Rick's footy and cricket took him to the big city, but he left his greatest mark at home. As playing-coach he excelled at both, winning premierships, inspiring those around him, teaching kids.

He was hugely proud that his footy club was home to a young Luke Hodge and Aaron Finch, kids in blue and white hooped jumpers who hung around the rooms, always chasing a kick. If the good folk of Wagga Wagga protested that Rick's town wasn't alone in boasting an Australian cricket captain and the reigning AFL premiership captain at the same time, Rick could have told them "Tubby" Taylor was born in Leeton. He knew that stuff.

When Hodge heard he was crook he jumped straight in: "Whatever I can do." The idea of a benefit moved Rick to tears, and made him uncomfortable. "I don't reckon I could do it," he said. He wasn't expected to do anything except be there, see how much people cared.

Rick died last month. One of his boys played in a grand final the weekend he passed, the other the next Saturday. His last weeks were spent trying to find the strength to make it from bed to the car to sit with Raelene and watch them play one more time, marking each kick, mark and handball on scraps of paper, as he'd done since he helped them lace their first boots.

Alex's team got belted, and there was a gap where the car should have been; Rick had been taken to hospital that morning. Luke played the next weekend wearing a black armband for his father. His team went down too.

A few weeks later, as the trade period dollars soared to disgusting heights and kids asked why their heroes were suddenly someone else's, Bec passed away. They thought she wouldn't see last Christmas but she'd somehow stopped the clock, found the best part of another year with Finny and their kids, Brody, Georgia and Jack. As so many noted in the pages of tributes in the local paper, she was a strong girl.

Bec was a force on the netball court for close to three decades. She won 10 premierships, competition and club champion trophies, admirers and many friends. She was a huge part of a sporting community where the inclusion of women is anything but token; in the country, they're called football-netball clubs because that's exactly what they are.

Hers was a club of families, where the next generation wear the colours of the last, who followed the one before. There's no shop, no pub, no town; the sporting club is the meeting place of the district. It's nothing for 150 meals to be served on a Thursday night.

The loss of Bec and Rick sent a shudder through the region, not least because they were so young, so popular, had so much more to do and give. Their deaths were a chilling reminder that around every corner someone else is battling, their family and friends sharing the struggle. And someone else you just passed in the street or caught a reflection of in a shop window could be next.

In the town square this week, a board went up to mark progress in The Long Road Appeal, which aims to raise $250,000 by the end of next year so the next Bec and Rick can have better cancer services on their doorstep, and won't spend so much draining time on the road to Geelong or Melbourne for treatment. Held up to an AFL light - as so much is in a country town - it's a ridiculously small amount of money.

Break down Boyd's $7 million over six years, and he'll be on the way to having earned that much as a Western Bulldog by the time Hodge goes home to headline the benefit on November 9. When he eventually takes his AFL games tally into double figures, he'll have already burst through the top of The Long Road thermometer.

By then, the AFL will have splashed out again on its amazing "International Rules" series against Ireland. Where Rick and Bec lived, Hodge is cherished not just with a sense of ownership, but because people recognise that football hasn't made him delusional. Next month the league will hope that, with names such as Selwood, Fyfe, Johnson and Watson, he can be a life raft for what in reality is a group of highly paid professionals taking on a bunch of teachers, plumbers and postmen in a game nobody plays anywhere in the world.

Kids are flown to Europe every year to supposedly make them better footballers. Recruiters go to America and queue up to pay a 211-centimetre basketballer six figures to learn a game he's never played. A captain who cost a coach his job gets nearly $1 million of his new contract paid by the club he's left in tatters.

Yes, it's been a time to mourn. The gap between the AFL and real people and their very real lives has never been so vast.