Wow, thanks for that SC. Really interesting. Seeing who Bevan played for was my first port of call and like you say he only played reserves for Easts.

I follow the Bunnies. Great club stooped in history and tradition. Huge fan of Burgess so followed them vigorously when he went over. Coached by Wayne Bennett now and have some really exciting players, Damien Cook, Adam Reynolds, Cameron Murray, James Roberts etc.

Lived near Cronulla( Kirrawee) from 1970- 2000 and supported them during that time going to almost every home game. The period of the 3 match games starting around 11am with the Under 23's followed by Reserve and First Grade was rugby league heaven for me.

Particularly so because in those early days the match of the week was played on Saturday at the SCG with all other fixtures being played on Sunday afternoon.Cronulla rarely featured there and as I went to the SCG matches it meant a possible 6 games in 2 days!

For the first year or so after arriving in Aus. I lived in the eastern suburbs and followed South Sydney who often featured in the Saturday SCG match.

Brian Bevan had trials with Leeds and (I think) Hunslet....He was turned down and came to Wire.

And the rest is history .

According to Gate's book Leeds and Hunslet didn't even trial him. Bevan had been playing some RU for his navy ship's team which was playing RU teams on the south coast but he wanted to try out as a professional in RL up north. His father was a friend of Bill Shankland, who had been an Aussie international winger who played for Wire in the 1930s. So his Dad set Bevan up to stay with Shankland up in Leeds where he was spending his RL retirement as the professional at a golf club. Shankland touted Bevan round Leeds and Hunslet but neither were interested in giving him a trial, so his third option was to call his old club, Warrington, who brought him over and gave him a run out in an 'A' team game.