Isaac Scholes has reached a milestone not many others have achieved, playing his 200th game as a Muswellbrook Heeler on the weekend.
He started with the club when he was around five years old playing Walla Rugby, having played around 130 junior rugby union games before moving into the senior ranks.
“I planned on knocking it over last year, but in preseason I ended up with a pretty severe facial fracture and lost maybe four or five games last year,” Isaac shared.
Rugby has been a huge part of Isaac’s life, his dad played for the Heelers in the 80s, and over the years he has had he chance to play alongside his brother Caleb in the green and white as well.
“We lost a couple of grand finals with Caleb, we managed to win one in 2013 which was pretty good, that was pretty special to do with my brother,” Isaac reflected.
“We then actually managed to win another one in 2019 with these younger kids when I moved back from Gunnedah so that was nice, two on the board.”
Isaac has come and gone from Muswellbrook over the years, even playing rugby in England for two years, but has always been connected with his hometown club.
“With juniors then moving to seniors, that was a lot of my actual friendship group because we’re all around the same sort of age, so going through and playing with them, having successes and even the bad times, was good,” he said, reflecting on the mateship over the years.
“Then I moved away and came back a bit older, so there’s a whole new group, a lot of my mates are all smart enough and stopped, so we’ve got a lot of these new younger fellows in the club,” he laughed.
This year also marks the start of Isaac’s own kids donning the Heelers jersey with the return of junior teams to the club and now two of his sons are continuing the family Heeler legacy.
The Heelers took on Cooks Hill on Saturday and unfortunately went down 18 to 12, so it wasn’t the feather in the cap that a win would have been, but Isaac wasn’t upset at the effort put in by the team.
“We had the game in a couple of areas, but couple of decisions, and that’s that, and that’s close rugby,” Isaac shared.
“I think we’ve got a fair bit of quality this year. We’ve got a lot of people new to rugby, but actual footballers and athletes, we look pretty good. Once these boys start to understand rugby and they gel with the experienced boys, I think we could be a threat.”
Isaac is only the fifth Heeler to reach 200 games, Les Robinson played 272, Michael Chandler 257, Peter Davies 229 and Graeme Booth 200.
It wasn’t all about Isaac on the weekend, teammate Will Hobden ran out for his 50th game for the Muswellbrook Heelers as well.
-JEM ANSHAW
