CHARGE: Western luminary Simon Osborne coaches Manildra and has lifted the young side's forwards in 2018, inserts, 1993 title winning Rhinos and this year's youth league outfit. Main Photo: RS WILLIAMS

Think Manildra and you think of two things – the flour mill and the Rhinos.

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The small Cabonne Shire town nestled on the banks of the Mandagery Creek is as rugby league as it gets.

One-team towns often are.

But even the staunchest of Manildra Rhinos fans wouldn’t have dreamed of this.

The Rhinos have stormed from fifth place to qualify for this year’s Woodbridge Cup grand final, which this year will be staged at Jack Huxley Oval, Manildra.

Woodbridge Cup officials nominate a location for all finals games well in advance of knowing where teams will finish.

It’s a fair, rotation system to ensure all clubs get a chance to host finals, and make a little bit of money. Share the love to grow the game, at least that’s the theory. But it makes playing in a home grand final pretty rare.

And so Manildra ended up with this year’s hosting rights, at a time when coach Simon Osborne had his outfit humming along nicely in second place.

The dream was alive.

The red and whites dipped though, that’s to be expected of a young side, and a fifth-place finish just about put the notion of the mighty charging Rhinos featuring in a home grand final to bed.

Someone forgot to tell that to Osborne though.

“I was confident,” Osborne said, Manildra knocking off Canowindra, Eugowra and then the highly-fancied Grenfell on rout to this weekend’s big dance.

Three-straight weeks of sudden death footy has culminated in a grand final date with defending premiers, the Adam Hall-led Trundle Boomers.

“We’ve had a lot of young guys turn up this season and they’re here playing with their mates,” Osborne continued.

“It makes a big difference, that camaraderie can take you a long way.”

A snippet of the Rhinos' triumph 25 years ago.

Osborne would know.

For the uninitiated, Osborne is a luminary of Western Division rugby league having played in a throng of grand finals, winning the 2015 Group 10 grand final with Orange CYMS.

He’s played for NSW Country and at the height of his powers represented NSW Residents.

In short, there’s not a more feared prop running around in these parts and he’s landed at Manildra, a dream to coach being the big draw card at Jack Huxley Oval.

There’s now a home grand final win on the offering in his first season at the helm.

Young kids like Mitch Gallagher, Jack Gibson and Harry Gersbach have been stand-outs, in Osborne’s eyes, and incredibly their fathers all played in premiership winning Rhinos sides in the 1990s.

ON THE CHARGE: Rhinos young-gun Mitch Gallagher in action for Manildra. Photo: RS WILLIAMS

The club held a 1993 premiership reunion earlier this season, marking 25 years since the Rhinos’ Group 11 second division grand final win.

They’re moments worth reminiscing because they’re few and far between.

It’s been two decades since Manildra has hosted a grand final. That year, 1999, the Rhinos took out the Group 11 first division premiership with an 18-8 win over a mighty Cobar Roosters outfit.

Remember, the Cobar boys won Clayton Cups in the 1990s.

But since that triumph, Manildra hasn’t won a first grade title. In any competition.

After dropping back from Group 11 in the centenary of rugby league, the Rhinos featured in the 2008 Woodbridge Cup grand final against Cargo but club president Geoff Gibson said “we won’t talk about that one”.

You get the feeling the Blue Heelers might have got the chocolates that day.

Manildra spent time in recess earlier this decade and only reappeared on the western landscape in 2016, featuring in the cup’s finals in that year and again in 2017, a grand final appearance alluded the Rhinos boys though.

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Given they’ve taken that step in 2018, this season is already special.

“We’re pretty proud,” Gibson said.

“The club has already won to get them here. The town is winning just having this all happen. It’s now up to the players to go out there and win what they’ve worked so hard for.

“We’re supported well … from the pub, to the golf club and the bowling club ... they look after us.

“Simon Osborne’s been great, too. We haven’t had a front-row coach in Manildra for a long time and he’s taught the boys plenty.”

Which they’ll have to draw on to knock off a hugely successful Trundle, a side in its fourth-straight Woodbridge Cup grand final.

BACK IN THE DAY: Manildra's 1993 Group 11 second division premiership winning side.

“They’ve got a handy coach, Adam Hall, he’s worth talking about. They’re a good club, similar to us, with an emphasis on the youth league,” Gibson continued.

That emphasis on young players has netted the Rhinos two youth league titles since returning from the rugby league wilderness three winters ago.

Again, the Rhinos juniors have excelled in 2018 and will appear in Sunday’s grand final at Jack Huxley Oval as the undefeated minor premiers, red-hot favourites to win a third crown. They play Canowindra.

Sunday’s home grand final will be just as special for those boys.

“We’ve had a good bunch of locals building for three years,” Gibson said.

“Scott Campbell and those boys have won a couple of grand finals and there’s three or four from those teams now up in seniors, too.”

The club has already won ... it’s now up to the players to go out there and win what they’ve worked so hard for.
- Manildra president Geoff Gibson.

Gibson, like Osborne, was always pretty confident of the Rhinos’ first grade boys making a charge to appear on home soil on the final Sunday of the season.

“... but I’m pretty biased,” he laughed.

We already know there will be two Rhinos sides at Jack Huxley Oval on Sunday, but what about the masses?

We know they’ll be there, but will they all fit in?

“We get massive crowds at normal games, but with two teams in a home grand final … I don’t know. How many does it fit,” Osborne laughed.

Will it fit a Woodbridge Cup record crowd? President Andrew Pull hopes so.

“I think it’ll probably go close,” Pull enthused. “Manildra’s passionate about footy and the town would have supported the games anyway ... but with them in it there will be locals making the trip back home.

“And I don’t think there will be anyone left at Trundle. They’ll all be in Manildra too.

“There’s certainly a bit of romance there for the people of Manildra.”

The 2018 Woodbridge Cup grand finals kick-off on Sunday at Manildra. What’s more, the town also has its annual show on Saturday. Gibson said the weekend promised to be one of the biggest this year in Manildra.

“Come down for the weekend, spend Saturday at the show and then Father’s Day at the footy,” he said.