And Bec would have only become better. Fighting harder against those in sport and wider society deserving of a scrutiny not many were prepared to take on. Her hard-hitting prose - often laced with good will and humour but never diluted by hedging her bets - was the sort that should have carried her into her eighties.

Learning at dawn on Friday the dreadful news that she had succumbed to stage-four breast cancer that had spread, snapshots of her colourful life came to mind in fragments. It would be overstating it to say we were close friends but friends nonetheless and certainly allies.

And allies like Rebecca do not come any fiercer. Although she reserved her most passionate loyalty for her family, if Bec was in your corner not much else was required.

Those traits came together memorably when back in September 2011 when Bec stepped in for her brother, the sports presenter Jim Wilson, to host a function at the MCG for his charity, Very Special Kids. Jim could not have known when he became an ambassador for that organisation that his own young son Sam would be diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Unable to host on that particular day due to the severity of his son's illness, Bec took on her brother's gig and no one in the audience that morning was not moved by her tearful tribute to father and son. Sam would die nine months later.

Because we share a the same surname and have both covered football for the best part of three decades people would often compare us but my view has always been that it was much tougher for Rebecca. Tougher given the more sexist nature of the NRL boys' club that she forced her way into, challenging conventions like no reporter before her and paving the way for so many younger women covering the often brutal landscape that is rugby league and was so much more in the 80s and 90s.

But her attractive star quality gave her an advantage. Bursting onto the national scene in that brilliant ABC sports panel program The Fat, her thought-provoking analysis was breathtaking at times. Just as the camera loved Bec she remained no different away from it. When Bec stepped into a room she never did so quietly.

Because she built a reputation for being brave and tough her journalism was at times underrated and yet she was a brilliant news breaker whose analysis remained razor sharp until the end. Most recently she was shortlisted for another Walkley for her role in revealing the link between NRL star John Mannah's death from cancer and the drugs he took during the peptide scandal.

AFL chiefs Andrew Demetriou and Gillon McLachlan never underestimated her influence and, although they sought to win her over in pioneering the Australian Rules code in Sydney and further north to her birthplace Queensland, she was never compromised.

The only time we disagreed in sport was over certain elements of her stand against Melbourne Storm during the salary cap scandal and her perceived News Limited conflict, although to her credit she never backed down in her disdain for the Storm's then CEO Brian Waldron. More recently, when Waldron was welcomed back to public life on radio SEN after delivering a mea culpa on Kevin Bartlett's program, Rebecca's disgust was palpable over the airwaves.

Equally fierce was her loyalty and support for then Sydney Swans Barry Hall during his tough times at her beloved AFL club. Their relationship was one of so many Bec enjoyed over her career with successful but sometimes struggling athletes and officials. Despite her tendency not to hold back in public she kept her role as a confidante for sportsmen like Hall private.

My favourite memories of Rebecca include sitting alongside her at press conferences during the Athens Olympic Games - and afterwards at the bar with her dear friend Raelene Boyle, who was inconsolable at the news of her death.

Bec's views on hurdler Jana Pittman, rower Sally Robbins and swimmers Grant Hackett and Ian Thorpe - both at the height of their powers in 2004 - were compelling and however much she challenged athletes like Pittman during those games she never shirked facing up to her afterwards.

And there were less stressful times, like the boat trip she organised with her friend Tony Squires to ANZ Stadium for a Sydney Swans preliminary final again Fremantle and the day she turned up on my sister's doorstep with a pair of shoes to lend me for the Brownlow. And more stressful again, like watching her beloved son Tom Sacre row for Cranbrook in the national championships at Penrith.

I swear she shouted just as loudly for my daughter Rose who lined up at the regatta on the same day. Her husband John Hartigan stood alongside her, happily amused. I always thought the media's attacks on her due to her relationship with the former News Limited boss smacked of double standards.

It's funny the things you remember about people that stick forever. I remember Bec saying it was pointless to waste money on expensive dresses because you always tired of them after one season. If you're going to blow the budget, she told me once as we strode the Bondi-to-Bronte cliff walk, do it on shoes and bags because they last a decade.

I know that Bec was scared of very little - her most recent death threats came last year when she named the 198 banned A-league fans - but that cancer terrified her, largely because of the prospect of leaving behind her sons Tom and Will and the mother she adored, Marylou.

For me Bec's stardom preceded our first meeting. Her father Bruce, the brilliant international correspondent, was my London bureau chief during the 1980s and it was during that time I met her younger siblings Jim, then a star schoolboy cricketer, and Liz, a kind and generous friend back then.

They spoke often of their adored Bec, the star graduate from Queensland University who had moved to Sydney was already on her way to becoming Australia's most famous woman sports commentator.