The Pirates black and gold courses strongly through Andrew Collins.
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How else do you explain the commitment to drive up from Sydney on Thursday for training, play on Saturday and then head back to Sydney on Sunday afternoon.
So it's no surprise that it meant a lot to the man they call Tank to pack down for his 100th game for the club on Saturday.
"It was amazing to rack up the 100 for the club you played for as a junior, very special," the prop said.
In the twilight of his career, he said it had "definitely" been a motivation to keep lacing up the boots, especially after seeing brothers Tim and Sam achieve the milestone in recent years.
"They've both done it," he said with the begrudging tone of someone who has been copping it from his siblings.
That was another special aspect to Saturday, the 100 game honour board now to have all three boys names on it.
"It means a lot to us," Andrew said.
The three have also got to experience premiership success together.
They did that for the first time in 2016, which was the year Collins was travelling up and back.
He returned to Sydney for the 2017 season, and managed to play his 200th game for Manly before injury curtailed his season.
But after 10 years he'd had enough of the city, and so made the permanent move back to Tamworth in 2018, naturally linking up again with Pirates.
First playing for the club as a 16-year-old, the now 35-year-old father of three - Edison is eight, Ryder six and Max five months - can't remember too much about his first few years other than they had "a strong team".
"I think we went undefeated for three years when I first started," he said.
Joking that it feels like he should have played his 100th before now, Collins said he had no idea until co-coach Evan Kellow posted in the group chat on Saturday morning about it.
Unfortunately he didn't get to celebrate his milestone game with a win with Gunnedah getting up 46-27.
It did take a bit of the gloss off the day.
Their fourth straight loss to Gunnedah at home, he said it was "disappointing", especially after they started so strongly.
"I felt like we were probably the dominant team for the first 50/60 minutes," Collins said.
"Then their backs, and some one-on-one missed tackles really killed us."
"We knew what they were going to do, and we didn't do what we said we were going to do."
There was no recovering on Sunday though from what was a physical and fast game. He was back at Gunnedah for Central North training.
The NSW Country rep has been one of the driving forces in the Kookaburras' resurgence and is excited to see what they can do in next month's Country Championships.
They will be stepping up to the Caldwell Cup, something Collins is proud of his part in.
When he came back in 2018, Central North wasn't going to have any involvement in the championships. They ended up combining with New England with Collins taking on the coaching role.
Finishing third in the Richardson Shield, it's been a gradual rise to now be playing for the symbol of country rugby supremacy.
