres, dumb, unskilful and beer-gutted Neanderthals who couldn’t really play football. And that if you matched them in the fight, you would soon outclass them in the skill department. “Whereas we knew we were a very skilful team,” Masters says. “And so the opening stages of games were heavily confrontational. Once we believed they were only pre-occupied with fighting, we concentrated on the skill. So we moved the ball about and all they were wanting to do was get square with us in the scrums … by then we had moved on to wanting to win the game with expansive play.”

Try time at Lidcombe - from left: Ray Brown, Warren Boland, Graeme O’Grady, Tommy Raudonikis, Les Boyd and Don Moseley. (Image courtesy of Wests Archives; as appeared in the book Clouds Of Dust, Buckets Of Blood, author Gary Lester)