Sometimes he was serious, but when we were warming up he would be behind us cracking jokes about something. I still talk with Bob McCarthy, Gary Stevens and Ronny. October 5, 2014 — 11.15pm.

NRL Grand Final: South Sydney win first title in 43 years with victory over Canterbury Bulldogs. Today everyone has their little thing, get up for a bit of breakfast and whatever else. We trained on the Tuesday, the Thursday and the Friday night.

By Michael Chammas. A few young blokes came in for them and they all performed well because Chang [Graeme Langlands], Billy Smith and those fellas had them up and going. South Sydney Rabbitohs legend John Sattler takes a flashback to 1971 with Adam Pengilly. For 15,724 days South Sydney have been waiting for premiership No.21.Through five wooden spoons, two years in the wilderness and 10 failed finals attempts - they waitedFrom Coleman, to Fenech, to Inglis - they waited in hope that glory would return to Redfern.And finally, after 43 years and 18 days, Redfern was rocking again.The 30-6 victory was inspired by a performance for the ages by the rugby-bound man of the match Sam Burgess, playing 79 minutes and 53 seconds of the contest with a fractured cheekbone he suffered in a head clash with James Graham in the first tackle of the match.In front of a crowd of 83,833, the Bunnies thwarted a rejuvenated Bulldogs to end their finals fightback in heartache, and in the process avenging the heartache of their own from the past two preliminary final failures.Three years ago they went in search of arguably the greatest coach of all time to help end the drought, but Wayne Bennett didn't want a part of it.Enter Michael Maguire, who, after a three year journey, finally led South Sydney to the Promised Land on Sunday night.Rewind the clock four weeks and Canterbury were dead, just not buried.They had two feet in the grave when they went up to the Gold Coast in the last round, and the Titans pushed them all the way into the hole they'd dug themselves in despite a blistering start to the year.But somehow, from seventh position, they clawed their way out and mustered the strength to produce one of the most incredible finals resurgences in recent memory.No team had won a grand final from outside the top four since the Bulldogs in 1995, but it wasn't the omen they were hoping it would be.With their skipper Michael Ennis on the sidelines with crutches after breaking his foot in the preliminary final, his teammates could do little to grant him the fairytale finish he was after.All week the spotlight had been on the two Englishman, Sam Burgess and Graham, but no one could have anticipated the events that transpired the first time the pair went head-to-head.A head clash from the kick-off took South Sydney on a walk down memory lane, with Burgess suffering a fractured cheekbone in a tackle from Graham.Like John Sattler did in 1970 with a broken jaw, Burgess played on through the pain in what would be his final game in South Sydney colours.In a drama-packed opening to the game, the Rabbitohs had a try to Lote Tuqiri denied after the video referee spotted a swinging arm from Adam Reynolds on Sam Perrett from the knock on that led to the try.But there was no denying rookie Alex Johnston on the other side of the field when Luke Keary created an overlap down a narrow blind side to give his side a 4-0 lead after 22 minutes.Dale Finucane was lucky to remain on the field when he deliberately swiped at the ball in the ruck with his hands, providing the Rabbitohs with a gift two points from a penalty goal right in front of the posts.The Bulldogs went into the sheds trailing by a converted try but they managed to equalise in the 50th minute when Tony Williams latched on to a Josh Reynolds grubber to set up a mouth-watering finale.George Burgess has played second fiddle to his big brother since bursting into first grade, but he took centre stage - albeit for a brief moment - when he pushed and stepped his way past four Bulldogs defenders to score under the posts.Adam Reynolds had a chance to stretch the margin to eight points but he failed to convert a penalty goal from 40 metres out, but didn't miss when he was gifted another shot a minute later from the almost identical position to take a 14-6 lead.Tyrrell was then taken to hospital after a nasty head clash with Graham, but it little to derail the Bunnies.The floodgates opened as the emotions poured in the final 10 minutes when Kirisome Auva'a, Adam Reynolds and Inglis put the icing on the cake with four pointers of their own to seal the historic victory.Michael Chammas is a sports reporter with The Sydney Morning HeraldNRL Grand Final: South Sydney win first title in 43 years with victory over Canterbury BulldogsWorth the wait: The Bunnies celebrate Kirisome Auva'a's late try.Brothers in arms: The Rabbitohs celebrate George Burgess' try which opened the floodgates.Keeping them guessing: Greg Inglis changes direction. If we had been off our guard they would have beaten us that day.Not at all. Our club was at a stage where it was just about to hit rock bottom. They've been training all year for this one day.South Sydney legend John Sattler reflects on the Rabbitohs' 1971 grand finalGlory days: John Sattler (right) on South Sydney's lap of honour in 1971. George Piggins is on there too.He's been a wonderful asset to the club. I haven't seen it for a while. Easts offered him good money and he couldn't knock it back. He's a wonderful player and a big loss to our game.Not that anyone would get a chance to address them, which I completely agree with. In fact, I only just went down to the storage room in my unit block and pulled out a big South Sydney frame a metre by three-quarters of a metre of the 1971 South Sydney jersey signed by Ronny and everybody.

I don't know how many people worked there, but it was a massive staff and when you were leaving work and it was getting close to the weekend they would give you the old "good onya mate". Michael [Maguire] will say to them they've done all the hard work and their time has arrived.

I'll give you a minute to address Big Sam and the 2014 South Sydney grand final side before Sunday. Nowadays they tell you it's no good for you, but it was fine back then.I just worked for General Motors Holden down at Pagewood.

It's up to them as a team and individually to pull together and do their stuff.