Briggs, a natural-born sportsman and one of Moree’s most respected citizens, has fought the big battles over the decades – both on and off the paddock.

But when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer midway through last year he knew the road ahead would be long and hard.

About three months ago a few of his mates got together to organise a reunion to pay tribute to the man who helped redefine Moree sport in the 1970s and 1980s.

They just wanted Briggs to know that he wasn’t going into battle alone. And, once Moree’s ever-reliable bush telegraph notched up a gear, old team-mates, friends, family and former work colleagues rallied to his side.

All the well-known names of country rugby league were there: the Jurd brothers and the Peachey boys made the trek to Moree, as did the Mathers, Quinns, Walfords, Flicks and Allen brothers. 

Heck, there were enough Shearers in town to knock over 500 woolly wethers before smoko.

Many hadn’t been back to Moree since those heady days of the 1970s when the Moree Boars were an unstoppable force, an era when rugby league was king. 

It was a time that brought the coveted University Shield to the far north-west for the first time when, in 1973, Moree High School overcame bolter’s odds to beat Forbes High School by one point. 

The nailbiting match, played at Gosford’s Grahame Park, is still rightly considered to be Moree’s proudest sporting achievement.

And it’s a special moment in the town’s history because of one man – or boy at the time.

Briggs, at just 15 years of age, had 8000 sets of eyes on him when he lined up a goal from the sideline with just 10 minutes left to play of that now-famous 80 minutes of football.

John Brooks had just crashed through the Forbes defence to plant the ball right in the corner and bring Moree High School to within two points of Uni Shield glory.

With the score 12-11 Forbes’s way, it was left to Briggs to convert Brook’s try and rewrite local sporting history.

And that’s exactly what he did. 

When that oval-shaped ball floated across the black dot, with those 8000 sets of eyes following its every move, Briggs brought Moree to national sporting prominence.

He single-handedly – or footedly, if there is such a word – embedded the sports-mad town into rugby league folklore.

Briggs says he felt “sheer elation” when the flags were raised and Moree took a 13-12 lead.

“But I remembered that we still had 10 minutes of football left and that the game wasn’t over – even though we got one point in front, the game wasn’t finished,” he said.

Briggs likes to play down that special moment, just as he likes to play down everything else he’s done and achieved over the years.

He reckons he’s just the bloke who’s there to fix your phone – he’s worked for Telstra since before the dial-up days – and humbly says the records he created, rewrote and smashed over the years were just part of growing up in the bush.

“I’m just a hometown boy,  a boy from Yarraman,” he smiles.

Briggs is Moree born-and-bred – raised at the small village of Yarraman on the northern edge of town – and no amount of coaxing, lucrative contracts or big bucks could’ve dragged him away from the place.

And, mind you, during those early years there were plenty of big, fat, juicy carrots left dangling.

In 1976 he played a season with Macquarie United in Newcastle but it wasn’t too long before he jumped on the red rattler at Broadmeadow Station and headed home to the black-soil plains.

“I finished school and went to Newcastle for 18 months but came back to Moree,” Briggs said.

“I never had any big plans to go to Sydney or anything.  There were a few offers but it didn’t really worry me.

“I’ve always said that if I had (good mate) Stan Jurd’s determination, I might’ve made it in Sydney. Stan is just one of those blokes who got to where he did through sheer determination and ability,” he said.

As Jurd’s brother Robert said: “You simply can’t buy class – and Bernie Briggs is all class.”

Briggs’s sporting achievements are incredible. He was a 1970s sports prodigy, a freak.

He was part of Moree High’s undefeated Under 16 outfit and, apart from his pivotal role in the University Shield win, played with that year’s Under 18 Group 5 grand-final winners.

He was named the NSW Combined High Schools’ 15-years javelin champion and was an all-rounder with the north-west area open cricket team.

Briggs also has the distinction of being awarded two North West Schools Sport Association Blues in 1973 – one for athletics and a special Blue for rugby league and cricket.

He also played for the Under 21 Northern NSW Emus cricket team that toured New Zealand and, when he found some spare time, won the 1973 State javelin championships. 

Briggs handled the round ball just as stylishly. He scored a few goals during the season for the Moree open soccer team and that year they won the regional competition.

All of this at just 15 years of age.

Briggs also played three times for Northern Division against Great Britain – the third time he was “off his game” and soon after the match was admitted to hospital with pneumonia.

But mention any of these incredible achievements to Briggs and he smiles shyly.

“I just loved sport. It was good.  It was just something we did as kids,” he says.

But it was much more than that. Briggs was simply a natural who could turn any sport into an art-form.

John Brooks, who scored that crucial Uni Shield try that Briggs converted, recalls how his team-mate became NSW 15 years State javelin champion, and all because of a bit of schoolboy horseplay.

“Our coach John McLean made all of us University Shield boys go to the school athletics carnivals to set a good example for the rest of the students,” Brooks said.

“Anyway, Buster (Michael Duke) threw a javelin to Bernie and said  ‘come on Bernie, show us how the old black magic works’.

“So Bernie just threw the damn thing and John McLean went and measured it out and figured that in that one throw, Bernie had broken the State record.

“Needless to say, Bernie gets picked for the north-west, goes to Sydney and wins the State athletics title for 15 years javelin,” Brooks laughed.

“People say ‘that can’t be right’, but that is exactly what happened.”

Briggs, who turned 57 in January, says the Uni Shield win 42 years ago is one of his proudest sporting achievements.

“I rate the uni shield win of course, and the grand-final wins with Moree are right up there as well,” he says.

“I played in seven grand    finals for Moree and we won six of them, juniors through to seniors. The one loss was against Inverell at Inverell in 1975.

“I had played the major semis at Moree and was called up from the juniors to play in the final. We lost by a point, but the last grand final I played in was against Narrabri at Burt’s oval (in Moree) and we won by a point.”

Now, Briggs faces his biggest challenge but, in that typical tenacious way that made him a home-grown champion for decades, he remains upbeat.

“Everything is going good,” he said.

“I’ve been on chemo and it’s doing its job at this stage, and it’s not affecting me as much as it does other people.

“It’s not making me crook, which I’m very grateful for,” he said.