In no particular order, of course.

And when the 63-year-old long-serving Group 10 secretary was honoured with life membership to the Country Rugby League at their annual general meeting on Friday, the Cowra-based administrator was overcome. 

“They made me get up and I was presented with a medal and then I had to respond and I choked up a bit,” McDonald said looking back at the emotional presentation.

“I said I’ve been doing football for 43 years and married to wife for 41, and I love both dearly … that was it, I had to get out of there pretty quick after that.”

McDonald has been a mainstay on the Group 10 executive for over 20 years, taking on the secretary’s role in 1996. He still holds that post heading into season 2019.

Prior to that, McDonald was secretary of the Cowra Magpies for 20 years, too, and is also the longest serving chairman in Western Division history after being voted in for a record-breaking 11^th term at the helm of the Rams region earlier this month.

McDonald joins Western legends such as Tom Nelson (Dubbo), Jim Fawkner (Parkes), Harley Brazil (Lithgow), John O’Toole (Bathurst), Paul Rossiter (Bathurst), Noel Charters (Gilgandra) and Orange’s Vic Byrne and Robin Tilston as life members of the CRL.

McDonald says the latter pair was instrumental in paving the way for his time as a rugby league administrator, but it’s another Orange figure that rocketed the former Magpie into the position he currently holds.

“Mick Stapleton used to be the Group secretary and I was always ringing him up,” McDonald remembers.

“He said to me: ‘Listen son, I’ll give you one tip: if you want to progress a bit further you’re going to have to come down to the Group meetings and listen to things and find out how things work and who to ring up and this sort of stuff’.

“I asked Sid Kallas if he was going down to a meeting one day and I said ‘I’m coming too’. I just wanted to learn the ropes and that was the start of it.”

McDonald didn’t know he was receiving life membership of the CRL until the presentation, but made the trip to Sydney for the meeting with the backing of a Western icon.

“I rang Vic (Byrne) on Thursday night before going down and he said he remembered coming to a Cowra presentation and lauding me as the best club secretary in Group 10 and he knew then I was going to be something special. It’s great to have that support,” McDonald said.

Naturally, a lot has changed in his 43 years helping foster rugby league in Western.

The biggest changes revolve around the transition from a lengthy paper-trail to an almost exclusive digital platform for running Group 10, but there’s one revolution that McDonald looks at and smiles.

“I do think Orange CYMS, we helped them out a great deal when they were really struggling and let them play one year with just a reserve grade and under 18s side and to see them become the powerhouse they are is one of the best things I’ve seen happen in Group 10 rugby league,” he said.

McDonald said each Group 10 club has been very supportive throughout his time as secretary, as has his family and his work, “they deserve a pat on the back’.

But he says his time in such a pivotal role is nearing a conclusion.

“I can feel it, the end is near,” McDonald said.

“But I don’t know when. There’s a few things I start to forget and I know I’m slowing down.”