There was cause for celebration in the Bourke household when David and Miranda Bourke learned during the year that they were having a second child.
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However, the news of the pending new arrival (due in late December) meant Dad - a Tamworth Thunderbolts mainstay for more than a decade - came face to face with his sporting mortality: 2019 would be his last in the Waratah League.
"I thought, 'This is gonna be a bit of a stretch having two kids at home with a wife [and I'm away playing basketball],'" he said.
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Bourke's last game was this month's grand final, when the Thunderbolts carried a one-loss season into a showdown with Canberra Gunners Academy.
They were chasing their debut title in the club's 50th anniversary year.
There was no fairy tale finish for Bourke, 32, and co-captain Chris Skilton, 36, who was also playing his last game for the club: Canberra were in control from early in the game and won 75-63.
Skilton has said goodbye once before, coming out of a four-year retirement in 2017. The two friends work together at Tamworth Hospital - Bourke as a radiographer and Skilton as chief radiographer for nuclear medicine.
How the Bolts would have loved to send the veterans off into the sunset with a title.
Bourke, however, described the season as "fantastic", regardless. Indeed, the side's seasoned campaigners conflated potently with promising youngsters: the future bright, Bourke insisted.
He said: "Why I really wanted to play this year is because there's just really good kids [at the club] ... all playing for each other. There's no selfish players, everyone wants to win, everyone wants to play with each other."
Even immediately after the grand final loss, Bourke said the players were still "having a laugh". "And that's why you play sport, and that's why I played for the Tamworth Thunderbolts."
He added: "You've gotta take a step back and look at the friendships you've made, and they'll last forever."
The Thunderbolts, he said, were "super lucky" to have so many committed players, coaches and fans.
"You should of seen what we had on grand final day, semi-final day - how many supporters we had [in the stands]," he said.
Skilton said the Bolts had been a "huge part of my life on and off the court". "Not only creating great basketball memories but also in forging some lifelong friendships amongst the group. I'm retiring due to the physical toll - not the lack of want or desire."
His former teammates "have grown and are performing", he said, and he "wished them all the best moving forward".
