It seems to Otago Daily Times editor Murray Kirkness that some New Zealand sports fans might not appreciate what an upset it was for the Kiwis to win the Rugby League World Cup.
And so, after 54 years of trying, the Kiwis have won the Rugby League World Cup.
As I listened to the radio commentators describing the dying minutes of the final, it struck me that New Zealand's 34-20 win against Australia was - in my mind at least - more than just the usual sporting "fairytale".
Rugby league, obviously, has little profile in the South.
Sure, some sports fans here follow the Warriors (but it seems only when they're winning) and the Kiwis get some press. Otherwise, of course, rugby hogs the winter-time headlines.
I have three sons; the walls of their rooms are covered in posters of All Blacks, Highlanders and Otago players and teams. And that's fine. But I grew up during the 1970s in rural New South Wales, about 20km west of a town called Manilla, then population about 2000.
And for me, for all my mates, and for the vast majority of kids growing up elsewhere in that state and in Queensland, rugby league was - and continues to be - the be-all and end-all of winter sports.
It's against that background that I rate the Kiwis' achievement so highly.
Manilla had junior teams from under-9s to under-14s, and a senior team in the Group 4 comp. They all wore "Balmain" jerseys.
As a young tacker, I nagged my father constantly to take me to watch the seniors play, and one day, in about 1975 or 1976, he did. I'd have been 7 or 8.
He was a league fan and in hindsight it probably wasn't a burden to him.
We went to the Manilla Showgrounds and watched them take on another team from the district.
I can't remember who they played - it could have been one of the three sides from nearby Tamworth, or from Inverell, Gunnedah, maybe even Boggabri, Wee Waa or Warialda.
Perhaps it was Werris Creek? Anyway, I can remember sitting in the dusty grandstand, and I can also remember squeaking out "Go the Tigers!" I can also remember that one of their centre three-quarters served us at the only retail store in town - Mackenzies - later that week and I was so impressed that I could barely look at him.
A year or so later, I scratched my name on to a piece of paper at school calling for prospective junior players. I caught the bus home that afternoon and felt sick to the stomach because I hadn't asked my parents if I could play.
My old man was, at times, the angriest bloke God ever put breath into, and I fully expected a hiding when I confessed what I'd done.
I planned to wait until Mum was home before I broke the news, but for some reason I stammered it out as soon as I got off the bus at about 4.30pm.
Big Ron didn't react like I thought he would. He smiled, told me to get into his ute, and immediately drove me to Mackenzies before it shut for the day and bought my first pair of footy boots. They were black, with moulded soles.
Life didn't get much better.
My first team was the mighty Manilla under-9s. We played in the Tamworth minor league competition (Tamworth was another 45km from Manilla) early on Saturday mornings, and most weeks the old man drove me there to play.
We weren't a bad side - the following year we even made the grand final but were beaten by arch-rivals Barraba.
My mates and I all followed league. We all wanted to play for the Kangaroos - that went without saying. Who didn't? We took it for granted that they were the best league team in the world and never wasted a moment discussing it.
They'd won every world cup since 1975, and apart from the occasional upset (like two tests against France in 1978, and the odd match in later years against New Zealand when Olsen Filipaina and his mates were on fire) they hardly even lost a test, so why would international ratings feature in our discussions?
We all loved the TV promos featuring big men like Bob "The Bear" O'Reilly hitting the ball up with the repeated chorus "Warhorse" sung loudly; and the TV and radio commentaries and discussions of the ABC's Trevor Allan, Channel Seven's Rex Mossop, and Nine's Ron Casey and Frank Hyde.
And we all collected and traded Scanlen footy cards, which came in bubble gum packets. The stars of the day, like Tom Raudonikis and Steve Rogers and Ray Price, were hot property.
But for some reason, I have better memories of the cards which featured Fred Pagano, Paul Sait, Mike Stephenson and even Kiwis like Bill Noonan and Henry Tatana.
Mum gave me the book Bob Fulton's Rugby League one Christmas around then - I still have it somewhere - and I read it repeatedly.
It included pen-portraits of many of the game's greats, like Dally Messenger, (the great Dally M, who, incidentally, ran a pub in Manilla in the early days and with John Quayle was the town's biggest league claim to fame), Chris McKivet, Dave Brown, Frank Burge, Ken Thornett, Bumper Farrell, John Raper, Changa Langlands . . .
During the years to come, my mates and I continued to watch every game we could on TV or - occasionally - live, listened to the ones we couldn't watch, debated the virtues of past and present players as often as we could, and played the game right through primary and high school.
I eventually switched codes to rugby in 1987 only because of work commitments which meant I couldn't play on Sundays.
And while my fervour for The Greatest Game of All has slowly dimmed as I have (arguably) matured, I do know there wouldn't be one bloke who played for the Manilla under-9s in 1977 who wouldn't rate the Kiwis' win as one of the great sporting upsets of their lifetime.
