THEY broke the mould when they made the champion Balmain Tigers forward nicknamed “large”.

Paul Sironen – a giant of a man with a big personality and an equally big impact on the game of rugby league.

After 50 years of service as a local junior, first grade player, board member, junior pathways boss and general all-round good bloke, Sironen officially clocks off with Balmain and Wests Tigers today.

“It’s been a 50-year love affair filled with a lot of highs, a lot of laughs, some not so good times but still a lot of fond memories,” Sironen told Fox League.

“Do I regret anything? No.

“I’ve been lucky to have met so many wonderful characters I now call friends. The friendships and the families you get to share things with is really what it’s all about.

“And let me tell you it feels like 50 years has gone by in a flash.”

From the 1988 and 1989 grand finals with Balmain to three Kangaroo Tours to winning three consecutive State of Origin series with the NSW Blues, Sironen has a lifetime of experience on the roller coaster of rugby league.

The 1980s was a tribal time in the game when the Parramatta Eels and Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs fielded champion teams and won eight premierships between them.

By the time Sironen made his debut for the Balmain Tigers in round two of 1986 – ironically because his great mate Steve “Blocker” Roach had been suspended – the Tigers were on the way to assembling one of the all-time great club sides.

The nucleus of the team were Balmain icons Wayne Pearce, Sironen, Roach, Benny Elias and Garry Jack.

Then there were hired guns like Ellery Hanley and Gary Freeman who arrived at the Tigers to help pilot the club to the 1988 grand final under one of the greatest coaches the game has seen in Warren Ryan.

The Tigers lost to Canterbury-Bankstown in 1988 and then the Canberra Raiders in the 1989 grand final.

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The ‘89 decider when Steve Jackson scored in extra time is still regarded as one of the greatest big games of all time.

Sironen, Roach, Elias, Pearce and Jack are considered among the greatest players to never win a grand final. All played for NSW and Australia.

“We really should have won one – it was a great team,“ Sironen said.

“I’m pretty matter of fact about it. I’m still walking around with two arms and two legs and I played in one of the greatest grand finals of all time.

“Rusted on Balmain fans still ask about 1989 today. They say the same things. They were devastated. They cried about what could have been.

“It hurt but that’s life. You’ve got to get up and go again.

“One of the most important lessons I took out of rugby league was sticking solid and being prepared to endure tough times.

“It was no disgrace to be beaten by that Canberra side when you look at how many blokes kicked on and became legends of the game.”

Ex-NSW premier Neville Wran famously coined the phrase “Balmain boys don’t cry”.

But the late 1980s grand final losses hurt everyone at the club and the legion of Tigers supporters.

Fast forward to 2005 after Balmain merged with Western Suburbs at the end of 1999 and Sironen was a board member of the Wests Tigers.

The Balmain forward with Viking ancestry – Sironen’s father was from Finland – can still recall the magic carpet ride Wests Tigers went on to win the club’s one and only premiership.

“That was one for the true believers. What a great time for the club. I was lucky enough to be on the team bus as a board member and I can still remember the scenes,” Sironen said.

“We had to pull up and get out on Darling St because they’d closed the part of Victoria Rd where the Leagues club was.

“The fans were all dancing in the streets. I must have had hundreds of people come up to me just loving it.

“All I could say was “How good is this”. That’s all I had.

“I had a handy cam with me and I’ve still got the vision of the celebrations from the game to the bus ride to going back to the Leagues club.

“That was one of the all time great nights.”

After establishing himself as a regular in the NSW State of Origin and Australian teams Sironen was widely-regarded as the most destructive backrower in the game.

No surprise, rival clubs soon began queuing up for his signature.

Cronulla and Manly both tried to poach him but as a local junior the Tigers meant more than money.

Great mates Sironen and Roach both fondly recall ex-Balmain Tigers boss Keith “Golden Boots” Barnes because of his loyalty and his leadership.

But they also often laugh about Barnes explaining how the Tigers kept their international forward pack of Sironen, Roach, Benny Elias, Wayne Pearce and Bruce McGuire together.

“All the internationals are on the same money – except Benny”.

Elias had revolutionised the way dummy-halves played.

Sironen’s love affair with the Balmain Junior rugby league started aged seven when he began playing for Gladesville Bowling and Sports club and later the North Ryde Hawks.

By year 12 at Holy Cross College he’d made the Australian Schoolboys and was scouted by the University of Hawaii to play college football in the US with a window to cracking it in the NFL.

After 12 months of hardly touching the ball in Hawaii, Sironen returned to the Balmain Tigers and was quickly on the path to playing first grade.

Because the Balmain junior rugby league had given him so much as a kid the Tigers backrower always wanted to give something back once his career finished.

In recent years you’d often find him cooking the barbecue at junior representative games or just having a yarn with emerging players or their parents.