The original avian Aussie signing. What was the story there then?

I remember him as a Souths legend, moved to Norths IIRC. What else is there, apart from the avian connection?

Signed for a short spell with Bradford Northern from South Sydney whilst he was banned from the Winfield Cup.
There was a loophole that any ban encrued Down Under could be seen out in a foreign competition.
Thus, he came over here during the Aussie close season, signed on for Northern and saw out the ban whilst on their books, thus being able to start the season with Souths free as a bird. Think he only played two or three games at the most for Bradford.


Dirty Aussie thug Mark Geyer also pulled the same trick a few seasons later, playing for a spell with Sheffield Eagles in the old second division to wipe out a ban he received for a crime he committed whilst playing for Penrith.

He was utter rubbish. A total waste of space and if we paid him more than, well to be honest if we paid him anything at all, we were robbed. If you want to know the name of a player who was worse than Nick Zisti then it was Mario Fenech, in fact you can come up with whatever name you like as a contender for the worst player in the world and Fenech trumps it for the title.

I didn`t know he was known as `falcon`. I can think of a few more apposite names, like lazy, bone idle, totally uninterested, useless, only here for the money. Jeez, falcon? You`re having me on aren`t you??

He was the 'Maltese Falcon', which is strange as I always assumed he was from the Italian community at Souths. I don't remember him at Bradford at all, but he was far from crap at Souths. A psycho admittedly.

He was gash and he only played a handful of games. I think he played in the 0-38 home defeat to Australia. IIRC in 86/87 Noble was injured for most of the season and young Brentley had to deputise. He was still a better option than Fenech.

I remember it slightly different. He turned up at Odsal by his own means, his intention being to see out his ban in Oz. When he signed for the Northern it meant we had 3 international Hookers on the books, Noble, Fenech and, I assume, Bridges. If the third hooker was Bridges wouldn't it make it around '82?
I cannot recall him ever playing for the Northern, I think he returned to Oz as soon as the ban was over.

No, I don`t think he did ever "play" for Northern, though he did walk down the steps and had his name in the programme with the rest of the team on a couple of occasions. I think that was his entire energy expenditure for the game to be honest, maybe he was saving himself for the walk back up? I`m not sure how soon he went back but it wasn`t soon enough.

According to the book on my desk - "What a waste of space he was" - young Mario made just two appearances back in 1986. The Aussie game mentioned previously was played on a filthy night on 18 November. We lost 38 - 0 and were lucky to get 0.

Other hookers on the books were the aforementioned Brian Noble and Gary Brentley along with Bob Spurr who might have got an international cap during his time at Castleford.

Incidently we did have another aussie on the books during that season - Mal Graham - who played 40 games and was everything that Mario was not.