I’ve been involved with rugby league all of my life and every now and again you will meet somebody that simply loves the game and always puts in to make rugby league the greatest game of all.
One of those people is certainly Mick 'Wombat' Aprile.
When I spoke to the convenor of the 2022 Confraternity Shield to be held in Mackay, he asked me if I could write a couple of pages on Mick Aprile.
Not Daly Cherry-Evans, Wendell Sailor, Brett Dallas, Martin Bella or Shannon Hegarty, who all went onto play for Australia after they left St Patrick's. Not Ben Barba, who won the Daly M Medal as the best player in the NRL, but Mick Aprile.
I knew a bit about Mick, who sadly passed away late last month. I had played against Mackay back in the early 1970s and heaps of my mates were friends of Mick’s. Nobody ever said a bad word about him, but who was Mick Aprile?
Mick was a Mackay Brothers man through and through. He might even had been a Leprechaun in another life.
He played first grade for Brothers from 1963 until he retired as a player in 1971. He never played during the 1968 and 1969 seasons because of injury. Brothers won premierships in 1967 and 1970 with Mick, the tough second row forward who always made 50 tackles a game in the team.
Darryl Van de Velde, currently a QRL Board member, played with Mick in their 1970 premiership team, but his memory of Mick went back to the school days when Darryl was a star player in the 1966 Brothers Under 16 team that won the premiership without losing a game. Mick was the coach, and the young players simply loved the guy.
On the representative front, Mick played Foley Shield for Mackay from 1963 until 1966 and his fondest memory was playing against the mighty St George club from Sydney in 1964 and 1966.
Saints, at the time, were the greatest rugby league team in the world and included in the team that played Brothers were Graeme Langlands, John Raper, John King, Billy Smith, Eddie Lumsden, Norm Proven, Kevin Ryan, Elton Rasmussen and Brian James. All were Australian internationals and just to make things interesting they also had English international Dick Huddart in the team.
Coaching came natural to Mick and when approached by St Patrick’s College to take charge of their First XIII, he jumped at the challenge and boy, did he make his mark.
From 1988 up until and including 1992, the Mick Aprile-coached St Patrick's College, Mackay won the Confraternity Shield, and they did it against top opposition indeed.
In 1988 St Patrick's defeated St Brendan’s College, Yeppoon in the final, which was played in Brisbane. St Brendan’s had played of the calibre of Julian O’Neill in their team.
In 1989 Mick’s team won against the odds as they were beaten 13-4 in their first game against hosts, St Mary’s. They regrouped and defeated St Brendan’s 20-18 in the semi-final but still went into the final against the undefeated St Mary’s as underdogs. Mick lifted St Patrick's and with Paul Agnew scoring in the dying minutes, St Patrick's had racked up victory number two with a 10-8 victory.
The 1990 carnival was held at St Brendan’s College, Yeppoon and the home team, with an experienced Julian O’Neill playing in his third carnival, looked hard to beat. Mick got his St Patrick’s College boys up for the challenge and went into the final against St Brendan’s with a 26-10 semi-final victory over St Augustine’s, Cairns.
In the final a big hit on Julian O’Neill put St Brendan’s on the back foot and the Peter Phillips-inspired St Patrick’s won 26-0. St Patrick’s player Brett Dallas would later play for Australia.
In 1991, Mick took his charges to Charters Towers to defend their title and defend it they did with a 21-8 defeat of St Augustine’s in the final. One of Mick’s all-time-favourite players, Butch Fatnowna, won the player of the carnival to match the feats of Peter Phillips the previous year.
Padua College hosted the 1992 carnival with all games played at Nudgee College.
Mick took a great team including a young Wendell Sailor, who would win St Patrick’s College third consecutive player of the carnival award. The school went through the carnival undefeated and took out St Augustine’s 34-10 in the semi-final before taking the final with a powerful 30-0 defeat of Emmaus.
Mick simply loved ‘Confro’. He felt his St Patrick’s players lifted as soon as they pulled on the jersey and his natural good humour and tactical mind would turn average players into super stars.
He loved the banter of State of Origin and would talk on a regular basis with Brisbane Broncos legendary school scout and former international Cyril Connell and Peter ‘Bullfrog’ Moore, the revered boss of the Canterbury Bulldogs, who loved the Confraternity spirit.
In 2017 Mick was awarded QRL North division life membership and is regarded as a legend of Mackay Rugby League.
