Vale Graham Reed: Canberra rugby loses an iconic presence on and off the field

In his playing days with Royals, Graham Reed was as tough a backrower as they come. Uncompromising probably doesn’t even come close to describing his talent.

If he had played in the Super Rugby era, he would have played for the Brumbies and the Wallabies. He was that good.

But his prime playing days encompassed the late 1970s through to the late 1980s, well before rugby became professional.

Reedy, with hands like dinner plates, enjoyed nothing more than his local battles with the likes of Eagles flankers Peter O’Neill and Terry Fox.

Reedy’s introduction to first grade was straight out of school, having played in the Marist First 15 from Year 9, often playing with the Royals under 17s and 18s in the morning and the Marist First 15 in the afternoon.

He did things differently.

From Marist College he was selected in the legendary 1977-78 Australian Schoolboy team alongside the Ellas, Wally Lewis, Michael Hawker, Tony Melrose and Michael O’Connor.

The team was unbeaten on the 16-game tour of Japan and Europe.

Straight out of Marist, he won a first-grade premiership with Royals, under the coaching of John Kelsey in 1979, in a 13-12 win over Queanbeyan.

He was part of Royals’ ‘golden run’, halted momentarily for Reedy in 1985 with a knee reconstruction until he became the first-grade coach and won a premiership in 1991.

Reedy then did the unthinkable.

He moved from Royals to the Tuggeranong Vikings – a move akin to switching from Glasgow Celtic to Glasgow Rangers in the Scottish Football League.

Sure, a move from Royals to Tuggeranong doesn’t have the sectarian element, but the passion between the two southside clubs is as intense as any rivalry in Australian sport.

Non-plussed and deemed an outcast by some at Royals, Reedy took Tuggeranong to the premiership in his first season as Vikings coach in 1997, beating Royals in the decider.

There was plenty of tension in the air that day.

From the moment he joined the Vikings, he was omnipresent in everything the club did on and off the field with the rugby program.

He was coaching director when Brendan Allardyce coached the Vikings to win the premiership in 2004. He helped out with the Colts when they won the title in 2022.

He coached the women’s ViQueens to premierships.

Not surprisingly, he was awarded life membership by Tuggeranong.

Brendan Allardyce says Reedy just thought about rugby differently.

“He was as tough and uncompromising as a coach as he was a player. He was very innovative as a coach. He loved to see the ball alive. He was also incredibly loyal and generous.”

As a journalist covering club rugby for 30 years, I saw first-hand the tremendous influence he had as both a player and coach on the local competition.