Soon after winning their first premiership, 25 players of the Forbes Platypi rugby club boarded a flight to Bali for an end-of-season celebration they’d been planning for weeks.
Fiona Dooley, who’d been strapping for the team that season, decided against going as she was headed back to school the same week.
Her brother, Brad Ridley, a player for the central west NSW club, did make the journey and was one of three players killed in the bombings at a club in Bali’s Kuta district.
As well as Ridley, Paul Cronin and Greg Sanderson didn’t make it home to Forbes, and it hit the town hard.
“The post office quickly became the gathering spot for the locals,” Ms Dooley said.
“We were just on autopilot just waiting for information. On reflection, numb is probably a word that comes to mind.”
Forbes player Dave Hodder was in the Sari Club when the bombs went off.
“I believe I was actually standing next to Paul Cronin when the main bomb exploded,” he said.
“At first I thought it was someone mucking around throwing a firecracker into the crowd but then you heard the screams and I stood up and heard the second bomb go off and that was completely devastating.
“Everything went quiet after that.”
‘Just disbelief’
The force of the blast threw the club goers out of their shoes and onto their backs. Some were knocked out and found when they came to that their eardrums were perforated.
“Then the flames just took over … we didn’t know who was alive and who was dead,” Mr Hodder said.
The families of the missing players had sent DNA samples and dental records to Bali in the hopes their bodies could be identified.
“I remember it was actually the weekend of the Bathurst 1000 so there [were] pieces of information coming across the TV about it constantly during that day,” Ms Dooley recounted.
“The media were in our face, wanting answers and taking photographs … we felt helpless.”
A couple of weeks later, Brad Ridley’s bag arrived at his family’s property outside Forbes, his swim shorts still wet. Not long after that, his body was identified.
“The police actually travelled out to mum and dad’s farm, 72 kilometres from town, to let them know that Brad had actually been identified,” Ms Dooley said.
“It was just disbelief that this could happen to us.”
Game honours memories
The remains of Brad Ridley, Paul Cronin, and Greg Sanderson arrived to a sombre reception at the Qantas cargo terminal, their caskets draped with the Australian flag.
“It became real then,” Ms Dooley said.
The community of Forbes wrapped its arms around the families. Three separate memorials were held for its three lost sons.
In the weeks and months that followed, the Forbes Platypi Rugby Club tried to find a way to carry their memory forward, naming perpetual trophies in their honour and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in their name.
But the game is what brought these boys together and now helps keep their memories alive.
Each year, the club holds a trial game in their honour. Men, now in their 40s, raise a glass to their three mates and their own innocence lost in the rubble of a bar in Kuta.
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