He's climbing a crossbar to heaven: ode to Beaver

This evening he plays his last game in Australia, and those who have hopes for Manly have hopes especially for him.

Menzies is respected and even loved as a man who combines high standards of behaviour with an unarguable toughness. It is often said of men as pleasant as he that it is a pity they don't have enough mongrel. Menzies has made such axioms irrelevant.

Whether it is his defensive and attacking game last Saturday night, or his demeanour towards supporters, the youngest, the humblest, the most importunate, he is solid platinum. He has been that way from the start of his first-grade career in 1993.

That day he came on as a replacement, in the headgear he had always worn as a schoolboy and reserve-grader. It was the beginning of his famous partnership with that other genius, Cliffy Lyons. In an age when we can lip-read a spate of often self-indulgent profanities from other players, when Beaver knocks on he goes in for little more than a grimace, and then redeems the afternoon by scoring a try.

The eastern stand at Brookvale was named the Fulton-Menzies Stand the night Manly played their first semi against St George. So now Menzies' name worthily sits cheek by jowl with that of hall-of-famer Bob Fulton's, and is one of the few names worthy to do so.

But it is not only for s that Menzies is beloved at Brookie. It is because he stuck cheerfully with us through the long dog years, when there was more money in Super League. He stuck during the joint venture with Norths, into which both sides were forced by economic forces and when spirits were low, cash was short, and Manly were strangers to semi-finals. In those days he had to be all things to our forward pack, a hit-up specialist as well as a ball player. Other teams must have offered him fortunes to move. He didn't go. In the pre-Max Delmege/Scott Penn days when Manly were about to vanish, he stayed. Those who complain that loyalty in the game has gone the way of the Model T Ford can well look at Menzies as an exemplar.

That is why we all hope he will be rewarded with our first grand final win since 1996, when he scored a try in defeating St George. Today the team are playing for him, and for his sake they won't be ambushed. If it doesn't go well, if the brilliant Cooper Cronk and Greg Inglis and Billy Slater take it away, Menzies will absorb it in his stoic way. He has after all already seen everything rugby league can dish up.

My American son-in-law, who now follows rugby league (he hasn't been given much of a choice), is amazed by the accessibility of players to supporters. Even bearing injuries, league players will stop and sign a kid's program, and uncomplainingly pose for pictures with people. It is all part of the glory and etiquette of rugby league, and it means the world to us punters. In America by contrast, if you want a baseballer's signature you go to a hotel and pay $50 a pop.

But Beaver is the most accommodating player I know. Recently, at a supporters' evening at the club, he signed and posed for pictures for more than two hours. I asked him for a signature in my copy of his biography. "What would you like me to write?" As a joke I suggested: "To Tom who taught me everything I know." But he smiled and wrote it in. I now have a precious inscription to show friends.

I taught him nothing, but he has taught us all a lot.

Bon voyage, Beavs. No one is indispensable. But you come closest.