While it’s a funny little idiom, its hard not to look at Coonamble at the moment and ask that question.

Coonamble' s history has long been intertwined with rugby league, the Bears are a proud club, but for whatever reason the town has never really ever had any long term representation on the professional stage.

It would be rude to ignore Ron Boden who played 38 games for Parramatta in the 1960s, or Knights halfback Steven Fulmer who played for Newcastle in the NRL from 1988-1991, and who could forget the mighty Lancelot Hansen who laced them up eleven times for the North Sydney Bears in 1909.

But recently we've seen a serious uptick in NRL players who have called Coonamble home during their formative years.

Thomas Fletcher recently made his debut for South Sydney, making him the latest Coonamble junior to play NRL joining Jesse Ramien (Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks) and Braidon Burns (North Queensland Cowboys).

And while Fletcher's NRL career is just beginning, both Ramien and Burns have both carved out respectable NRL careers after their debuts in 2017 and are easily the most successful rugby league products from Coonamble.

Coonamble Bears stalwart Joe Bellgardt couldn’t be prouder seeing three former juniors in the top grade.

"You get a bit of a buzz out of it when you hear Coonamble Bears mentioned when theyre playing," said Joe.

"And they were all outstanding junior league players, it just goes to show that if youre determined enough and want to put in the hard yards you can make the grade."

"Even if youre from the country, you don’t need to play in these big comps in the city to get noticed, if youre good enough and you put in the hard yards it always seems to work out."

Tom Fletcher is living his NRL dream. IMAGES SUPPLIED.

Any rhyme or reason?

It's hard to say why this has happened, but over the years you do hear of the occasional crop of players from small bush towns that have made it big on the professional stage.

Quite a few years ago it was Tingha in the New England region, who despite their population of just 714 people produced elite talents in Nathan Blacklock, Preston Campbell and Owen Craigie in a short time period.

Most recently, and perhaps most notably is Temora who made news in 2024 after three local juniors Angus Crichton, Liam Martin and Zac Lomax all suited up to play representative football for New South Wales together.

And in 2025, you can now add Coonamble to that list.