SITTING among old friends, looking at their weathered, but familiar faces, Rod "Jock" McDonald couldn't believe it had been 40 years since they created one of rugby league's most enduring memories.

In 1974, McDonald was part of the Western Division representative rugby league team that conquered Sydney's finest to win the Amco Cup midweek competition.

The side was made up of coal miners, tree cutters and labourers -  humble, blue-collar workers who achieved something incredible under the guidance of their coach, former St George winger Johnny King.

Western Division's achievement was celebrated at an ARL function in Sydney last week. McDonald was there, along with his surviving teammates, listening as their story was retold with fresh grandeur.

"It was amazing, the whole event," McDonald says.

"It didn't really sink in until we went down there that what we achieved was as significant as it was."

Western Division's Amco Cup triumph has been expertly detailed in a book, The Night The Music Died, written by legendary rugby league scribe Ian Heads. McDonald's contribution can be found within its pages. The 66-year-old has lived in Griffith since 1980 and recently retired after 24 years in the hotel industry.

But in 1974, he was a 26-year-old utility playing for Parkes in the Group 11 competition.

Originally from Orange, McDonald had been picked in the Western Division team in 1973 and retained his spot when the 24-man squad for the Amco Cup was selected.

After drawing the bye in the first round, Western Division upset an Auckland team featuring nine internationals 13-7 to progress to the next stage of the competition.

But before its second Amco Cup match, Western Division played the touring Great Britain side at Wade Park in Orange -  a game considered one of the dirtiest and most brutal in the history of rugby league.

In an era before television replays, it was often hard to differentiate toughness from thuggery in the chaos of wrapping limbs and colliding bodies on a football field.

If the referee didn't see your cocked elbow or swinging arm, there weren't a dozen cameras at the ground to dob you in, no matter how much blood was gushing from the other bloke's nose.

A bit of rough stuff was expected in those days, but the match between Western Division and Great Britain was something else.

There was football played, but the violence of the encounter -  the lawlessness of the players' conduct - is what the game is remembered for.

McDonald played the match in the centres, where he marked Great Britain touring captain, Chris Hesketh. "It was a rough game," McDonald says. "There was some fairly rugged encounters going on in the forwards.

"There was a lot of bad stuff off the ball king hits and stuff like that. Physically, it was no different to the Amco Cup games, but there was a lot of illegal stuff that went on in the Pommy game.

"They probably let it go too much."

Western Division lost the match 25-10, but the savagery of the contest galvanised McDonald and his teammates.

A bunch of colonial bushies had gone toe-to-toe with the Mother Country's finest and lost a points decision.

Western Division's identity had been forged. They were hard men -  country men -  a rib-rattling embodiment of the rural ruggedness that bred them. The Sydney sides were in for a shock.

"After that second game, we really thought we could match it with the faster, fitter sides from Sydney if we played Johnny King's style," McDonald says.

"Our style of football was pretty no-nonsense sort of stuff. There was a lot of aggression and a good kicking game attached to it.

"It probably started to sink in after that England game that we could get over these Sydney teams."

Western Division beat Canterbury 12-10 in the Amco Cup quarter-finals at Leichhardt Oval before defeating Manly 12-12 on a penalty countback at Wade Park a game as notable for the snowy conditions as the result.

The final was played against Penrith at Leichhardt Oval. The team from Sydney's west had beaten the mighty Jack Gibson-coached Eastern Suburbs to make the decider and weren't expected to have any trouble against Western Division.

But not everybody thought the result was pre-ordained. A crowd of nearly 20,000 packed the ground, many of them hoping the team from country NSW would continue its fairytale run.

The format of the Amco Cup, which was played in quarters and allowed unlimited substitutions, was a big reason for Western Division's success, according to McDonald.

"Four-quarter football was a great leveller for us," McDonald says.

"You'd get 10 minutes (on the field), and then come off before another four would come on and so on.

"That way we were able to maintain our conditioning and match it with the faster, fitter Sydney sides."

The Penrith team had plenty of talented players, including future premiership-winning coach Tim Sheens, who finished the Amco Cup final with a broken jaw.

"I was talking to Tim on Thursday at the function in Sydney," McDonald says. "He said later in the speech he gave that Penrith probably played their final a week early to beat Easts, who were the dominant side with Jack Gibson and what not.

"They probably did justice to us by rolling Easts."

A try, penalty goal and field goal to five-eighth and captain Paul Dowling helped give Western Division a 6-2 win.

McDonald had an impact late in the game after he was brought on to buckle the bodies of the tiring Penrith players.

"Our whole structure was based on defence. We used to rotate every 10 minutes," he says.

"I'd done my first stint early, and then the last 10 minutes we were struggling to hang on.

"His (King's) last words were, 'Just make sure you go out there and keep tackling'.

"So that's what I did."

McDonald played his part in the victory, as did all his teammates, the sum of their efforts becoming legend.

"We've always had our 10-year get-togethers, but we never envisioned becoming as popular and recognised as what we have become," McDonald says.

"We've sort of grown old with the dust as everyone else has.

"But we seem to have grown in stature as we've got older."