Vaughan and Nicholls square off in unfamiliar territory
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Paul Vaughan and Mark Nicholls had a gentlemen's agreement during the Charity Shield that they would look after each other despite one wearing the Red V and the other donned in cardinal and myrtle.
Any such arrangement has been thrown out the window for Friday's clash between St George Illawarra and South Sydney, which marks the first time the old Canberra pals have opposed each other in an NRL match.
"I sent him a message a week before [the Charity Shield], just saying 'gentlemen's agreement, we'll take it easy on each other, it was pretty cool coming up against him," Dragons prop Vaughan said.
"I don't think [there's an agreement] now that we're in full NRL competition."
The pair haven't spoken this week, but plan to catch up after Friday's game .
Much water has passed under the bridge since Vaughan and Nicholls first met each other during high school, while they were working their way through the lower grades at the Canberra Raiders together and playing club football alongside each other at the Gungahlin Bulls.
Vaughan was a Canberra product who never experienced higher representative honours as a junior, while Nicholls was a strapping fitness fanatic from the Riverina town of Leeton and was always one of the most highly regarded young forwards in the country.
"I looked up to him a little bit," Vaughan said.
"He went through Junior Kangaroos and all NSW [junior teams] and I didn't do that when I was younger. He had all the junior rep teams down pat, which I wasn't fortunate enough to be a part of.
"He started out in the back row actually, he was a pretty good back-rower when we started coming through Canberra, had a massive work-rate, obviously a very good defender and his attack was pretty good, too.
"Back in SG Ball [under 18s] I tried to do the same sort of work-rate that he did. His stats were always very good, he's always been a class player."
Nicholls and Vaughan have stayed close off the field since parting ways at Canberra, and the pair caught up earlier this year for former Raiders teammate Jarrad Kennedy's engagement party.
Making his mark: Nicholls hits the ball up for South Sydney.
Photo: NRL Photos
Vaughan also had Nicholls and his parents around for dinner in Wollongong a couple of weeks ago.
But Friday's blockbuster at Jubilee Oval is new territory for the duo who have played so much football alongside each other.
Nicholls was the first to leave the Raiders, departing for Melbourne at the end of 2015.
He missed his first season in purple injured, but managed nine games from the bench last year before fielding a phone call from Souths coach Anthony Seibold and moving to Redfern. Those nine games at the Storm didn't include the round nine clash against Vaughan's Dragons.
Vaughan left the Raiders a year after Nicholls to join St George Illawarra for three years, and has emerged as one of the competition's leading props and a potential bolter for Brad Fittler's Blues later this year.
"He had a fantastic year [in 2017], he was in calculations for Origin, they were talking about him anyway," Nicholls said.
"We came through the grades together and had a similar story, we were always fighting for the same position or sharing the position which was good.
"You can draw inspiration from players like that, that have changed clubs and went on to bigger and better things."
As fate would have it, Nicholls looks set to start again on Friday after reg
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