MY earliest memories of rugby league at the Sydney Cricket Ground involve going to Wilson's Record Bar in Wollongong and buying tickets with my dad.

The tickets, and that clattering sound of the machine that printed them, were a source of wonder in themselves.

In 1981, we bought the tickets late before witnessing one of the most controversial finals of all time - the Manly-Newtown game in which Mark Broadhurst and Steve Bowden bashed the bejeezus out of each other and spawned one of our most famous September photographs.

In 1982, Phil Duke's disastrous in-goal pass to Phil Sigsworth made this 13-year-old groan when it cost NSW victory over Queensland.

Later that year, Manly played Parramatta in the first grand final I saw live. We lined up from 8am for three hours and ran around the hill and the Sheridan Stand to get a seat in front of the MA Noble, me imploring my uncle Tom to keep up.

And two years later, when Illawarra's Presidents Cup side played in the curtain raiser to the second State of Origin game, Wally Lewis' chip-kick bounced off the crossbar and into Greg Dowling's arms, Noel Cleal's line dropout got stuck in the mud and we were so soaked through that my uncle's Datsun back seat was permanently stained thenceforth.

At 15, I sprinted down the western sideline to grab a corner post out of the turf after an Ashes Test - only to test my luck too far by lingering in the area long enough for a dastardly security guard to confiscate it.

This year I have been back to the SCG twice for rugby league games, not working but sipping a beer. I am no less impressed than I was 25 years ago by the teams making their way through the crowd onto the field and back again.

One open-line caller after the Sydney Roosters-St George Illawarra game on Sunday claimed credit for Michael Weyman's second half bust.

"I patted him on the stomach on the way back out for the second half and said ‘have a go, Weyman!" the 2GB caller said.

Years of seeing sportsmen at their worst, of being lied to by officials and reporting on a Super League War, drug cheats and salary cap scandals have not dimmed the magic of the SCG.

Not in the slightest.

Home and away finals have made commercial sense for the last half-decade. Having North Queensland play Melbourne at the Sydney Football Stadium put paid to the grand old tradition of four windy, sunny weekends at Moore Park, three grades starting at 11.15am.

But there needs to be a counter to September decentralisation. Their needs to be a link with the past, like the one we had on Sunday.

Is one day of finals at the SCG every year too much to ask?