We've all got one. A story about the guy you played in the under-whatevers who was built like a brick outhouse and unstoppable on the field.

The legend goes - and it is consistent across state & national boundaries, sporting codes and genders (with a few variations) - that when most of us were wrestling with the first signs of puberty, the teenage behemoth had mutton chops on his face and a fabled family of his own in the grandstand.

My nemesis was Geoff Sutton of Blacktown Leagues, who almost single handedly used to put we Catholics at Patrician Brothers to the sword every year.

I was particularly aggrieved because I had to mark massive Geoff and his friggin hairy face.

In those days -- about a million years ago -- the only obvious sport of choice in Sydney's then outer western suburbs was rugby league. Geoff and a teammate of mine Mick Carter were standouts in a region full of incredible young players.

After all, league wasn't so much a religion as it was necessary therapy. Good working class men and women building a life on the periphery of Sydney, hated their jobs, loved their families and relished screaming themselves hoarse at the junior footy (rugby league) at the weekend.

For their kids, beaches were an hour or two away, the Toongabbie cinema was crap and the Westfield at Blacktown only held appeal if you could shoplift or fight like a lunatic. For most of us, footy was the ONLY thing.

I'd come from the fancy-pants northern beaches of Sydney to hot and sweaty Blacktown, swapping fresh sea air for the lingering scent of hot chips with vinegar. At Avalon I'd played rugby union and soccer, but there was no question league was going to be the only way I could establish my credentials in Sydney's western suburbs.

I tried hard and wasn't bad, except for those occasions when I was being trampled by Geoff Sutton's size 12s. But I was never in the same league as my centre partner Mick Carter.

This was decades before the aliens from interstate ("the VFL," as one friend in Blacktown still gleefully calls them) latched on to the idea that the biggest pool of young sporting talent in the country was hanging around the streets of Sydney's west in flannelette shirts and desert boots.

Penrith Panthers and the Parramatta Eels, it seemed, had it all to themselves and, despite the relative innocence of the times, they pulled no punches when it came to nabbing talent. Junior representative sides had kids on the path to grade as young as age 11. Stories abounded of pre-teen players being offered ‘contracts‘ -- most of it was hyperbole, but not all of it.

The leaguies got their pound of flesh out of the talented juniors, there's no doubt. If you lived around Blacktown in those days, as many of the best players did, you had to travel to the foot of the Blue Mountains to train and play with Penrith -- a substantial trip that no doubt helped burn out a few potential stars pretty early.

Although most of the officials, of course, we're decent people working hard on behalf of the kids, there were some mongrels amongst them -- mean men who weren't restricted by today's behavioral mores. I saw more than one talented young footballer reduced to tears by a few of those unforgivable tyrants.

When I moved away from Blacktown -- still in the early years of high school -- I fully expected to hear Geoff and Mick's names pop up years later with the Penrith or the mighty Parra Eels.

But no.

Geoff faded away (give us a shout if it's all good still mate) -- can't verify this, but the legend also included a teenage affection for the smokes.

And Mick, well Mick, went to rugby union. HUH?

In those days, if you were from league's heartland, the only thing attractive about rugby union was it was played somewhere else. Or so we thought.

In fact there was a 100 year-old club lurking in the back blocks of Granville. The Two Blues of Parramatta was a club full of knockabouts playing at the senior level in elite company against the toffs of Sydney's eastern and northern suburbs. The club developed and drew on the large pool of youth in the area, but it was more a case of ‘you find us' than ‘we'll recruit you'.

After-all rugby union was amateur until the ‘90s (unless you were Campo) and even today, the club scene is the domain of willing and sometimes able souls playing and administering the game for the right reasons.

During the ‘70s, three Price brothers including Ray, a future dual international, had helped lift the Two Blues profile. Their uncompromising play was a blueprint for future success and matched the club's rugged mindset. In the mid-80 Parra went on a tear, flogging all-comers including those bastards from Randwick who typically dominated Sydney, NSW and Australian rugby.

My teenage mate, Mick was an integral part of those sides in the mid-80s. He played for NSW and surely would have been elevated to the Wallabies had he come from anywhere but Parramatta (we cynics moan).

I never got to ask Mick directly why he defected to the rugger buggers, but a few blokes who joined him as a teenager in the junior rugby ranks, all talked of the pressure of the league scene and the comparative warm embrace of Two Blues rugby.

Now, as the intensity of the battle for the hearts and minds of the massive pool of sporting talent in Sydney's much gentrified western suburbs intensifies, the first victim of sorts appears to be the Two Blues.

Apparently there's still decent juniors coming through, but they just don't have the numbers and quality to be immediately competitive in the Shute Shield, the second strongest comp in Australian rugby and the largest talent pool for the Super 14 franchises. (Pictured above is Randwick's Matt Lippiatt being tackled by one of Parramatta's finest in the Shute Shield.)

A rescue mission is underway, supported by the Australian Rugby Union and many of the leading clubs in Sydney, including the bastards from Randwick. But, facing facts, the future is grim. Australian rules football has poured money and facilities into the region and the leaguies have had no choice but to up the ante.

Soccer has alway been the dark horse, but with a western Sydney team on the horizon for the A-League, incentives for juniors in the area to declare their allegiance to the round ball game have been elevated.

Since rugby union went ‘professional' about 15 years ago, there has been a steady flow of criticism about erosion of the game's base. Some of the snorts come from the "traditional" areas of strength -- Sydney's eastern and northern suburbs who complain bitterly about having to travel to the heinous west to watch Tests at Homebush. But more crucial are the laments of rugby followers in the bush and the outer reaches of the cities' expanses.

Development programs are thin on the ground and the lure of junior club rugby is overwhelmed by the flash presence of the other codes. What the ARU and its affiliates plans to do about that in the future is a whole other discussion.

Meanwhile, seems to me, the Two Blues, far from being a club that's run its course, is needed now more than ever.

With inspirational individuals such as Waratahs and Wallabies hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau bellowing his continued allegiance to the 130 year-old joint, what better place for a talented young footballer to find his feet, on his own terms?

All those AFL, NRL and A-League development dollars might buy a nice new kit and a chance to blaze brightly, albeit briefly, but it's community institutions such as the Two Blues that make sporting culture an integral, indispensable part of the Australian ethos.