Welcome to a new column where we catch up with some FOGS players and talk about life after league and get their thoughts and opinions on the great game.

We kick off the series with Brisbane-born Dave Brown FOG #33 — a tungsten-tough prop who played during rugby league’s wild west days when players were often victims of off-the-ball and behind-the-play fouls.

Brown was coached early in his 97-game NRL career by the master Wayne Bennett at Souths Logan in the early 80s and then by  Manly legend Bob Fulton when he moved to Sydney.

He also enjoyed a great relationship with the legendary Arthur Beetson who was his Origin coach in 1983-84.

Brown was voted the game’s best prop in 1983.

He was cruelly denied a chance to play in the 1983 grand final against Parramatta for the Fulton-coached Manly because of a serious knee injury.

These days he works part-time at the Port Of Brisbane but he has maintained his interest in rugby league through his children and grandchildren since retiring in 1987 following a failed venture with English club Hull F.C.

We caught up with “Burger” Brown for an update on life after league and to get his thoughts on the game, and as usual, he was pretty open and honest about his views on a number of topics.

He even revealed an interesting story about his botched bid to play for Queensland in the first State of Origin game at Lang Park in 1983.

Question: It’s been 40 years since you missed out on playing in a grand final for Manly, does it seem that long ago Dave?

BROWN: The body is starting to feel that way. My leg was in plaster in 1983, I snapped my medial ligament playing for Manly in the final of the KB Cup.

That year though was one of the best years I had. I was pretty dirty about missing the grand final.

You don’t get to play in a grand final every weekend, do you?

We had a bloody good team at Manly, I think there were like 20 internationals at the club.

Q: You got your Origin call-up for game two in 1983 after Darryl Brohman had his jaw broken in the opening game of the series by one of your Manly teammates, Les Boyd?

(Boyd was penalised by the late Barry “Grasshopper” Gomersall but was not sent off for his illegal elbow. He was later disqualified for 12 months).

BROWN: After the KB Cup final the boys who played in that game and beat Cronulla were all told by (Manly chairman) Ken Arthurson they were in the Origin game.

Me and Choppy (Chris Close) and a couple of other players were having a few drinks when they read out the Origin teams.

I think they picked six players for Queensland and five for NSW from Manly but myself and Phil Blake were both left out.

We were the only two players at the club left at training which Fulton cancelled.

I’m not sure what Blakey did, he probably went surfing, but I went to the pub and polished off about 10 schooners.

Then I got a phone call telling me (Queensland forward) Paul McCabe was crook with food poisoning and to get myself to the airport and on a plane to Brisbane to play in the game the next day.

I thought it was a gee-up so I hung up on Fulton. He called me straight back and said: “get yourself to the airport and on a plane to Brisbane”.

I flew up to Brisbane that morning and went to my room but I didn’t see anyone until about 5.30 pm that night.

Nobody came near me.

Eventually, Beetso (coach Arthur Beetson)  told me they had decided to go with Wally Fullerton-Smith because I didn’t know the team moves.

I told Beetson I would have known them had I taken part in the training run that afternoon but instead I spent the day lying in bed because nobody came near me.

Q: You had a few great coaches what were they like?

BROWN:  Yeah, I did but they were all completely different coaches.

Wayne (Bennett) was my coach when I started out in 1979 and he was just starting out. He coached the Queensland Police Academy and he had all those blokes like Mal Meninga playing for him

He was great, he was always learning and you’ve seen what he has done in the game. He always coached the man and had those skills from his early days at the Academy which I think is what put him in good stead, he had the discipline and the ability to talk to players.

He is not at all like what the public sees all the time, he laughs and jokes with the players, he is a lot different to how he talks and deals with the media.

Q: Did you think he would still be coaching at 72 years of age?

BROWN: What else is he going to do, he doesn’t drink or smoke.

Q: What about Fulton, did he have a big influence on your career?

BROWN: Fulton was well before his time. You look at the game now and there are right and left centres and right and left second-rowers who play like centres. Fulton was doing that back in the early eighties.  He transformed blokes like Ian Schubert and Noel Cleal from centres into back-rowers which changed the game.

Fulton trained us hard, some days we’d start training at 1 pm and train for hours.

If we complained, he used to say to us: “If you keep drinking beers, I’ll keep training you”.

Q: And Big Artie, what was he like?

BROWN: Artie always had a game plan but I think it was hard for him because what he saw in his eyes was different to us as players, we couldn’t play like Artie played.

I’d never be critical of Artie. He could read a game better than anyone but we (players) just didn’t have his same skill set. It was probably the same for Wally (Wally Lewis) because he could see things, we, as players, couldn’t. They saw the game differently from everybody else.

Artie was a great Queenslander. You never wanted to let him down.

Q: You played in the rough and tumbles days when foul play was common and players often took matters into their own hands on the field. What do you think of the way the game is played today?

BROWN: I’m not a  big fan although I think they had it right a few years ago. But now, an accidental shoulder contact with the head is straight to the sin bin and on report.

Three or four years ago they had the balance right but they’ve turned it into a game of touch for mine.

In my opinion, guys don’t know how to tackle because they’re being taught to tackle ball-and-all.

When they go high, front-on to wrap the ball up, they are going to come into contact with someone’s head.

It’s inevitable that someone’s shoulder is going to contact someone’s head.

If you go back to guys like Bryan Niebling, Wally Fullerton-Smith, Gary Larson or Trevor Gillmeister, they hit them around the waist or legs and dropped them cold.

The game has created the problem itself, by teaching everyone to tackle around the shoulders to nullify the ball and it has come back to bite them.

In my day you got respect and you gave respect. A bit of respect goes a long way but now all the pushing and shoving, it’s ridiculous.

In years past a winger would never come in and push and shove guys by the jersey they would have been the first blokes knocked out.

They knew to stay out on the wing, they weren’t picked to fight, they were picked to score tries.

Q: When you played, front-rowers were never paid as much as the star playmakers, so what do you think about Brisbane prop Payne Haas getting paid more than $1 million a season and being one of the highest-paid players in the game?

BROWN: Good luck to him. Look at what tennis players and golfers earn. When I played you were lucky to get $30,000 and you had to have a part-time job at the League’s club.

A million dollars a year for what they put their body through and the short time their careers last, good luck to them.

The best forward going around in the game now I reckon is that bloke from North Queensland, Reuben Cotter.

He’s like another Bryan Niebling, he does a million tackles. As soon as he started tackling all those big guys in the middle of the ruck in Origin, that’s what turned the Origin in Queensland’s favour.

That’s old-school stuff. It reminds you of blokes like (Paul) Vautin, Niebling, Fullerton-Smith, Larson, Gillmeister those players who were in that mould, tireless workers.

We’ve got some good ones coming through like the red-head from Canberra, Corey Horsburgh and young J’maine Hopgood who is a real good kid who I’ve been pushing for from Hervey Bay.

Q: What are your interests in rugby league these days?

BROWN: I’ve got four children and grandchildren, including a granddaughter, playing for the Lawnton Bay Raiders so that keeps me pretty busy.

My grandson has just signed an emerging player deal with the Dolphins.