As Mathew Nean walked off the field after playing his first rugby league match in close to a decade, there were hordes of people congratulating him.
As he looks back now, one stands out above them all.
"When I finished the game, I was just soaking it all in, and then I saw him," Nean said.
The man the returning Dungowan Cowboy saw was Mark Bode. The ACM senior sports journalist was someone who had followed Nean's fight to overturn a 20-year ban from the sport he loves extensively, and with great care, for close to a decade.
"He was having an interview with my brother-in-law, and then the next minute I could feel someone touching my back and asking to have a yarn with me, and he just had a big smile on his face," Nean said.
"We got talking and he just asked 'How do you feel now?'"
The interview Bode conducted with Nean after the match at Gunnedah on Saturday, July 18, was for a story that will now never fully be told.
Bode was killed in a car crash on Saturday night, as he returned home from covering the clash between Dungowan and Gunnedah.
His car collided with another vehicle on the Oxley Highway. The driver of the other vehicle, a 69-year-old man, was taken to Newcastle's John Hunter Hospital for treatment, while the driver and a passenger of a third vehicle, which also collided with one of the vehicles at the scene, were both uninjured.
The matter is now being investigated.
Nean and his partner Teegan Hewson, like so many others around Tamworth and the New England region, were devastated to hear the news of Bode's death.
The experienced journalist was considered a mate by the pair and their family, given how much they had all gone through together over a number of years.
"We became so close," Nean said.
"He was always reaching out to us, checking in on us. We'd have yarns."
Hewson added the bond was one built on trust.
"From a journalism perspective, we were obviously sceptical of what we should or shouldn't say, but we had the full faith and trust that Mark would bring out the best. We trusted him," she said.
After Saturday's match, the obvious question was to ask Nean how it felt.
"I said it was a relief to have the game done," Nean said.
"I said my lungs were feeling it, but it was good and worth the wait and the fight to finally play again."
The interview was also about what it meant to Nean and those closest to him to see him on the field again.
Connecting with people on a human level, outside of what happened on the playing field, was what set Bode apart from so many other reporters.
His stories went beyond the results or any moment in a match. It was about the player. Where their inspiration comes from, what matters most to them in life away from sport, and, so often, the role family plays.
That was certainly the case for Nean and Hewson.
When the decision to overturn the 20-year ban was confirmed, and the return to play was assured, the story was never about what it was going to be like on the field, or what position Nean would be playing, or what grade he would line up in.
Those details were included, but the focus was on the feeling for not only Nean, but those closest to him.
"Mark always made sure my kids were there with me if we were getting a photo. He spoke to Teegan and the kids, too," Nean said.
"I remember when we were at the park getting the (most recent) pictures, it was like he knew were getting close, because then the ban was lifted and he used those photos.
"It's like he knew along the way just by talking to us, but he kept it close to his chest.
"Like Teegan said, we had to be very careful what we said in the articles but he was very respectful. He never made anything up or added to the story like some journalists do. He was very respectful."
Never was that more true than in the days leading up to Nean's comeback match.
It was after the 2016 grand final when he was hit with the highly controversial ban.
Nean was a 25-year-old halfback playing for West Lions when a Group 4 judiciary banished him for 20 years for contrary conduct during the spiteful decider.
As Bode reported numerous times, the charge related to contact with the referee, which Nean always maintained was accidental.
Despite being offered an 18-week suspension for a guilty plea, he was banned for 20 years when he fought the charge. Nean and his supporters, including a Melbourne law firm, fought hard to return him to the field.
They argued the punishment was unjust, while stressing the long-time Indigenous youth worker, who had a chequered disciplinary history as a footballer, was the beneficiary of pronounced personal growth. But as the years passed with no joy, the prospect of a reprieve increasingly looked like a forlorn hope.
Then came the day they had long awaited and it was confirmed on Tuesday, July 7, Nean was free to play again.
Ahead of his first match back, Bode not only spoke to Nean but also Chris Vidler, who came out of retirement to play alongside his brother-in-law, and his teenage son, Kobhan Nean.
"That's what stuck with us," Nean said.
"He was a good friend to us. He had that conversation with me, and he called me Friday morning to ask if it was okay to chat with Kobhan.
"I said no worries and gave him Kobhan's number and then he just rang me again that Friday afternoon. He asked how I was feeling now with just a day to go.
"It's just the little phone calls like that, and even my brother-in-law Chris, he got to know him as a good friend too."
"I feel it wasn't just for journalism," Hewson added.
"I think he really just wanted to ask those questions just as a human being."
That goes a long way to summing Bode up as a man and a journalist. He loved what he did and he loved writing about people.
As Nean spoke to him after Saturday's match, Bode told him he would not have missed his first game back for the world.
"I think Mark would have had a great story to tell. It was like a fairy tale comeback, but it's just so sad that he couldn't get to finish it," Nean said.
Given the strength of their connection, there have been plenty of conflicting emotions for Nean and his family in the days since Bode's death.
"You start having second thoughts, and think did he just go out there for me and my first game back? That's what's going through my head," Nean said.
What has put he and Hewson at ease is the knowledge Bode would have been at that game regardless.
A clash between the sides second and third on the Group 4 ladder would have always piqued his interest, whether it was being played in Tamworth or any of the other towns in the region he would travel to every single weekend.
"He just loved sport. He loved covering news," Hewson said.
"We just want to thank him for being the honest journalist he was."
The pair said on behalf of their family their thoughts were with Bode's colleagues, and his children and family.
