WHEN Dubbo last hosted the City-Country fixture John Howard was prime minister, Twitter barely existed and bird flu was causing all kinds of drama in Great Britain.
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The year was 2006 and the match was the first real big test of the new grandstand facilities that had turned Apex Oval from a cold, wet, miserable place into arguably the showcase sporting facility in country NSW.
While many, mainly those in the metropolitan media, question City-Country's place as a genuine fixture on the rugby league calendar, the teams that took to the field on Friday, May 12, in front of a crowd in excess of 11,000 people would provide many a future State of Origin player.
The City side had the likes of Brett Hodgson, Luke Lewis, Luke Rooney, Craig Gower, Matt Orford, Robbie Farah, Braith Anasta, and such was its strength guys like Craig Wing, Paul Gallen and Ryan Hoffman came off the bench.
Anthony Watmough couldn't even make the bench, instead being named as a reserve.
Country was led by our own Andrew Ryan and featured Adam MacDougall, Kurt Gidley, Brett Finch, Brent Kite, Ben Creagh, Craig Fitzgibbon and Preston Campbell.
The coaches were also impressive, with future Australian mentor Tim Sheens in charge of City and a guy by the name of Craig Bellamy looking after the Country side.
One of the great memories of the event was seeing Bellamy perched on top of the Apex Oval grandstand watching things unfold so TV cameras and microphones wouldn't be able to pick up his colourful language.
City were their own worst enemies in the first half, completing just seven of 19 sets with the ball as the boys from the bush took an 8-0 lead into the break courtesy of a try to Anthony Laffranchi and two goals from Fitzgibbon.
David Simmons and Rooney both bagged four-pointers for City in the opening 20 minutes of the second half, with a Hodgson conversion allowing them to snatch an unlikely 10-8 lead and they were seemingly on their way to victory.
But Newcastle winger Anthony Quinn was the hero for Country, showing great strength to touch down just inside the corner post with five minutes remaining to hand the home side victory.
St George-Illawarra fullback Ben Hornby didn't leave Dubbo empty-handed after being awarded the Whitney's Jewellers-Daily Liberal man of the match award, just ahead of Finch, Ryan and Kite who each had strong games.
