Author(s): Tom Mather; John Dorahy

Sport

Just one week after his seventeenth birthday, John ?Joe Cool' Dorahy entered the cauldron that was senior rugby league. His journey from schoolboy rugby league phenomenon to consummate senior champion was inevitable.Starting out in the Illawarra competition, it wasn't long before Dorahy unleashed his formidable talents on a much bigger stage. One of the big Sydney clubs in their endless search for quality realised what a priceless piece of football wizardry ?the kid' from the ?Gong' was.His composure and confidence under pressure earned him the nickname of ?Joe Cool' when he went to Sydney to play for Western Suburbs. Older team mates were amazed at his kitbag of attacking skill. He made the chip and regather look so effortless even front rowers tried to copy him at training when he wasn't looking.That he went on to attain the highest honours of state and national representation was no surprise to team mates who played along side him or to opponents who were so regularly made to look pedestrian by his change of pace.Dorahy played at a time when the all seeing and unforgiving eye of television and video replay was unknown. The thuggery that went on out of sight of the officials is today easily forgotten, yet the kid from Wollongong was to remain in this arena for almost twenty years before becoming a coach.During that time he would: Take a tackle in a City v Country game that would paralyse him and cause one of the medics to say, ?Do not move your head, it may fall off!?Play a semi-final in Sydney having fractured a cheekbone in the previous round, an injury he hid from both team mates and the opposition.Get a very late call up for the greatest honour in the game, a coveted Green and Gold Jumper.Take Ken Arthurson and the Australian Rugby League to the High Court claiming restraint of trade.Play for one club with no contract trusting in the handshake of the Chairman.Lose a Rugby League Challenge Cup Final, missing a conversion with literally the last kick of the game.Captain the Illawarra Steelers in their inauguration season.Take Wigan to a League and Cup double only to be sacked five days later.Help in the start up of the Western Reds in Perth only to lose out once again when the ?suits' that were Super League moved in.Calm in the Cauldron is a warts and all account of a career that spanned both sides of the world, and is a must for fans who long for the game as it existed in the good old pre-television, rough, tough, blood and guts days of the Greatest Game in the World.