Hope & heartbreak: Forgotten Bulls relive their glory daze

"I've never shared all of what happened that day with anyone …"

Greg Rowell is adamant this is not a sob story. Three decades on, the 58-year-old has picked up enough wisdom along the road of life to put matters into perspective; he can even see the funny side to a confluence of events that meant day five of Queensland's breakthrough 1995 Sheffield Shield final triumph also happened to be the most difficult of his life.

But he's done with telling things as they weren't. 

"There was a luncheon for Queensland Cricket at the 20-year reunion – or the 25 years, I can't remember – and they invited me up and interviewed me," Rowell says. "I appreciated the gesture, but I was a bit in-between, trying to talk about what a great day it was. I gave a bad interview, because I was kind of lying – that just wasn't my personal experience of the day.

"And if people ask me about it now, I acknowledge it was a wonderful occasion, because it was; I loved seeing my closest friends (celebrating) what was such a euphoric moment for them. And everyone in that team is so generous in acknowledging me – probably more than I deserve, to be honest.

"But it wasn't a great time for me, and there were a few sliding-doors moments that came together to make it a pretty awful day."

* * *

Gavin Fitness was selling income insurance to footballers on the halfway line of Bishop Park in the Brisbane suburb of Nundah when his phone rang.

"I was in the timekeeper's box with (former NSW and Queensland player) Peter Clifford, and I got a phone call from (then Queensland selector) Max Walters," Fitness tells cricket.com.au.

"It was one of the first years mobile phones had come in. I hung up and I said to 'Cliff', 'Mate, you're not going to believe this – I'm in the Shield team'."

It was February 1995, and Walters' phone call had come about because of an accident. In the Shield game being played at the Gabba, Bulls pair Wade Seccombe and Dirk Tazelaar had collided in the outfield while attempting a catch.

Seccombe had been taken to hospital. He was badly concussed and had a suspected broken collarbone.

Fitness, 25, was Queensland's third-string gloveman, behind Seccombe and Ian Healy. The Toombul product was highly rated as both a wicketkeeper and batter but had never played a first-class game. The extent of his experience in a Bulls shirt was two List A matches in the previous summer's domestic one-day competition.

Yet he was part of a close-knit Queensland squad. He even lived with the captain, Stuart Law; their place on Dunedoo Street in Stafford, a northern suburb of Brisbane, became something of a Bulls party house through the mid-1990s.

"The mentality of the group back then was very squad-oriented," Fitness says. "Under (head coach) John Buchanan, we'd addressed the fact that for us to win a Shield, it was going to take up to 20 blokes to do a bloody good job.

"So if your opportunity came around, you had to be ready. And blow me down, if mine didn't come at the most pressure-packed time of the year."

* * *

Rowell was a carefree 24-year-old when he packed his Commodore with his worldly possessions and headed north towards the Queensland border.

It was 1991, and the rangy fast bowler had played just three Shield matches for New South Wales since his debut in December 1989, and was working part-time as a bank teller to pay the bills.

"I wasn't a regular in the Shield team," he says. "And in those days, there were no contracts, and few cricket-friendly jobs."

Rowell was chasing a Baggy Green. He knew he had the ingredients for success – "I'm tall, I moved well, I had the skills, and I could hit the crease hard all day" – and now, he sensed, it was about actively pursuing opportunity.

"New South Wales had (Geoff) Lawson, (Mike) Whitney, (Wayne) Holdsworth, and then Glenn McGrath and Phil Alley coming through," he says. "I'd won the O'Reilly Medal (as Sydney grade cricket's best and fairest) and I'd actually taken nine wickets in two games against Queensland, but I wasn't really feeling the love."

Rowell had received a few calls at the bank from former Blue Peter Clifford, who had relocated to Brisbane and was suggesting the young quick should follow suit. The idea immediately appealed to him, but the Queensland pace attack of the era was strong as well (think Craig McDermott, Carl Rackemann, Dirk Tazelaar and a young Michael Kasprowicz). He didn't want to trade one peripheral role for another, but nor did he want to sit idle. In the end, opportunity won out, and he decided to roll the dice in the off-season of 1991.

There were just two things he needed to do first.

The first of those was a trip to Adelaide for the National Cricket Academy's annual 'fast-bowling week' with Dennis Lillee.

"It was there that I ran into Gavin Maslen (now deceased), who was from Wests (in Brisbane)," he says. "He hammered me to go to Wests, and then I knew 'Mocca' (Rackemann), who I'd had some encouraging interactions with after a couple of games, and he was at Wests, too."

Rowell's second pitstop was Canberra, where he had grown up.

"I had a few dollars saved up, so I decided to quit the bank – I was going to live on the smell of an unlikely dream," he smiles. "I moved back into my parents' place and just lived and breathed the hard winter work of fast bowlers: weights in the morning, and running in the afternoon. Real 'Eye of the Tiger' sort of stuff."

