Australia's Steelers finished their wheelchair rugby campaign in Paris with a 50-48 victory over Great Britain to clinch a bronze medal. 

It also marked the end of an era in Australian Paralympic sport, as one of the greatest partnerships finished at these Games. Ryley Batt may or may not play on for Australia in the interim, but the Steelers' scoring machine has played his last match at the Paralympics after six Games.

Not unlike his hero, wheelchair racing great Kurt Fearnley, Batt had an unorthodox start to para sport.

Fearnley used to crawl up hills behind his home in Carcoar — in central-west NSW — to look out at the view, and he had his first race in a normal wheelchair at 14, before the people of the town banded together to buy him a racing wheelchair. He always remembered the support, and never looked back in his stellar career.

Batt was born in Port Macquarie, NSW. He was born without legs, but up until about the age of 12, he used a skateboard to get around. He got involved in the sport for which he is now synonymous thanks to a demonstration day at his school.  

Batt has been an absolute superstar of wheelchair rugby since soon after he arrived with a bang in Athens as the youngest player at the Paralympics at the age of 15.

He won a silver medal with Australia in those Games, and 20 years on, he is still near the top of the top tier of his sport.

That is so difficult to do in any sport, nevermind one that involves putting your body on the line every single minute on court like a game colloquially known as "murderball".

Batt's insane vision and responsiveness on court allows him to crash through or slalom through a team's defence depending on what is required.

He has been the constant target of opposition attempts to wear down his brilliance … and a couple of times in Paris he made critical errors that cost the team.

But without him, Australia is a totally different outfit. In Paris, the Steelers scored 264 tries in total over five games.

Batt's contribution? A crazy 153 tries, or 58 per cent of that total. And while the Paralympics does not keep official stats for assists, it is fair conjecture that the 35-year-old set up the vast majority of the tries he did not score.

This is not a new phenomenon, either.  

Batt was at the heart of Australia's dominant team between 2012 and 2016, where the Steelers went back-to-back as Paralympic champions, with a world title in 2014 for good measure.

The physicality of his play is combined with the realities of Paralympic sport. Batt's shoulders have been increasingly taped up to avoid repeated dislocations that have been part and parcel of his career.

The other half of the combination is the Steelers skipper, Chris Bond.

One of the reasons wheelchair rugby is such a fascinating and brilliant watch is the need to combine brutality with split-second timing.

When coaches are holding up cards with timing to the second of when you have to score to wrest the advantage from the opposition that is one thing.

But all that strategy is no good without the skill and instinct on how and when to manoeuvre or collide or strip the ball or knock the opposition off their axis.

If you have one player who is elite in both it is a game-changer. If you have two, it's almost miraculous.

Bond's coolness and calmness under pressure combined with his strength and agility in the chair and his experience — he has now played in four Paralympic Games — makes him an excellent captain.

And the instinctive creativity and sense of flow that Batt and Bond have together on a court is every bit as brilliant as Wallabies greats Michael Lynagh and David Campese or the likes of storied AFL combinations like Geelong's Joel Selwood and Gary Ablett Junior or Richmond's Dustin Martin and Trent Cotchin.

Even in their final match on court together — after the something like 240 games all up the pair have played together in Australian green and gold — that same flow and instinct was again on show, exemplified by one moment of magic.

The Steelers had possession just inside the Great Britain half, and Bond had the ball.

He pushed forward and was sandwiched between two British chairs as he flipped the ball out to Batt. As soon as Batt took possession — or even sooner — he was spinning his chair to evade approaching defenders.

As he was being double-teamed, he headed back towards the halfway line, but while facing away from the tryline he put in a no-look sky-lob of a pass, arcing over the British players and perfectly into the arms of Bond, who had used the opportunity to roll free while the focus was all on his teammate.

The Aussie skipper took a few seconds off the clock before rolling over for a try.

When the siren went to end the game, with Australia two goals to the good, the emotions came out for the whole team.

Everyone knew it was a special moment. Bond flung the game ball into the crowd to one of the Australian team support staff, in hopes of securing a souvenir.

Bond and Batt gathered for a big hug, and then posed on court for pictures, wrapped in the Australian flag, while all around them the smiles were as wide as the grimaces had been after the heartbreaking overtime loss to Japan in the semifinal. 

Batt ends his Paralympic career with two gold, one silver and one "rose gold" from six attempts.

As incredible as he has been on court for all this time, that almost seems like a disappointment — and those Games where Australia made the podium but failed to reach the pinnacle, along with Tokyo where they finished out of the medals in fourth, doubtless burn in Batt's memories and possibly even in some fans.

But after one of the great careers in Paralympic sport there is only one suitable response. Be thankful that we have been able to witness Ryley Batt's brilliance on the greatest stage for so long.

And be doubly grateful he did it for the Steelers.

Because as much of a headache as he has caused for opposition teams over two decades, imagine if he had been doing it for the US or Great Britain, and Australia had had to work out a way of stopping him all this time?

Doesn't bear thinking about, does it?