It was Western Suburbs' last day in the big time and they wanted to make it special.

A win was probably always going to be a bit much to ask — the '99 Magpies didn't get many of them. There's more to the story than the numbers but when you look at three wins, 21 losses and 944 points conceded, it does say a lot.

Auckland was running up another score on Wests in what would be their final first grade match as a standalone club. It was an emotional day at Campbelltown and plenty of hard men shed tears.

A merger with Balmain and an uncertain future beckoned, but there was still time to try something. When you're signing off on 91 years of history there's not a whole lot left to lose.

"Andrew Leeds had been one of our best players for years, earlier that season he'd retired as a player and stayed on as a trainer," Wests prop John Skandalis said.

"He wanted to score the last try for Wests Magpies, even though he was running the water, so we had a scrum play where we'd throw him the ball. We probably would have gotten in trouble, but that didn't matter.

In the end, the Magpies went down 60-16 on their last day. A century of history and over 1,600 matches in the top grade was over. Georgallis, the club's last captain, gets reminded of it all the time but not in the way you might think.

"I still hear about it," Georgallis said.

"To this day, Leedsy thinks he would have scored."

'The Magpies were our identity' 

There were plenty of times in their long history where it wasn't easy to be a Western Suburbs Magpie, but times were never tougher than the late 1990s.

By the time peace was declared in the Super League war, there were 22 professional clubs across the two leagues and the newly minted NRL put a clock on the survival of those least able to cut it in the new world.

Come hell or high water, those 22 would be whittled down to 14 by the time the 2000 season kicked off. The league called it "rationalisation" — a bloodless word for an ugly business — and it was merciless.

The outposts — like the Perth Reds and the Adelaide Rams — and the outcasts — like the South Queensland Crushers and Hunter Mariners — went dark first.

They were products of rugby league's decadent pre-Super League years and had no place in the leaner future the sport was trying to build.

After trimming the fat, the NRL started hooking into the meat. A set of criteria based around crowd numbers, gate receipts, profitability and on-field performance were set before the 17 remaining NRL sides for the 1999 season.

Those who qualified would survive into the future. If you didn't, it was merge or die.

Wests, the perennial underdogs and no strangers to fighting for their own existence, were pitched into a battle they never really had a chance of winning.

Despite their jerseys, such a black and white approach was never going to be kind to the Magpies because since 1908 they had rarely been a bottom-line organisation.

Money was rarely plentiful and the good times were especially prized because of the hard years that often came between them. Big-name recruits were a rarity, because who could afford them?

When success did come, like it did in 1996 when they fought their way to an unlikely finals berth, it was on the back of local boys and battlers who came good, hard-nosed types who saw something of themselves in the club's Macarthur base.

The Magpies were the kind of club where the players still went to the Court Tavern in Campbelltown on Thursday nights for the meat raffle, rubbing shoulders with the people they represented on the weekend.

When the club needed a new gym in the mid-90s, it was coach Tommy Raudonikis himself and a couple of volunteers who did the job, to try and save a bit of coin.

They were blue-collar to a fault and got by on a can-do attitude and a lot of hard work.

Kevin McGuiness was one of the club's best in their later years and as a fast and skilful five-eighth or centre, there were plenty of times he could have left for richer, more successful teams.

The Bulldogs chased him and his brother Ken hard, so did Melbourne ahead of their inaugural 1998 season, and Wayne Bennett tried to get him to the Broncos at one point. But the Campbelltown junior never could give the Magpie up.

"Playing for the Magpies was special because growing up all I wanted to do was play for Wests. They were my team, who played in my town," McGuiness said.

"Getting to do that, even if we weren't winning, meant everything to me.

"The Magpies were our identity. I didn't want to be anything else. I love this community, I've lived here since I was a baby, our family is here.

Wests were a club in the best sense of the word, a community organisation run by and for its own people, and as far away from a franchise as any NRL team could ever be.

That must have felt like a weakness early in the 1999 season when what many already knew to be true was confirmed — the Magpies had no choice but to merge.

But as the season went on and the losses piled up, it became a strength. When you're a dead club walking and love isn't enough to keep the lights on, all you have is one another.

A season on the brink 

By the time a ball was kicked in 1999 it was clear the Magpies were nearing the end. They finished near the bottom of the NRL's criteria and were looking for a club to merge with from the start. Going it alone was not an option.

