Where are they now: Mark Graham

Mark Graham took over as Warriors coach in 1999. Photo / Getty Images

As a player, Mark Graham was powerful, creative and hard-working. These days, he's all about raw power.

Graham drives giant bulldozers to shift coal at the Gladstone Ports on the Queensland coast. At 110 tonnes, the D11T bulldozers are the biggest in the world and can push 60-70 tonnes of coal in one shunt.

As many as 700 people work at the ports, which is a 24-hour operation, and Graham is part of the crew which stockpiles coal ready to transport on trains or ships. They shift about 60-70 million tonnes of coal a year. "I reckon it's one of the best gigs I have ever had," Graham says. He's had a few since his illustrious rugby league career.

Graham was a former back-rower who played for Otahuhu, Norths (Brisbane), North Sydney Bears and Wakefield Trinity. He also played 29 tests for the Kiwis, captaining them on many occasions, and was named New Zealand's player of the century.

In 1999, he took over as Warriors coach, overseeing them for 50 games (18 wins) over two seasons in a tumultuous time for the club ended by the collapse of the Tainui ownership and arrival of Eric Watson.

He then switched to rugby union and worked as a defence coach for the Blues and in Italy and Japan until heading to the Gold Coast to work in management rights.

"My wife decided she didn't like that and wanted to come back to Gladstone, where she is from," Graham says. "It's quite a neat place, a very industrial-type town. There's no such thing as graffiti. It's a world away from a lot of places.

"Because of my age, I thought I would have to buy myself a business. I was looking around up here and got a job in one of the aluminium plants as a hydro-blaster, using water to knock out scales from big tanks.

I had never seen that before and thought it looked cool. I did that for a couple of years. "The whole time I was asking around and people were saying, 'you should work at the port. If you can work at the port, it's the best job in town'.

Luckily a job came up, I applied and got it. I started on the clean-up crew and worked my way up and now I'm a bulldozer driver on crew four." His days typically start at 5amand he's in the bulldozer for most of his 12-hour shifts.

"It's quite a neat job. If you are in business for yourself, you have to worry about where your next job is coming from and people doing the right thing by you. Now I just get paid every Tuesday.

There are no hassles." It wasn't always the case in his last coaching job. Graham coached Brothers for four years, winning two local competitions and one extended league, which included teams from Rockhampton, but became disillusioned towards the end.

"The reason I gave it away was I was the only bloke who went to all the training sessions in my last year," he says. "I wanted it more than the players. I expect people to be as enthusiastic as me and, when they weren't, I thought, 'I'd better leave them to it'. There's no point me wanting to be successful for them. They have to want it for themselves."

Graham still watches the Warriors every week ("they are my team") but few in Gladstone know much about his background.

"I'm just an ordinary bloke who could play footy," he says. "I will retire here. This is the longest job I have ever had. In football, you're only there for two or three years and away you go to the next contract. I have been here since 2006. That's a long time for me. I reckon I have had the best life ever."