At the Clovelly Hotel this week, Norm and Arthur had a party.

They came with South Sydney chief executive Shane Richardson and his wife Kate, they posed for photos with dozens of people and they were the only ones still sober at the end of the night.

The first group they spent time with were Shane and Kate’s friends and family. They caught a glimpse of players-turned-administrators Geoff Carr, Paul Langmack and Ricky Walford at another table, although no-one saw Norm or Arthur wave.

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Then the pair of ‘em ran into their new best mates, the Rabbitohs players themselves. “It’s not real,” halfback Adam Reynolds confided of a tattoo above an eye, which had Twitter in overdrive.

When Norm and Arthur were in their pomp, players didn’t have tattoos or Twitter.

The iconic Provan-Summons Trophy. Photo: Getty

By the time the NRL end-of-season party rolled in, later in the evening, the two old buddies were safely wrapped up in their comfy bubble wrap. Like Jon Bon Jovi, Norm Provan and Arthur Summons have seen a million faces in their time on the NRL premiership trophy.

And they rocked ‘em all.

“I would never get this close to the Vince Lombardi trophy – sheesh,” said a visiting American friend of the Richardsons.

“And the players are just sitting out there on the deck together, minding their own businesses? If this was the NFL, there’d be strippers and cocaine.”

The news that James Packer is to buy a stake in South Sydney prompted one fan to opine the working man’s team had become a millionaire’s play thing.

Try telling that to the stunned drinkers who walked into the dining area of the Cloey Hotel to see Norm and Arthur standing there. They were welcome to get a photo – as long as they were Rabbitohs members.

If you weren’t, Shane Richardson was accepting applications and cash on the spot.

We all whinge about how our sports have been corporatised. But two days after winning the grand final, the South Sydney players were quietly trying to find out where they could rent a boat as they sipped schooners and laughed gently.

It wasn’t their premiership, it was everyone’s. The whole culture of the club has been built on incusiveness. There was no jealousy, no conceit, no agro.

The Rabbitohs, members of the NRL staff who had fined and cited them during the year and members of the media who had criticised both these groups all chatted amiably two days after one of the great grand finals.

This won’t be the case forever. The strippers and security guards and distrust and private parties will come soon enough.

But not now. We can all think of ways in which the world has become more harsh, more impersonal, more damn serious since Souths previously won a competition.

But it’s worth remembering all the things about rugby league that haven’t changed. Hopefully, like Norm and Arthur, they won’t for a while yet.