Something in the water at St Brendan’s

Corey Oates grew so fast he needed to have a year off footy.

Ben Hunt was so close to his schoolmates he snubbed a footy tour to Europe to graduate with them. And nobody ever took much notice of Jake Granville outside of Paul Green.

The one thing that binds these very different characters is their schooling. The quartet, who played in Sunday’s grand final, have all come through the renowned league nursery that is St Brendan’s College in Yeppoon.

The grand finalists are part of an NRL production line that includes Julian O’Neill, Paul Bowman, Shane Marteene, Darren Mapp, PJ Marsh, Dave Taylor and Kurt Mann, to name a few.

Each of the has been mentored by first XIII coach Terry Hansen and each has their own story.

“I normally stand at the end of the field because that’s where I like to watch the game from, you get a better idea of what’s going on,” Hansen said of a Confraternity Shield grand final he oversaw in Charters Towers in 2002.

“All of a sudden I had Graham Murray and Peter Parr standing beside me. I pointed to Matty Scott and said ‘you see that kid there, you should sign him’. 

“Graham Murray said: ‘Tell me why?’ “I told them about the determination and will of that kid, that it would take him all the way.”

Murray took his word for it and Scott was signed as a Cowboy that very day. Has been ever since. But if he didn’t make the grade, he had a bright future nonetheless.

“Matt Scott was very intelligent, we’re talking doctor-lawyer stuff. You only have to talk to him, you won’t find a smarter or nicer bloke.

“He also had some money problems in his younger days, his mother had throat cancer, so they were struggling a bit. But you just knew he was going to make it.”

So too Hunt. The silky playmaker always appeared destined for greatness, as evidenced by the fact the Broncos signed him at the age of 13.

He had the daunting task of marking up on Johnathan Thurston but there was no chance of him being overawed. The bigger the stage, the better he likes it.

“Ben Hunt would play football for me at schoolboy level and play along,” Hansen said.

“But then he would get to a big game, he would go with it. He’d play for Queensland and he would step up again. He’d play for Australia and then got that level. He had a happy knack of doing that, it’s a special trait he had.

“He just doesn’t seem to have a nervous bone in his body.”

Hunt was chosen as part of an AIS tour to Europe just as school was ending, but snubbed it to instead graduate with his mates.

“He decided not to go and stay here,” Hansen said. “That’s the loyalty he showed.”

Oates, now that he appears fully grown at the age of 20, was always a big lump of a kid. But the 192cm, 107kg three-quarter suffered from growing pains at school.

“He always showed a lot of potential because he was such a big, raw-boned type,” Hansen said.

“He was growing that quick we didn’t play him in grade nine, he had a growing problem.”

And then there is Granville. The underrated hooker was overlooked when most representative sides were named and it was Hansen who got him a start at Green’s former club, Wynnum-Manly.

A stint at Brisbane was a reward for persistence, but he was offered less than $50,000 to stay at Red Hill.

On Sunday he had the chance to torment his former club on the biggest stage of all.

“Paul Green liked him and when he went to the Cowboys I reckon he went looking for him straight away,” Hansen said. “The rest is history.”