TRIBUTE TO A LEGEND
FRIENDS and family paid tribute to former Atherton Roosters five-eighth Graham Bevan at a funeral service in Cairns yesterday.
The Atherton Roosters premiership-winning captaincoach passed away at age 73 last Tuesday after a battle with cancer.
Brought to the Roosters for the 1974 EDRL season by then president Tom Eales, “Bevo”, as the players called him, was remembered for being a great rugby league strategist and an even greater taskmaster.
He led the Roosters to its only back-to-back premiership triumph in the club’s 100-year history, taking teams of young and inexperienced players to victories over strong Malanda and Mossman combinations in 1974 and 1975.
Former Roosters teammate Dennis Penshorn said Bevan was a “one-of-a-kind” footballer who had an immediate impact upon arriving at the club.
“Whereas training up until then had been a pretty casual affair, when Graham took over it became very serious,” he said.
“He was serious about his fitness, skills training and his technical work – and it paid off.”
Penshorn described Bevan as a “one-of-a-kind player” who broke the five-eighth mould of the time.
“He was very strong in the upper body and he tackled chest on,” he said.
“Normally five-eighths didn’t do that sort of thing and were covered by their secondrower. He was also very quick on his feet and had a sidestep. He was in the Bobby Fulton mode in attack, but there wasn’t a five-eighth who defended like him – he was pretty much in a category of his own in that respect.”
A strong disciplinarian who knew what it would take to win a premiership, Bevan was prone to removing his mouthguard and giving his players a spray if he felt they weren’t performing to his expectations.
On one occasion, he even forced one of his own teammates from the field after a poor choice of pass.
“He threw this overhead, basketball-style pass and it went astray,” said Penshorn.
“Graham said, ‘Don’t do that again’, but about 10 minutes later he repeated the performance. Graham said, ‘Go down, you’re hurt’. The player said ‘No I’m not, I’m all right’. Graham replied, ‘No, you’re not – you’re hurt’. That type of pass just wasn’t in Graham’s training manual.”
By the time Bevan got to Atherton in 1974 he was in his late-20s.
In the mid-1960s, he played for Sydney’s Western Suburbs Magpies and was part of a touring side that travelled to North Queensland.
Penshorn remembered reading about him at the time – 10 years before they would become teammates.
“It said, ‘brilliant in attack and defence, this young man will play for Australia’,” said Penshorn.
“That’s how highly regarded he was back in Sydney. He played with many players who played for Australia and the club had a very high opinion of him.”
Bevan also had stints with the Newtown Jets, WynnumManly Seagulls and Ingham Lifesavers before the Roosters.
After his double-premiership success with Atherton, Bevan moved to Cairns Brothers in 1976, but it only lasted a year, with the club unable to accommodate his coaching methods.
Bevan would go on to live the rest of his life – by all reports a quite one – in Cairns.
He worked as a coach driver for many years, transporting people to and from the airport.
According to Penshorn, Bevan only ever told one joke in his presence, but it was a good one.
“He said he’d gone from being a captain-coach to being a coach captain,” said Penshorn. “It was great. The guys who knew him would be quite surprised to hear that.”
Roosters secretary Darryl Day said Bevan had left a legacy at the club.
“I was a just a kid when he was playing, but everybody always spoke highly of him,” he said. “He came here to win premierships and that’s exactly what he did.”
Day said it was great to have Bevan be a part of the club’s 100th anniversary last year.
“He came along to our game against ‘Roos in May and handed out the guernseys to the A-graders before the game.”