{"id":347170,"date":"2023-11-17T03:14:31","date_gmt":"2023-11-17T04:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=347170"},"modified":"2023-11-17T05:00:54","modified_gmt":"2023-11-17T05:00:54","slug":"heart-warming-photo-as-souths-icon-battles-dementia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=347170","title":{"rendered":"Heart-warming photo as Souths icon battles dementia"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Piggins – the man who saved South Sydney<\/a> – received a massive boost in his battle with serious illness on Friday.<\/p>\n

In a show of the special brotherhood that rugby league creates, Darren Brown, Les Davidson, Michael Andrews and Darryl Neville – who were all coached by Piggins at the Rabbitohs in the 1980s – visited their one-time mentor in hospital.<\/p>\n

And the impact on the legend who fought the News Limited and NRL<\/a> empires to bring the Bunnies back into the big league was immediate.<\/p>\n

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Piggins is struggling with dementia and other major health concerns – but the smile on his face said it all.<\/p>\n

\"George<\/p>\n

"His carer said it's the most happy and active he's been in a while when we visited," Brown told Wide World of Sports.<\/p>\n

"We spent some quality time with him, had a few laughs and talked about old times."He wasn't in a position to speak, his speech is very soft.<\/p>\n

"But we could tell how much it meant to him."<\/p>\n

A former Souths hooker, Piggins then coached the club – for free – and led the fight for reinstatement to the game after officials cruelly booted the Rabbitohs out of the old ARL competition for two years.<\/p>\n

Soon after his beloved club was reinstated, Piggins walked away \ufeffdue to differences with Souths Sydney's new owners, triggering a 17-year split that was only recently mended<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Only a few months ago, Piggins was recognised for his contribution to the game when he was inducted into the NRL Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Piggins – the man who saved South Sydney – received a massive boost in his battle with serious illness on Friday. In a show […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":347172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=347170"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":347173,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347170\/revisions\/347173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/347172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=347170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=347170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=347170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}