Archive: The moment Reg Reagan was born (2000)

From time to time Matthew Johns gives Steve Mascord for discovering Reg Reagan. Here’s the offending story.
NEWCASTLE 16
NORTH QUEENSLAND 10
By STEVE MASCORD
Dairy Farmers Stadium
AS if he didn’t have enough to worry about right now, Matthew Johns broke his hand during Newcastle’s win over North Queensland yesterday.
At least, it looked like Johns’s hand that was swelling after the Knights’ 18-10 victory, their first in Townsville. But the hand’s owner, who looked like Matthew Johns, played like Matthew Johns and wore the Knights No 6 jersey, would answer only to the name “Reg Reagan”.
“I said to the boys that I’ve invented myself an alter ego,” Johns/Reagan said. “When I don’t feel like coming to training, I just lay in bed and I send him along.”
The tumultuous events of the past two weeks, in which Matthew was denied a contract offer from Newcastle and his brother Andrew threatened to follow him to another club, could fairly be expected to send someone to the edge of insanity. But over it?
“I thought Reg Reagan played all right,” Matthew said. “He’s a late 1970s Australian, loves going to the beach, hates sunscreen, smokes only Winfield red, drinks full-strength beer.
“The boys were a bit tense before the game and I said, ‘Listen boys, Matty’s told me some of the calls but you’ll have to help me out a bit’. It settled them down.”
Perhaps Reg can placate angry Knights fans by continuing to star for the club for a minimal fee next year while Matthew goes off to Northern, Canberra, Leeds or rugby union .
And perhaps Reg could help the Knights convince Andrew to stay, too.
Yesterday, he did a pretty good job of helping his under-strength side stay in the top eight, forcing the Cowboys to continually drop-kick from their tryline with his kicking wizardry.
Newcastle led 6-0 at half-time, after fullback Daniel Abraham latched on to the end of a pretty movement involving Justin Holbrook, Tony Butterfield, Matt Gidley and Timana Tahu to score six minutes before the break.
Lock Bill Peden scored off a break by David Fairleigh four minutes into the second session but then North Queensland centre Graham Appo intercepted a Fairleigh pass and raced 40m to make a game of it
A calamitous mix-up between Cowboys Naipolioni Kuricibi and Shane Kenward resulted in the ball being dropped in the in-goal and Knights centre Mark Hughes pounced to score with 24 minutes left.
The 18-4 lead with halfback Holbrook’s third goal was too big for the Cowboys, whose 20-year-old co-captain Scott Prince scored an eye-catching but fruitless try with 10 minutes left.
Newcastle’s Test centre Gidley made a surprise comeback from a groin injury and played strongly. As recently as Friday, Knights officials insisted he would not turn out.
The Cowboys, it seems, were ambushed, “That probably took us a bit by surprise,” said coach Tim Sheens of Gidley’s appearance. “And he really is a handful. He’s a class act, that kid.
“We sort of suspected he would play but until you see the team sheet you don’t know what’s going to happen these days.
“I had to wait for that before making a definite plan against it.”
Asked when he knew Gidley would play, Knights coach Warren Ryan said: “I won’t go into that because I might be accused of telling fibs.”
Johns’ broken hand is not the one he broke last year is not expected to keep him out of Saturday’s game against Auckland – but will ensure he plays in pain for several months.
Interchange forward Glenn Grief suffered a recurrence of a knee injury, and a knee injury to Cowboys winger Adam Connelly will be checked today.
While Newcastle had never won away to North Queensland before yesterday, Ryan said he would retire with a 100 per cent record there. So, too, might Reg Reagan.
This story appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday May 22, 2000