And so to Rat Park in North Narrabeen on Sydney’s northern beaches for a club rugby derby on a sunny Saturday afternoon. It’s home town Warringah Rats hosting their arch-enemy-friends from down the road, Manly Marlins. And it should be good.

We park on a median strip and wander across some playing fields towards the ground, visible for four thin lights that tower above the ground like old cranes. We pass the Manly team, warming up, running through drills. In pro sport teams warm up on the arena or in their dressing sheds. If they could they’d warm up in man-sized humidicribs, such is their fear of the people who watch them play games. They like the fans. But they don’t want to touch them.

I see a fellah I know, Damien Cummins, “The Turtle”. A chunky man in the way of the hooker, Turtle coached Georgia to the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Georgia, the country whose national dish is cheese-filled bread and eggplant-and-walnut surprise. I read it. Top tucker. Turtle is assistant coach at Manly and before the match declared to The Manly Daily that his boys would “unleash hell” on the Warringah team. Top stuff.

Rat Park is open and wide looking. The western grandstand has a steel, sheer look about it, as if designed by an architect who preferred function over aesthetic. It looks like a half-open hangar for a Sopwith Camel.

The other three-quarters are grassy hill, the northern and southern ends quite steep. Kids roll down them laughing like hairy little logs. They reckon they filled these hills in the olden days. Today, for the derby: their best crowd of the year (a bit over 4,000). Doesn’t look as many.

Big game? Yeah … not really. Not in the grander context of Australian sport. This is semi-pro ball. Sydney-centric. It’s a big game in terms of Shute Shield, the Sydney grade comp: first versus third, a derby. ABC television is here, with their cameras and giant trucks, calling it. Mates watch the game at the pub and send me photos of themselves doing it, the silly moos.

Onto the eastern hill and people drink tinnies dressed in Sydney winter chic: caps, hoodies, maybe a jumper. They know not of winter in Sydney. They think they do. But they don’t.

Manly run out. There’s one giant, Greg Peterson, “Big G”, towering above all others, an outlier event. Their No.1, Dane Maraki, a tight-head prop, is a squat, bald man with a big orange beard, like one of those axe dwarves in The Hobbit. In the nightclub, this man would see little action. On the rugby field, he’s the middle of the action. He is the action. And given the nature of rugby, for every fancy pants manoeuvre by the backs (players described as “pinheads” by such men as Maraki) there’s a couple of trolls with their face in the dirt, laying foundation, rugby’s brickies. Indeed old mate axe-dwarf is nigh-on MVP.

Here come the home side. And the people say, “Yaaay”. And there is clapping. It’s not like the crazies running out the start of a Superbowl. Indeed the game seems almost inconsequential. On the hill here it’s more about the gathering, like in that movie, The Gathering. And like in that other movie, with Sean Connery and old mate with the eyes, Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, and they had “The Gathering” so they could cut each others head off.

Whatever. It’s good here at Rat Park, and social. It’s friendly park footy watched by friendly people. In Gaza they’re hurling rockets at each other. Consider Southern Sudan. Consider Adelaide. Where would you rather be?

And so into a few more beers because beer is good. We can forget that in these sometimes cloistered times in which each public utterance must be screened lest it unduly influence The Children. But I’m here to tell a man, beer is good. I like it. And it’s good because like many drugs - that’s right, drugs, alcohol is a drug, beer-drinkers are drug-takers, it's a fact, Google it - beer makes you feel good. It’s social, it’s heady, it releases endorphins, God’s magic fairies, into your brain-blood. Which is good.

Yes, drink too much and it’s bad, beer. Stone fact. It’s like anything. Look at that chocolate sauce they put on top of ice cream, with the icing stuff that sets hard like a layer? You know the stuff. See how you go drinking a bottle of that a day. Same as old mate who spent a month eating McDonald’s. Nearly killed him.

Yet no-one’s thinking about beer other than who’s shout it is at Rat Park on this glorious, winter’s afternoon. The footy is willing and skilled, and the tips of the grass are like tinsel, bathed in golden, sparkling hues.

And then … Rat attack! Sweeping back-line movement. Break by full-back David Feltscheer, a fair player, another beardy. There’s a ball inside, another one, and … try-time! And people on the hill say, “Yeeeeah”. And there is clapping.

Top game of footy here. Yet the difference between this and Super Rugby is like a couple of age-groups up. The collisions in the first-class, elite grade between the biggest, the fastest, strongest people, they’re monstrous. Blood and bone. Krakatoa. Google Will Skelton. Google his little brothers. They’re like Tongan statues of Lenin. Giant people.

