INES HAS HOPE, FAITH
THE Burdekin’s Ines Piva sighs, picks up the rosary beads dangling on the arm of the TV chair, and says, “I’ve got a feeling I’m going to spend a lot of time in the prayer room on Sunday night”.
Ines, who regularly retreats into the prayer room for Cowboys game nights thinks that tomorrow’s grand final will be tough and will come down to the wire.
It won’t be just the rosary beads she takes into the prayer room located on the upper floor of the large homestead she shares with husband Alec near Giru.
Alec has presented her with another weapon to add to her crusade for a Cowboys win. It is a glass crucifix that lights up at the press of the button. Ines says that if this doesn’t get the Top Cowboy’s attention, nothing well.
The Cowboys have tens and tens of thousands of fans, but few reach out to the team with the power and the passion of Ines. And Alec is always there on the background, calling out, “Ines, pray harder. Pray harder”.
Ines prayed so hard during last Saturday night’s match against the Roosters that she drowned out the sound from the TV, 10 metres away. She said when the Cowboys looked like going down to the Cronulla Sharks on September 10 she raced off to the prayer room and started saying Hail Mary’s and her special Cowboys Prayer.
What she said worked. Four minutes before the game fin- ished Michael Morgan put over a field goal that put the Cowboys ahead 15- 14. The Sharks were out of the game and out of the finals.
Ines oozes warmth and sparkles with good humour. She loves her Cowboys and loves life, but both she and Alec live with the grief of hav- ing lost two sons. Mark was four when he died in a vehiclerelated accident at home while she and Alec were preparing to go to Mass. Another son died at birth.
Ines struggled with her religious beliefs after the deaths, but said a strong marriage and her own unbending faith got her through the bleakest years.
“I’d see other kids playing. Sometimes I’d hide myself and cry, she said.
“I pray every morning for 15 minutes. Alec stays with me and listens. We have been married for 50 years. I always say, ‘ God has rewarded me in big ways’,” she said.
Ines is thrilled that now she can combine her love of footy with her religious beliefs.
“I started praying for the Cowboys in 2014,’’ she said. ‘‘ They were going well, but had been cheated again.
‘‘ I wanted to help, so I said to Alec ‘ I’m going to go and get my rosary beads’.’’
The rest is Ines Piva history. Now, she hopes her new glass crucifix will get the attention of “Big Daddy” and that he will move a mountain or two to get the boys from North Queensland across the line.