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On Saturday night, Nathan Merritt will stroll across the turf of Accor Stadium, the scene of Cathy Freeman’s gold medal triumph, Greg Inglis’s grand final ‘goanna’ celebration and countless other priceless moments in Indigenous sporting history.
For one of South Sydney’s greatest ever players, his family, friends and the proud foundation club, that lap of honour and role in presenting the club’s Eric Simms Medal after full-time against Parramatta will be right up there as well.
In his own words, Merritt is lucky to be alive after a debilitating bout of double pneumonia left him in a week-long coma in October, just a week after the 40-year-old played in last year’s Koori Knockout.
Merritt’s walk down the tunnel at Olympic Park is so significant because, after waking up with no function down the right side of his …