Coming off a wooden spoon season in 1998, expectations were low. Several pundits tipped them to go winless through the season.

The off-field issues early in the year turned what already would have been a tough year into a disaster.

Renovations to Campbelltown Stadium meant they played on the road for the first 14 weeks of the year and speculation over a potential merger partner — which early on seemed to rotate between Parramatta, Penrith and Canterbury by the week — was constant.

"A lot of those younger players were from Campbelltown or they lived in the area and it was hard on them. 'A merger? What does that mean? Where do we go? Will there be a team here next year?'," Georgallis said.

"It was hard to deal with as a senior player because you try and lead the way and tell them things will work themselves out.

"Hard work gets you everywhere, so keep trying and keep playing and you'll get an opportunity. But that can be a hard thing to learn.

"We knew Tommy wouldn't be the coach of the merged club and we didn't know how many players they'd take.

"So we had to try and play for each other, play for the Magpie, play for Tommy. That's all we could do."

Some of the losses were brutal. Penrith beat them 60-6 early in the year, the first of five times that year the opposition would score 60 or more against Wests.

The 944 points the Magpies conceded in the 1999 season was an all-time premiership record, a full 132 points more than the old tally, and one that will likely never be broken.

Only one team, the 2002 Rabbitohs, have conceded more than 800 points in the intervening 25 years.

"It was a tough year but we had a connected group. Nobody pointed the finger. We were behind the eight-ball before the season even started and we went through almost 40 players," Georgallis said.

"We didn't have the stars of other clubs, we had workers, people who wanted to play for the Magpies, a lot of juniors who were just getting started.

"We had a lot of players who didn't play first grade again after that year, a lot of guys who maybe got thrown in a bit before their time.

"We never stropped trying and a lot of it was based around trying to prove people wrong. Plenty of people said we wouldn't win a game, but we did get a couple. Whenever we get a chance to get together we always talk about those wins, even if we just got three of them."

Amid all the heavy losses, those victories were worth more than gold because you can't really know how good winning feels until you've lost a few times.

There was a 7-6 win over those same Panthers courtesy of a Leo Dynover field goal. They beat Souths, who were set for their own battle for survival, by two points courtesy of a McGuiness double.

And best of all, on return to Campbelltown midway through the year in front of 16,605 fans — the second-biggest crowd Wests ever got there — they snuck home 18-12 against Balmain, with McGuinness scoring the match-winner.

The club legend that became a coach and a father figure

Helping to hold the club together in the face of unthinkable odds was Raudonikis. A link to the team's last glory days in the late 70s, he returned as coach in 1995 to steer the Magpies through their darkest hours.

"He was an inspirational man and he meant so much to me. He was devastated with that season, but he's always the first thing I think of," McGuinness said.

"I was blessed to be able to play for him. I debuted when I was still at high school, Tommy gave me that opportunity. Ken and I didn't grow up with a father, having that strong male figure believe in us at that young age, he filled that void.

"He was a no-nonsense kind of guy who could bring the best out of you personally, he became a father figure to me.

"As a coach, he was very honest. He expected a lot from you as a person and from your attitude, he hated short cuts and you had to play with your heart on your sleeve.

"He wasn't the most technical, just play hard, play for your mate next to you and be honest with one another."

You could fill a book with stories about the late Raudonikis — and plenty of people have.

Georgallis still remembers the day at North Sydney Oval when Raudonikis brought an ox heart into the sheds, a favourite ploy of his from time to time.

"He told us all to take a bite of it. We did it, because Tommy told us to. We ran out with ox blood all on our jerseys, he was trying to get us going," Georgallis said.

Even as the losses piled up and club's time ran out, Raudonikis never stopped taking the defeats to heart.

He was all emotion, all the time and while that might not have been the way of the modern coach, it was what the Magpies needed — winning might not have been possible, so they needed someone to care.

"There was a game when we played Canberra at Campbelltown, we were down 40-0 at half-time," McGuinness said.

"We're sitting in the sheds waiting for him to blast us, but he walks in with a shovel and starts smashing all the windows.

"It freaked us all out, but that was Tommy, his heart and soul was always for the Magpies and he was devastated that we'd put in a performance like that."

Raudonikis could also fight for Wests at times nobody else could. As a former Test captain who was a regular on TV and as recently as 1998 had coached the New South Wales State of Origin side, he had a profile few at the club could match.