Shute Shield clubs are meant to be feeders to the Waratahs and other Super Rugby clubs, and certainly there’s a few guys out here who have played for the state. But it’s not really how it works. First-class teams own their players most of the year. Suck the best young ones into academies. Train them in camps. Feed them the finest meats. Those that don’t go into an Australian Super set-up, if they’re good enough, head to Europe, Japan, Adelaide.

To offset the gap in class there’s now a third-tier of Australian rugby, above the Sydney and Brisbane grade comps: the National Rugby Championship. And good luck to it. They tried it a few years ago, it cost so much money that banker John O’Neill knocked it on the head soon as his bum lobbed back in his mahogany seat.

Back on the hill and fans are divided by the bar in the middle. There’s a couple of security guys here, presumably by law. Because there’s as much chance of these rival fans lobbing grenades at each other as there is of them Morris dancing. Millwall FC fans take a train to a game that’s met by police on horseback who shepherd them to the ground and back. People from neighbouring churches in the same religion fight in Jerusalem, I may have read it. Say what you will about this big old lug of a country, but there’s none of that.

Manly throw the ball wide on the halfway. Rats centre Tui Tuisavaii shoots out of the line and stops the runner cold. Boom. His mates pile in. And over. The ref, smallest man on the park, a Hobbit among the giants, blows a penalty. Rats. There’s exclamation from the hill. Hoo-ha. Players push and shove. Crowd into it. How good’s this? Seminal moment. Derby. Feisty. Top stuff, humans.

An old cow-bell rings to signal half-time, like one of those ones in a village square, with a town crier man announcing, “Hear ye, hear ye, it’s six o’ the clock and we’re about to throw veggies at a peasant in the stocks”, etc. True story. Living history.

Yet play continues, it’s a rugby thing, the ball is live until it’s dead. Penalty Rats. For something. Doesn’t matter what. And Rats five-eighth Hamish Angus of the Clan Angus swings in a penalty goal and Warringah go to half-time up 16-6, a tidy lead running into the sou’wester.

And so kids flood the playing field and kick the ball about in the golden light. It’s On Golden Pond 2: Derby at Rat Park. Top grade rugby league used to have this, Australian Rules too - kids on the field at the breaks, kicking footies. Today at half-time pro footy grounds are full of security guards in hot-yellow bibs, bouncers, goons, staring at people. Hoping for action.

A theory: Anyone who wants to be a security guard, somewhere in their heart they relish the idea of physicality. Belting an evil-doer. Action. Yet if anything happens that requires them to chase after and tackle some pissed-up pelican who’s run onto the field, they’re not exactly George Gregan in terms of cover defence. Look at that big nude bloke in the State of Origin a few years ago, whatever his name was. Wati Holmwood - 150 kilograms of molten blubber who ran 200 metres through the cream of ANZ Stadium security, onto the ground, length of the field, right into the middle of the bloody play. In the nude! Greased up like an Inuit fisherman lathered in whale blubber! And there’s security - for the entire night doing nothing but standing about staring at people - waddling after him in puffer jackets. Goatees. Bald. Useless.

So yes, there should be a rule: You want to be a security guard? You’re not allowed. Sorry, champion. Try Macca’s. Or … go build something.

Same with politicians. There should be a thing: if you’re a kid, in your 20s, and you actually express a desire to be a politician, that’s it, you’re the last person in the world should be allowed to be a politician. Your dance card is marked “X”, Bubba.

And when the revolution comes, so shall it come to pass.

No it won’t. Instead the teams run out at the same time from opposite change-rooms and criss-cross each other like synchronised motorcycles at the Edinburgh Tattoo. Not really like that. They just sort of mesh. And head to their places as the footy-kicking kids realise they have to get off the field. And soon there’s 30 players ready and a ref ready to go and there’s kids everywhere, taking their time getting off. Five-year-olds. Teens. Just wandering off. And it’s all good. And we move on. And the Rats kick off.

Then Manly knock on. Rats attack. Rats score! There is rucking, mauling. And someone crashes over for Manly. And the crowd goes wild. They don’t go wild. There’s more a sort of “Yeeah” from half of the hill. Tinnies are tipped skyward. It’s Saturday afternoon gold.

And then - try of the year.

The ball begins behind the Rats try-line, they pass it along the line, bust out of danger, scream out to the right wing, go through hands into the middle of the park and over to the left, through some hands again, running hard, straight, until can it be? Yes! Michael Adams touches downs for just about the best try you’ll see in the game of rugby this year. Any year: a dozen sets of hands, some of them twice, fluid ball movement, incision, strong running. And when the Rats mob Adams and dance about, you hold both hands above your head, a tinnie in each mitt, and declare to your posse, Did you see that? How about that?

And the Rats win 43-34. And the players drink beer out of giant pewter mugs like vikings.

And it’s all good.