Sydney weekend when nothing else matters

 

Roar Guru

By apaway, 2 Oct 2011 apaway is a Roar Guru

Tagged:

 2011 NRL season, NRL, NRL grand final, Rugby League

7 Have your say

Email

There’s a music festival called Parklife being held over this weekend, right outside the Sydney Football Stadium. Can that really mean that there are people who are not caught up with the NRL Grand Final?

For as long as I can remember, grand final weekend meant cancelling any pressing engagements, making sure family issues were put on hold, chastising any frend who dared get married, politely declining the offer of a “weekend up the coast.”

In 1977, my dad organised a trip to a family friend’s New England property. I stayed with a friend in Sydney, because St George and Parramatta were set to lock horns at the SCG. The fact the game was a 9-9 draw and they came back and did it all again the following weekend was pointed out to me for years afterward (“You could have come with us and would have missed nothing”). And my team weren’t even involved.

This year they are but it really doesn’t make a difference, except Sunday at about 8.00pm will either be deliriously sweet, or bitter and empty. Every grand final is special, and that’s why I’ve only missed two since watching a black and white, rabbit-eared TV in 1973 and seeing a lightning quick magician called Bobby Fulton mesmerise the Cronulla defence and help Manly to a 10-7 win.

I was way too young to understand or even know that the team I have now grown up with were not well-liked. As I went through high school and the dislike grew to hatred and a class war due to the senseless ramblings of a deluded league coach-come journalist, I understood that Manly were reviled by most, and some of those reviling them didn’t really know why, it just “was”, like hating the bad guys in that other ’70s TV fixture, World Championship Wrestling.

At the end of the 1982 decider, a friend of mine turned to me and said, “Is this our coming of age? We’ve just seen Manly lose a grand final.” It seems a trite comment now, but we’d been pretty lucky; the Sea Eagles were in six Grand Finals in those “formative” 11 years, winning four.

But the grand final is not just about “your” team, as I grew to realise as I made sure, year after year, that I was somewhere, anywhere, near a TV, if not at the game. If only I had the kind of recall for school and uni exams as I do for grand finals (my high school maths teacher wrote on my report card one year, “Must concentrate more on maths and less on Manly Warringah Rugby League team.”

He was a Souths fan) Some of the best Grand Final memories are enjoyed as a “neutral”; Steve Gearin’s incredible try from a Greg Brentall centre-kick to seal the 1980 title for Canterbury. Phil Sigsworth’s sending off in the tryless decider of 1986, as Parramatta got over the Bulldogs 4-2.

The epic 1989 game between Canberra and Balmain, which I watched in Tigers territory and became a bona fide Green Machine fan by the end of the match. Nathan Blacklock’s try in the 1999 NRL Grand Final when he swooped on a Melbourne Storm chip kick and was 30 metres beyond their defence before anyone could react.

Even as the game threatened to tear itself apart in the mid 1990s, we still had the grand final to look forward to, although you could be forgiven for thinking it would never recover from the damage done by the Super League war. Ironically, it was the 1997 Grand Final which remains, in that terrible year for the code, as the greatest game of rugby league I’ve seen, as well as the most painful.

The Newcastle Knights did the impossible against Manly that day – they even proved Peter Sterling wrong. On commentary, with 15 minutes to go, he declared the Knights “out on their feet” and could not see a way back into the game for them. Maybe only extra time would have made that game more memorable, but it delivered a premiership to a town I called home for a number of years. As Manly coach Bob Fulton said in the post-match press conference, “You don’t like losing anytime, but if we had to lose today, I’m glad it was to the Knights.”

In a way, the rugby league grand final has probably eschewed the tradition that surrounds its AFL counterpart. For as long as I can remember, the VFL/AFL decider has been on a Saturday afternoon, whereas the NSWRL/NRL big day has gone from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, to Sunday night to Sunday twilight. And we, the blindly faithful, have followed.

It has made legends out of moments; Brad Fittler, getting up after Richard Vilasanti’s “missile” hit on him in 2002; Scott Sattler’s amazing tackle in 2003; Benji Marshall’s sleight-of-hand flick pass in 2005; Steve Menzies’ final try in his final game (in the NRL) in 2008. In truth, it hasn’t often been close – in the last ten grand finals, the final margin has only been less than six points once. But I love NRL Grand Final weekend, no matter who’s playing.

For myself and the other Manly faithful, the past five years have been unexpectedly fruitful, given the club was weeks away from winding up in 2003. If they had, perhaps I might have lost interest in Grand Final weekend, but somehow I doubt it.

Even if I could have gone to Parklife instead.

The Turkey 10

The Turkey 10 teams have now been selected, as Wild Turkey Bourbon's sport sponsorship kicks into the next exciting phase.

Choose which side you're going to support and get in the running to win $2,500!

Simply visit Wild Turkey Australia on Facebook for your chance to win.

Find out more.