IT'S rare for a big match to deliver on all the breathless build-up and hyperventilating hype, but Parade thought Wednesday's State of Origin decider was everything that was promised.
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Boring old Parade watched the game from home, rather than from a heaving pub somewhere in the centre of town, but the action on the screen more than made up for the lack of atmosphere in the loungeroom.
(It would have been nice to have beer on tap, though.)
The pulsating, unpredictable decider was a great advertisement for the game - a verdict reinforced when Parade got a text from his nephew, watching the match with his dad on the other side of town.
The youngster, who has only ever had a passing interest in league, had obviously been swept up in the emotions of the NSW victory, because he declared it an incredible game and said if he was at the ground, he would be yelling out for the Blues.
He also revealed a previously hidden knowledge about the technicalities of the code, declaring that one of the Queensland tries came from a definite double movement.
Parade's dad - who was so league-mad that Parade was into his early teens before he realised that other winter codes existed - would certainly approve.
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Those memories can be painful
PARADE'S dad can't be guaranteed to recall something that happened six months ago, but he can name, with unerring accuracy, the members of the various rugged rugby league sides in which he featured in the 1970s in the state's wild west.
He has horror stories - though he describes them with an odd fondness - of long away trips to various specks on the map, where the fistfights would outnumber the tries and those who didn't come back on the bus with some sort of visible facial injury hadn't really been trying.
He also has an odd mental file of some of the most brutal tackles inflicted on him and is happy to go through them step by step (and with actions if you want).
Parade gets the impression they were some of the best days of his life.