The diligent preparation paid off. Rowell hit the ground running with Wests and was called up immediately by Queensland selectors for a List A debut on October 12. As the Bulls routed Victoria for 135, he picked up 3-30, including the top-order wickets of Wayne Phillips and Dean Jones.

By the end of November, he had added three Shield caps to his career tally while also turning heads in Hobart with a career-best match haul of 10-96.

The performance earned him selection in the Prime Minister's XI one-day clash at Manuka Oval against the touring Indians, where his 6-27 included the wicket of young gun Sachin Tendulkar.

"So I actually went from fighting for a spot with Queensland," he says, "to all of a sudden, I'm having a pretty good season."

* * *

Fitness was born in Maryborough, around 250km north of Brisbane, but had moved as a 10-year-old with his family to the Queensland capital when his father – seeking greater opportunities for his three kids – took a transfer with Australia Post.

Soon after, he was playing alongside his future skipper – and housemate – Law in the Under 11s.

"I regularly tell the blokes that the reason I'm a 'keeper is because I was a shit bowler," he smiles. "But then once I started it, I felt like I'd found what I was here for."

Since the arrival of Healy however, the wicketkeeping succession plan at Queensland has been particularly tight, with the legendary gloveman really only followed by three men – Seccombe, Chris Hartley and Jimmy Peirson – in 30 years.

Which meant the phone call from Walters carried enormous significance for Fitness, particularly when the news regarding Seccombe quickly descended from bad to worse, and his place in a potential final was suddenly in real jeopardy.

"All reports are that the initial four weeks (layoff) may be wrong," Buchanan told reporters at the time. "It could be longer."

In the same Canberra Times article, Queensland captain Law added: "(Fitness) may not be as stylish as Wade but he can do the job, which is all we ask. He's a fighter and that's what we need at No. 7. I have no problems having him in the side."

With just four days between Shield games, Fitness quickly joined the squad on a flight to Melbourne for a crucial clash with Victoria at the MCG.

"I didn't sleep much the night before," he says. "The pressure was there because we'd never won it – there were media crews and all this sort of thing. It was pretty heavy.

"I remember walking up the stairs (at the MCG) into the viewing room area and just standing there, looking out, and going, 'Holy shit'. That was the first time I'd ever been to the MCG. It felt like the Southern Stand was on top of you.

"But in saying that, I didn't feel overawed. I felt like I belonged in the group, and I had enough self-confidence to know I could do well at that level."

* * *

By the time the 1994-95 season rolled around, Rowell had played 30 times for Queensland (including the '93 Shield final defeat in Sydney), even elevating himself into the national selection conversation ahead of the 1993 Ashes.

Competition for fast-bowling places in the state set-up by then was heating up too, with a youngster from Laidley named Andy Bichel earmarked as the next big thing. But Rowell remained in new coach John Buchanan's first-choice Shield XI, despite the fact he had come off a season-ending stress fracture in his left navicular (in the arch of the foot).

The then-27-year-old had history with the injury, having first sustained it during his Shield debut in 1989. Second time around, it had come midway through the 1993-94 summer.

"It's a shame for Greg," Law said at the time. "He's one of the hardest workers in the Queensland squad."

However, another huge pre-season and a strong foundation from years of physical and technical toil seemed to finally put him on the other side of the issue. Rowell moved into the form of his life. He was superb for Queensland through to mid-February, taking the new ball in all eight Shield matches and collecting 32 wickets at 25.50.

In December-January, he had been picked for Australia A to take on Australia (as well as England and Zimbabwe) in that summer's hugely popular one-day quadrangular series, while he was also offered a County deal with Hampshire in 1995 – provided he wasn't selected for an Australia A tour of the UK that winter.

But the biggest carrot looming on his horizon was Australia's 1995 Test tour to the Caribbean, for which – he had been reliably informed – he was in serious consideration.

"I hadn't yet had that knockout season – I wasn't a top-shelf Australian quick in terms of the pecking order," he says. "But that year I was on the way to that big season you need to really push your case."

With his star on the rise, Rowell was around five weeks away from potential glory with Queensland – and the possibility of an elusive Baggy Green – when he felt what had become a familiar creeping pain in his left foot.

"(The navicular) gave way in Melbourne," he says. "It had been ticking away over the whole summer."

Very quickly, optimism was replaced with concern. And then despair.

* * *

On his Shield debut in Melbourne, Fitness pouched four catches and made a crucial 25 from 81 balls to help Queensland to first-innings points in a match they ultimately won by six wickets.

A fortnight or so later, the team made its way to Adelaide to take on South Australia. In a heavy defeat that left their season riding on the result of their last match against Tasmania, Fitness stood tall in the second innings, top-scoring for his side with 71.

