Cornelsen was named last weekend in the list that honours Australians for their achievements and the former Wallaby breakaway was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for his contributions to rugby union and charitable organisations.

It was an honour he’s humbled by but quietly appreciative of.

He has been for years an ambassador and supporter of a spinal injuries association, involved in speaking with schoolkids, and for the past 25 years raising hundreds of thousands of dollars as host of an annual Corney’s Gentlemen’s Lunch on the Gold Coast.

The one-time rural commodities trader and Jeogla farmer is an economist, a small business specialist and successful businessman.

He’s been a resident of the Gold Coast since 1990 and, after developing a spring water business which he sold in 2004, he’s dabbled in a few other businesses, sat on a variety of boards and today is also a board member of the clean technology company Bluglass.

But for most sports fans, the former Armidale schoolboy’s most inspiring personal traits are of the sporting skilled kind. 

Cornelsen’s medal has rekindled plenty of memories of the Wallaby great for northern good sports too.

The bloke often called the “bearded bushranger” attracted media attention and a lot of local love when he was first picked to play for the national team in 1974 and he played 25 Tests before his retirement in 1982.

Two standout games still inspire the most passionate and colourful tales of his talent.

The first came in 1975 and in what’s become famous as the “up the jumper try”.

It was a City versus Country game and coach Daryl Haberecht directed his boys to employ what was commonly known as “the tap five”, a move from a penalty. Every rugby follower worth his salt knows what happened next.

Cornelsen put the ball up his jumper, scrambled past the blind opposition – certainly dumbfounded and in complete confusion – and then passed the ball to his teammate to score. Country won.

The second match of note in the Cornelsen fame album is from Eden Park in Auckland in 1978.

The flanker-breakaway was the first to achieve the feat of four tries in one Test – and although the score books have been rewritten since, it appears that nearly 40 years down the line, Cornelsen is the only forward to do that.

So, back in the day, when Cornelsen would come home to the Jeogla property first purchased by his father, and with the mantle of a Wallaby on his shoulders, the locals were proud.

Cornelsen had been a student at The Armidale School, senior prefect in 1970, and then a university student studying economics at UNE, and playing footy.

At TAS, recalls Tim Hughes from the school, Cornelsen had been captain of the First XV but he was also a shining light on the stage with appearances in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and as a voice in the chapel choir.

But there were other headline stories that captured the imagination of readers back then too.

In 1981 then-Leader photographer Shane Chillingworth managed to snap a unique image of two Wallabies on the hop east of Armidale.

Cornelsen was about to embark on his fifth Wallabies tour but before then The Leader tracked him down to ground and reporter Ned Makim found a cute tale.

A little wallaby called Ike had taken to keeping pace with the burly rugby player as he prepared for more than three months’ football in the British Isles ahead of a scheduled 24 rugby games and four Tests.

Every afternoon, we were told, the pet joined Greg in a sprint workout on the family property Wanderibby, east of Armidale.

The 28-year-old had raised Ike when his mother was killed nine months earlier although it wasn’t until a couple of weeks before the picture was taken that Ike had decided to join in the training sessions.

“I don’t know why he started hopping with me,” Cornelsen said then.

“But he still has trouble keeping up. I don’t think he’d be able to match it too well with his uncles and aunts out in the bush.”

Cornelsen was to retire after that series.

For the past 10 years, he says, from the sidelines of a Brisbane club rugby game, he’s been “mucking around trying to make a dollar”.

He and partner Lesley Marshall (a Kiwi, but a Kiwi he met on the Southport golf course, not at a rugby match) have one son, Jack, 19. He’s a No 8 with the University of Queensland team and his proud father watches from the sidelines most games.

He laughs at the memories of the Ike training sessions, and speaks fondly of his old New England connections.

 He wasn’t at the Test last weekend at Ballymore  but there’s a 1974-1975 Wallabies reunion coming up at the end of this month – and he’s off to that. 

Those famous Cornelsen games are likely to get some more reminders.