The Dragons team that no one could stop

But instead of handing over a brown paper bag, rugby league legend Steve Edge passed on something money can't buy - a stack of photos, many personally signed, of the mighty St George team that racked up an extraordinary 11 consecutive premierships between 1956 and 1966.

Even the Dragons' 1977 grand final winning skipper and the only player to lead two different clubs to titles, having also captained Parramatta's historic 1981-83 treble winners, remains in awe of the Dragons' colossal feat.

"Never before and never again," Edge told AAP.

Edge said he witnessed the "whole shebang" first-hand from the Sheridan Stand at the SCG with his father and grandfather.

"That's how I grew up," he said.

"We'd watch them all play and didn't miss too many of the grand finals; saw 'em all."

And no league fans have seen anything like it since.

They say a champion team always beats a team of champions, but there was simply no stopping that mighty St George side.

"Because it was a champion team full of champion players," Dragons former Test centre Johnny Riley said while reliving the most glorious decade of dominance by any club in rugby league history.

Featuring Immortals Norm Provan, Johnny Raper, Reg Gasnier and Graeme Langlands in addition to other all-time greats like Ken Kearney, Billy Smith, Ian Walsh and Brian Clay, this supreme outfit was overflowing with champions.

But behind the giants of the game that filled the trophy cabinet at Kogarah lay an unsung hero who never won a premiership as a player and whose representative career extended to one solitary game for NSW City Firsts in 1945.

Without "forward-thinking" club secretary Frank Facer, Riley doubts the Dragons' dynasty would have ever transpired.

"He was a genius at finding good players and bringing them into the club," Riley told AAP.

"Even when we were bulging with internationals and thought we didn't need anyone else, he'd find somebody somewhere and bring them in."

Facer, who lured Raper from Newtown, had everyone scratching their heads when he enticed English international Dick Huddart to St George in 1964.

"But his logic was: "Well, I'd rather have him here than having him play against us'," Riley said.

"It was amazing over that period how many great players St George had and how he kept getting them to keep the momentum."

It was all a dream come true for Riley, who debuted in the famously undefeated 1959 side as a teenager and partnered Gasnier in the centres.

"The guys I was playing with were my boyhood heroes like Norm Provan and Harry Bath and Ken Kearney," he said.

"I used to follow them as a schoolboy. The next minute I was running around playing with them."

Success bred success.

"Nobody wanted to be in the side that maybe got beaten," Riley said.

"It didn't happen fortunately for a long time but we were all scared to death of being remembered forever as the team that lost.

"So the motivation for everyone was just to keep on winning."

Riley feared the title run was about to end at seven after a brain explosion from colourful front-rower Billy Wilson in the 1962 decider against Western Suburbs.

"He was tough as nails, a real character on and off the field," Riley said.

"But when Norm Provan, our captain-coach, got stiff-armed by Jim Cody just before halftime - and there were no replacements then - Billy was the vice-captain so he took over.

"So at halftime, Norm Provan's laid out in the dressing room and out to it and we're down to 12 men.

"Billy said to us all: 'Alright, I don't want anyone going out and doing anything stupid. We don't want anyone sent off - we'll only have 11 men.

"We get back out on the field and the first thing Billy does is stiff-arm Jim Cody and gets sent off and we're down to 11 men."

Fortunately, Provan recovered to inspire the Dragons to a hard-fought 9-6 win that Riley attributes as much to their unrivalled conditioning as anything else.

"Not only were we the best champion team, we were the fittest because at the start of the season we had a professor from the university come and he used to train the guts out of us," Riley said.

"Our opposition used to run around the oval a few times and have a couple of set plays and then go to the pub.

"We used to have a pub, too, don't worry.

"But we trained very, very hard and everyone played for each other."

More than half a century on, Riley said the comradeship from that super special era remains - even if, sadly, "there's not many of us left".

"Even the wives of all the husbands who passed away, they're all still pretty close," he said.

"If they live near each other they catch up for a coffee or lunch.

"Brian Graham is still around. I see him now and again; usually at someone's funeral, unfortunately."

Riley also still speaks regularly with Johnny King, the freakish winger who astonishingly bagged tries in six successive grand finals, but laments how Provan and Raper are now in nursing homes.

"We go up and see Johnny once a week. We're thick as thieves with his wife Carol," Riley said.

"Once this virus thing goes away, we'll be straight back up there."

Because this was a triumphant team of mates like "never before and never again".

Australian Associated Press