Brett Scott was the last of Brisbane club rugby’s great toe-pokers, a goalkicking marvel who amassed more than 1000 points in first grade for Easts. 
Rugby youngsters of today look quizzically at footage of toe-poke goalkickers as if they were dinosaurs from a lost age like landline telephones and two-cent coins. When Scott entered the grades in the mid-1970s as a schoolboy from Villanova College, it was the only way to kick.
Even when Michael Lynagh became Queensland rugby’s pin-up boy for the around-the-corner style of goalkicking in 1982, Scott was unmoved.
Paul McLean, Roger Gould, Mick Cronin, Graeme Eadie…what did they have in common? They were all toe-poking in rugby or rugby league in the ‘70s.
“Paul McLean was a toe-poker, Roger absolutely thumped them and, as a kid growing up in Brisbane in the 1970s, you saw a lot of Wayne Stewart kicking them from everywhere for Wests (Brisbane) and Queensland in rugby league,” Scott said.
“I had no real role model for my kicking except that dad (Bruce) was a toe-poker for Easts in Brisbane league and I used his method.
“I loved goalkicking. The harder the kick, the more I liked it.
“I loved the complexity of the toe-poke. You really had to connect in the right area of the football because the sweet spot was much smaller than with the other style.
“I just thought the around-the-corner style was pretty bizarre when I first saw it. It was a bit mindblowing to a traditional toe-poker like me.
“We had a Pom, Richard Holmes, at Easts in the 1980s and that’s when I really had a close-up look but I never once practised a kick around the corner.”
Scott continued with his methodical and proven routine all the way until he retired as a Tiger in 1988.
He’d place the leather football on a hand-shaped mound of sand, with the ball pointed towards the posts. He’d stride back six steps, steady and then calmly advance until he sunk his Adidas low-cut boot into the end of the ball.
It was unerring how true that ball sailed. Scott topped the point scoring for all clubs in Brisbane in 1982 (243 points), 1983 (146) and 1984 (208).
In 1982, he won the Rothmans Medal as Brisbane’s best, an award that has now become the Alec Evans Medal for Premier Rugby Player of the Year.
Scott polled a record number of points and the runners-up weren’t bad players either, former Wallabies captains Mark Loane and Tony Shaw.
It wasn’t his goalkicking but his cool playmaking, astute kicking, handling and eye for a gap that won him selection for Queensland in 1983-84. He played flyhalf and centre for the Tigers but his versatility to also play fullback booked him a Queensland debut against Fiji in Suva when Gould was playing abroad in 1983.
He was the pivotal backline figure in the fine Easts teams of the early ‘80s, the first era of consistent strength by the Tigers.
He had some dash too. He scored three tries when the Tigers won the state-wide XXXX Cup in 1982 by beating Mount Isa 30-8 in the final. Almost as big an achievement for the Tigers was getting everyone on the plane home because celebrating came easily when it was Mt Isa rodeo weekend as well.
The highlight was pushing all the way to the 1984 grand final. Scott had slotted a long-range, angled penalty goal to beat Brothers 15-13 in the semi-finals to earn direct passage to the decider.
“That grand final year is both the fondest memory and the most bittersweet,” Scott said.
“The club had a terrific season. We were flogging teams that had flogged us in my early seasons and we really gelled. Guys like Dean Roberts (18), Shaun Hourigan (9) and Danny McHugh (8) scored a bunch of tries that year and I had a great partnership on the field with (centre) Nev Brett, my favourite all-time Tiger.
“We had Wallabies ‘Spider’ McLean and Nigel Holt in the second-row so it was a very good side.
“We led Brothers 3-0 playing into the wind in that grand final and just got it wrong in the second half (to lose 18-3).”
Scott was coaching second grade in 1997 so he got a sideline-eye view of the euphoric moment when Easts’ first premiership triumph did arrive at Ballymore.
“The Tiger spirit was born out of striving for success when it wasn’t easy to come by in the early years. Easts have always been a great family club, always encouraged the juniors and developed from within,” Scott said.
“There was pleasure…and relief…when the club finally won a premiership in ‘97. I was close enough on the sideline to hear (coaches) Grant Batty and Mike Thomas that day. They put in so much for that moment and it was great reward.”
These days, at home games, you can find Scott behind the goalposts at the eastern end of David Wilson Field chatting over a beer with the lifetime mates he made at Tiger-land.
