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There’s a game that comes to my mind frequently; unbidden but frequently nonetheless. It is not a grand final and it doesn’t even involve the Broncos. In fact, it’s a specific three minutes from a week 1 Queensland Cup final in 2021. The Wynnum Manly Seagulls, then and now a Broncos feeder, end up winning 22-14 over the Burleigh Bears.
For the Gulls, Selwyn Cobbo took the number 1 fullback jersey. In the 14 for Burleigh was a relative unknown, in only his tenth Cup appearance, but a definite talent of the future, Shallin Fuller. Like Ezra Mam, whose career trajectory is well documented, and Jokadi Bire, that other ephemeral prospect of 2021 who, after being felled by a heart condition, is now an electrical engineer in Port Moresby, Fuller was a new athlete emerging from the sporting vortex of the covid pandemic, set to shake up the competitive status quo.
Here are the two plays that stick in my mind.
This first play, 60 minutes in, is almost entirely Fuller. He engages the line, pops off a short pass to a teammate on his left, who manages to simultaneously flick it back again and tangle up three defenders, clearing space for Fuller to break the line. Fuller rolls this into a short kick, re-gathers, turns Cobbo inside-out with two dummies and scores a spectacular try to put the Bears back into the game.
Three minutes later, Fuller probes the same seam in the Seagulls defensive line by shaping to kick. Fuller opts to put on a step and then grubber through the line. The Seagulls are bamboozled and only Cobbo is ready. He swoops on Fuller’s kick and returns it to the house in front of a full and cheering Chook Pen. It would be the match winning try.
This scene would be a prescient summation of Cobbo’s career, getting turned inside out on defence, setting his sights on revenge and performing acts of electrifying brilliance with the ball. It was also a younger, fitter, faster, hungrier Cobbo, with his first grade career started but by no means assured.
This was Fuller’s apogee. Fuller signed with the Titans for 2022, broke his tibia in a pre-season trial for the Bears and that was it. Even after recovering, he was never sighted again in Cup, let alone the NRL. Fuller played a bit of A-grade for Burleigh in 2023 and now seems to be playing for Marist Brothers in Lismore.
As Cobbo went on to play for the Broncos and the Maroons and the Kangaroos, I always thought there was something melancholic but poetic about the divergence of Cobbo’s and Fuller’s paths; something about the nature of sliding doors moments, the transience of potential, a Pratchett-esque ‘life is a bit funny when you get right down to it’.
Watching Cobbo drag his ass around the field for Wynnum over the last few weeks has been not exactly dispiriting but sombre. Unlike David Fifita, who did everything that was asked of him and it was not enough, Cobbo deserves to be here.
One of the first things I wrote on The Maroon Observer was that there was no separating the rocks and diamonds from some players. You get the diamonds because of the rocks. In that 2021 final, Cobbo drops the kick off. It’s a package deal that you have to sign for.
Even now, returning to his alma mater, Cobbo still makes diamonds because he is bigger and stronger than his opponents but he is clearly not as motivated. Ben Farr is the better fullback, even though Cobbo has access to means Farr likely does not possess. There’s a universe where this is the end of the road for Cobbo: a winger for $50,000 a year in QCup. If so, he would still likely end up being one of the best to ever do it.
Then with the news of Cobbo’s signing with the Dolphins for 2026, the poem apparently has a coda. Whether Cobbo comes good, or excels, is up to him. It is clear that is unlikely to occur at Red Hill as Cobbo tumbles down the depth chart. With Redcliffe’s injury record, there will be opportunities to play first grade regularly for the Dolphins. There might not be a better back five in the league than Tabuai-Fidow, Isaako, Cobbo, Farnworth and Bostock, if all are on form. Perhaps there are whole stanzas still to be written about Cobbo.
Cobbo is not going to get many better opportunities to make good on his potential. For that matter, he may not even get another NRL opportunity on the east coast, irrespective of its quality, especially if he has no desire to leave the Southeast. He should perhaps reflect on that game in 2021 and consider how sharp the tipping point of one’s career can be.
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