The scene was 1978 at Leichardt Oval, a youthful Illawarra Division team coached by British legend Tommy Bishop had just given a stacked Roosters side a mighty scare in an Amco Cup quarter-final

A dejected Wynn, then a young Thirroul Butchers back-rower, was making his way towards the sheds when ‘Rabs’, who’d just called the match, stopped him for a chat. 

“When I was walking out to get on the bus and Ray came up to me and said to me ‘what are you doing next year?” Wynn recalls.

“I said I was going to finish my studies and I hoped to be playing in Sydney. He asked if I’d heard from Parramatta, I said no and he said ‘give me your phone number’. 

“The next morning at 7 o’clock I got a call from Terry Fearnley. He asked if we could have a chat, I said when? He was on my doorstep within an hour.”

That will no doubt be just one of the yarns spun when that side, dubbed “Bishop’s Babes” re-unites after 40 years at the annual Illawarra Rugby League luncheon later this month. 

They are compelling stories given the success of that young side proved, not just a springboard for players like Wynn, but for the entire Illawarra Rugby League.

Illawarra Division’s 1977 campaign had been underwhelming, prompting the league to look for a changing of the guard under Cronulla and Great Britain legend Bishop.

The league took the unprecedented step of naming a 22-man squad in December with a view to the 1978 season, a move The Mercury described as “an all-out bid to re-gain the prestige Illawarra lost in this year’s representative fixtures.”

As Illawarra League godfather Bob Millward said at the time “we’re giving youth a go.” It was no throwaway line, with all but five members of the squad under the age of 22.

Wynn had been blooded as a teenager, alongside Dapto’s Steve Morris, a year earlier and said the bond they shared blossomed quickly.

“[1977] was my first taste of any representative football,” Wynn said.

“At the end of the year they picked 20-odd players who were going to be part of the squad for the 78 season.

“Before that you were playing at the time, they announced the team and up you went. This time they picked it early so you really felt you were part of something pretty special.

“I obviously knew of Tommy, I’d watched him in the 1973 grand final for Cronulla and I knew he was a Great Britain halfback so that was exciting in itself, to be in a squad under him.

“Getting picked in the Illawarra Division was a big thing because I knew the next level was Country then NSW and then Australia so you knew what the ladder was.”

The squad had it’s first hit-out in a trial against Cronulla, holding their own against a side featuring the likes of Steve Rogers, Dane and Kurt Sorensen among a host of hardened first-graders.

“We did quite well, there wasn’t much in it,” Wynn said.

“They went on that year to play in the grand final so it wasn’t as though we were thrown into a trial against another divisional side, it was a top-line Sydney side.

“It was a confidence booster. You could easily be over-awed and then when you get out on the field, you make a couple of tackles and you realise you’re playing against humans, not super-humans.”

It was a good start to a rep season that saw Illawarra claim the Country crown with a win over Newcastle, but it was in the Amco Cup where they really made an impression.

It started with a 63-5 win over a Kevin Tamati-led Wellington in Wollongong before traveling to Lang Park to take on Valleys, a side featuring a young Wally Lewis.

“Wally came off the bench in that game and it was probably one of his first games in first grade,” Wynn said.

“We played against Valleys the year before and they beat us up there at Lang Park then 12 months later with this new fresh team put together, we flogged Valleys up there. It was real turnaround of fresh blood into the side.”

They also managed a comfortable 44-5 win over Norths Brisbane and an impressive 19-10 win over Ron Willey-coached Balmain to reach the quarter-finals against a star-stacked Roosters.

“We got there early and I always remember looking at the program,” Wynn said.

I was sitting in that little grandstand at Leichardt Oval and they all started coming in one at a time, Mark Harris, Stumpy Stevens, Kevin Hastings, Ronny Coote was on the bench.

“I didn't know Bob O'Reilly then, he walked in with a trench coat, a pair of thongs and a towel and I remember thinking 'this bloke can’t be playing’ but we ran out and he was there.

“We led 2-0, it was 2-all at quarter-time, at halftime it was 2-all at three-quarter-time it was 2-all so we were right in it. I really thought we were going to win, I had that feeling in my guts at three-quarter time ‘we might get these guys’.

“Bob O’Reilly scored a try and Mark Harris scored a try and that was it close to the posts. Two moments that happened, their experience probably got us in the end.”

The Roosters ultimately went on the win the Amco Cup final but Illawarra's run to the quarter-finals ultimately proved the clincher in the IRL’s bid for inclusion in the NSWRL’s 1982 season. Not that Bishop knew that’s what he was getting into.

“It all just started with a phone call from Bobby Millward and I didn’t know a lot about what I was going to,” Bishop, who will be in attendance at the luncheon, said.

“I knew we had a great lot of talent in the side and I was pretty lucky I got them when I did. It was one of the most satisfying situations I’ve ever been in when I was coaching them, it really was.

“I had blokes like Rod Henniker, Keithy Rugg, Allan Sheppard, a fiery little fella in the forwards in Kon Demos, who did a great job for us. Everyone did.

“Brian Johnson has sadly left us, but he was fantastic and of course there was ‘Slippery’ [Steve] Morris. He was a terrific halfback, he controlled everything and he could score a try or two off his own bat he was so quick.

“They were so easy to coach everything I wanted they cottoned onto. At that particular time it was obvious they were going to be first grade players.” 

So obvious in fact, seven players ended up in the Sydney competition the following season. Henniker, Sheppard, Rugg and Demos all followed Bishop to North Sydney.

Wynn went to Parramatta where he’d go on to win multiple premierships and play for NSW and Australia. Johnson linked with St George while Morris played for Australia at the end of 1978 before also joining the Dragons.

Millward still believes that success is what got the Steelers bid over the line, after previous bids in 1954 and 1966 were knocked back.

“At the time we said to Tommy Bishop, ‘we’re losing players every year to Sydney, we haven’t got a lot to give you’,”Millward said.

“We haven’t got any International players anymore, we haven’t got a state player anymore. He said ‘give me what you’ve got’. We gave him a bunch of kids and off they went. 

“They won the Country Championship, they beat the New Zealand touring side, they reached the quarter-finals of the Amco Cup. Two went on to play for Australia, Steve Morris and Peter Wynn, and seven went to Sydney the following year.

“That’s what we were able to lean on when we went before the NSWRL to say ‘enough’s enough. We keep producing them, you keep taking them, give us a go wearing our own jumper’.”

40 years later, the friendships remain and will be celebrated, no doubt over a few glasses of the amber fluid at the Illawarra League luncheon on June 29.

“It was a huge highlight. The guys I played with were all great blokes,” Wynn said.

“We had to travel around a lot, Riverina, Newcastle, Brisbane to play Valleys so we were together a lot. We played 12 games and they all had the same focus as me and wanted to be as successful as we could be.

“As an individual I was wanting to play in Sydney and we got a lot of exposure that year and we definitely grew as players, we got tougher.

“The Sydney comp was so fast and so demanding and playing with that Illawarra side that year ticked all those boxes. It was a good prelude to coming to Sydney.”

Tickets to the Illawarra League luncheon are available from Steelers Club reception.