"It was an exciting time for me," he says. "Growing up the way I did, being a true-blue Queenslander, all I wanted to do was win a Shield."

And with victory in Hobart, Queensland were one step away from that holy grail. Fitness was run out for three in a mix-up with Allan Border, but another four catches took his dismissals tally to 11, and he took great delight in savouring a sweet triumph with his teammates as they looked ahead to hosting a decider for the first time.

With that match looming, Seccombe's availability was still unknown. But Fitness was hopeful of playing regardless.

"I remember coming home, to our place in Stafford," he says. "And I thought they might have stuck with me (for the final) because of the runs (he made in Adelaide), and Wade hadn't scored as many runs as he probably should've."

Yet it wasn't to be.

"It was late in the afternoon, and Stuey came into my bedroom," Fitness recalls. "With tears in his eyes, he said to me, 'Mate, it's not going to happen'."

* * *

Rowell's experience had been that a navicular stress fracture was a season-ending injury. But with Queensland chasing a first-ever Shield title, their medical staff was willing to do what they could with one of their frontline pacemen. Rowell's foot was put in a cast for around three weeks. He travelled with the squad to Adelaide for a Shield match with a view to preparing for a return in the final game in Hobart.

As they were getting thrashed by South Australia, the Queenslanders' attention quickly turned to what had become a must-win clash with Tasmania, which was less than a week away. And so, a day after the defeat to the South Australians, Rowell cut a lone figure on the Adelaide Oval, putting himself through 50-60m runs to assess the state of his injured foot.

"So I did this fitness test, thinking: Is this going to be alright?" Rowell recalls. "My foot had just come out of a cast, so it was very stiff, and I just didn't know. I'd run on it, it'd get sore, but it wasn't impossible pain like it had been before.

"I had to make a decision whether I could get through four days of a Shield game which, if we lose, we're out.

"Was I going to roll that dice with the team and our season? In the end, I opted not to."

History details that on the final day in Hobart, Rackemann and a barnstorming Bichel (who Rowell concedes had been in red-hot form at the back-end of the season) bowled the Bulls into their first home final.

Rowell, meanwhile, was booked in for surgery.

* * *

When Fitness arrived at training a couple of days out from the final, he was already across the news he was about to formally receive; Seccombe had passed his fitness test, and would be taking his place behind the stumps.

"Stuey had said to me, 'You're not dropped – there's just no room'," he says. "But what got me at training was 'AB' (Border). He pulled me aside, put his arm around me and said, 'Mate, what you've done is as good as I've seen at this level – it's just unfortunate'.

"Anybody that played with me, or knows me, will tell you how passionate I was, and it did, it broke my heart.

"But then I took 15 minutes. I walked out of the Gabba, I probably had a durry outside (laughs), but in that time I was clever enough to go, 'OK, this isn't about me – it's about the group'.

"I went back in and found myself working with Wade. I said to him, 'Whatever you need from me over the next two days, you'll get it'."

He didn't know it at the time, but Fitness had played his last first-class match.

* * *

Rowell woke up on the morning of March 24, 1995 – day one of the Shield final – in a hospital bed.

"I'd wanted to have the surgery as quickly as I could," he says. "I knew how long it took to heal, and the Australia A tour of England – and Hampshire – was still on my radar."

Rowell watched the action unfold over the five days, and as Queensland's advantage built and built, so too did an overwhelming feeling within him.

"By the last day of this iconic event in Queensland's history, when there's this euphoric moment – with the crowd, with the team – you begin to realise what you've missed out on," he says. "I'd been a part of this side for four seasons. Just the bonds you build, the moments and the toil you share; they're like family.

"And it's this incredible moment for everyone in the team – the greatest moment in their lives. Even 'AB' (Border) is saying it's right up there with anything. Everyone was just euphoric. Their lives had changed, they were on a new track, and for me, there was a realisation that I was now on a different one; I'm injured, and I've missed out on this iconic moment. I felt pretty isolated in that moment, and it was about to get worse."

As the celebrations kicked off, news filtered through that Rackemann had been chosen to replace the injured McDermott ahead of the first Test in the Caribbean.

"It's a great selection – and really an obvious one," Rowell says. "But I couldn't help but feel if I'd played that game in Tassie, and then the final, I just think I would've gone."

In the same press release, the national selection panel also listed the Australia A squad for the upcoming tour of the UK. Rowell's name was nowhere to be seen.

"The West Indies was maybe a long shot, but this hit me hard," he says. "We're in the dressing room, all this noise and beer, and 'Dickie' (Tazelaar) knew I'd missed out. And he gave me that look and said, 'Mate, I know this isn't what you were hoping for', which was really nice of him.

