Quirindi Lions brothers Will and Andy Saunders bow out together as winners

The brothers hung up their boots after playing for Quirindi in a final-round 29-21 win over Moree at Quirindi Rugby Park last month, on what was the Lions' Old Boys Day.

The perfectly scripted climax came after Andy, 28, returned to the region last year when he ended a decade-long, Sydney-based pursuit of an NRL career. The dogged quest yielded one NRL game, for Canterbury in 2017, and some 130 NSW Cup games.

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It also came 12 years after the brothers - raised on a property a stone's throw from Quirindi Rugby Park - played their first game together when they lined up for the Lions' under-17 side in 2010.

"It means everything, it means everything to play the last game with your brother. Pretty special," Will, 30, said.

Andy, 28, concurred:

"If we could go back and play again, I don't think we would ever top what we experienced a couple of weekends ago at Qurindi," he said. "So that's why we wanna finish on that note."

Andy continued: "Our journeys have gone different ways between that time [their first and last games together]. But we always wanted to finish off and play together in our last game."

"It was just perfect," he added.

Andy said he and Will were now "moving on with other things" in their lives.

In March, Andy will marry his long-time partner, Tayla Phillis, a Tamworth-raised, Gunnedah-based rookie police officer.

"We've been together for 10 years," said the national livestock representative at The Land in Tamworth. "So she's been on the journey with me for the whole time."

One day after graduating from Farrer in 2012, Andy travelled to Penrith to play for the Panthers. He would go on to play some 200 games in the NRL system, including under-20 matches.

As a 186cm and 105kg prop, he was on the smaller side - and has said that his size may have been an impediment to his progress in the game. However, the former junior Kangaroo knows he gave it his all.

"That's really one thing I wanted to do: I always gave myself the best opportunity in every aspect," he said, adding that his body is "completely shot".

"I struggle to get out of my own shadow sometimes."

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