A Perfect Match for Billy
October 01, 2006
STORM star Billy Slater's greatest match has little to do with tonight's National Rugby League grand final.
Instead, it's a rekindled love with a childhood sweetheart, and now the north Queensland-born football hero is ready to tackle anything the Broncos can throw at him.
Slater, 23, and Cairns girl Nicole Rose, 21, first met about 10 years ago when they were members of pony clubs.
"I would have been about 11 and he was 13 – he was in the Innisfail Pony Club and I was in Freshwater," Nicole recalled this week. "We'd hang around with the same group of friends and we liked each other but were too young to do anything about it."
The pair reunited in February last year when Slater, a former trackwork jockey for Gai Waterhouse, returned home to play for the Storm in a pre-season trial in Cairns.
Not that Nicole had any idea how successful her old playmate had become.
"I knew he went away but didn't know he was playing football. I had no idea he was this 'superstar'," said Nicole, a self-confessed rugby league novice. "He gave me a call and we went to a local waterfall together and things kind of went from there."
Nicole said they tried the "long-distance thing" but when the couple realised their bond had strengthened, Billy asked her to live with him in Melbourne.
This season, Slater credited his new love for supporting him through a fall from grace when a wild kick led to a seven-match suspension.
"Nicole couldn't care less that I play footy and having her down here made it easier for me," he said.
Slater's parents Ron and Judy, older sister Sheena and 65-year-old grandfather Noel Simonsen have all flown from Queensland to be at Telstra Stadium for the premiership decider.