"So (the selectors) have effectively said, I'm not in their next generation of quicks. I'm 28 at this point, and in that moment I knew – I just knew – that I wasn't going to play for Australia."

In the maelstrom of that euphoric environment, Rowell was forced to deal with the emotional impact of the news he has just received. Stoically, he opted to keep those disappointments out of view; something he continued to do for decades.

"I knew it wasn't the time or place to be talking to anyone about this," he says. "They were having a special moment in their lives, and I was happy for them, they're my good friends. I knew what it meant for them, for everyone."

After Rowell left the dressing room celebrations to take a moment to process all he had just learned, he hobbled on his crutches over to the Queensland Cricketers' Club. There, another blow was about to be landed.

"And I swear all this happened in the two hours after the end of that match," he says. "I get over there, and my girlfriend has reunited with her ex.

"I was just numb. Of course, you’re not owed anything, and we all have our own lives to live, but the timing was … interesting, and it was a pretty dramatic exclamation mark on what was already a difficult, life-changing day.

"People ask me these days, 'Oh, what was it like to be part of the final? Wasn't it a great day!'

"And I get it, but for me, it was just the most deflating, isolated, extraordinarily testing moment of my life."

* * *

Fitness took in a good chunk of Queensland's landmark win from the broadcast commentary box, where he traded jokes and jibes with, among others, Victorian pair Dean Jones and Merv Hughes.

On day five he threw himself into the beer-drenched dressing room, and then he joined the squad's ticker-tape parade through Brisbane and the statewide celebrations that followed.

"We went to Maryborough, Bundaberg, Gladstone, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, Cairns – the whole way up," he says. "To be part of that, it's something you'll never forget."

With Seccombe seemingly immovable behind the stumps for Queensland for the foreseeable, Fitness decided the time was right to make a move.

"I had a phone call (after the final) from (national selector) Trevor Hohns," he recalls. "He said to me, 'Mate, I love what you're doing … but the reality of it is, you're not going to play in front of Wade. If an opportunity came up interstate, would you go?'

"I said that I would, and about six weeks later I went to Adelaide."

Ultimately though, it again wasn't to be for Fitness. After 18 months with South Australia, he realised he had replaced his Seccombe problem with a Tim Nielsen problem. Such is the life of a wicketkeeper.

He returned to Queensland and in 2000 made another List A appearance in a game against WA, though ironically, it was eventually washed out.

Twenty-five summers on, Fitness remains an invaluable member of the Queensland Cricket coaching staff, nowadays working with the QC Academy while having helped dozens of batters and 'keepers across the years.

On the wall of his office, there's a photo in which he is standing well back from the stumps, maroon cap on, and clothed in whites. Beside him in the cordon stand Border, Martin Love, and Law.

There are no regrets as such, but there are moments, on occasion, where he wonders what might have been.

"There's no bitterness there," he says of missing that '95 final. "I don't look back at it with any sadness. I was thrilled to be part of it.

"But I do have full faith in my own ability, and I believe I'd have done really well in the Shield final.

"And see, that's the hard part: if I'd played the Shield final, they might have continued to go with me."

* * *

Rowell's surgery, he knows now, was not as it should have been. As he details it, six 1.5mm holes were drilled into his navicular with the purpose of "getting the blood flowing, so it'll grow strong".

"Now I'm no doctor, but that is not what you want to do with a navicular," he says. "So in addition to fracturing it for the third time, I've now got six one-millimetre holes in this navicular. And without really knowing it at that stage, I'm screwed – that's the end of my fast-bowling dreams; the bone structure has been weakened, and the next year it breaks into three pieces in Perth."

Rowell played just 11 first-class matches after that 1994-95 season (six of them for Tasmania in 1998-99, where he had moved to study law). He missed the Bulls' triumphant 1996-97 Shield campaign and tiptoed around controversy when, having adjusted his bowling technique in order to compensate for the ongoing navicular problem, he was quietly warned that his action was being monitored. He stopped bowling, sought out the guru, Lillee, for a technical check-in, overcame the issue, and gradually made his way back to the action.

On reflection, he finds comfort in not only the friends and memories of a wonderful career, but also in a thrilling one-day final win with Queensland over New South Wales in March 1998. By then the Bulls had won four trophies in as many seasons, but this was his long-awaited first.

"That was therapy," laughs Rowell, who took 2-29 from his 10 overs. "Going back to the SCG, my parents, aunts, uncles and one of my brothers were there. And I was probably an ageing quick by then, but just to be with the team for that … it was nice to be out there for one of (the final wins)."

More than 25 years removed from his playing days, Rowell remains involved in the game as a director on the Cricket Australia board, having also had a long association via Premier Cricket in Brisbane as both player and administrator. He has also been a success off the park, through his own commercial law firm.  

And as fate would have it, his office is a brisk five-minute walk from the Gabba.