Like many fans after Johnathan Thurston put the Broncos to bed, I was swamped by the post season blues and pining for Round 1, 2016.
Luckily for me, a Queensland-based mate had already delivered the cure.
Contraband, back alley deals? Not quite, but the sprinkling of Winfield Cup magic on the enclosed DVD did induce endless smiles with its eye-popping content.
The rehashed video footage from Round 17, 1987 offered much more than Channel Ten’s State Bank Big Game and the no-nonsense roars of Rex Mossop.
The grainy images whisked me back to sunny Sunday afternoons at the newly constructed Parramatta Stadium and teenage memories free of modern day complexities.
For the record, the match was a promoters dream with Bozo’s Sea Eagles edging out the home side 30-22, prompting this from a gushing David Middleton, “It was a match to savour – a brilliant advertisement for quality attacking rugby league.”
Hardly surprising with Manly tricksters Cliff Lyons and Des Hasler trading more than glam hair-dos with Parramatta blondes Peter Sterling and Brett Kenny.
My only recollection prior to this week was battling for vision on a crammed hill as Dale Shearer rapidly diminished in size on route to the opposite end of the park for the match winning try.
Oddly, memories travelling to and from the ground that day are still vivid. Back then Parramatta Stadium was the Wembley of the west with its carpet-like turf flanked by facilities unparalleled elsewhere in the competition.
Apart from finals at the SCG, the Eels’ digs were the new hub of Sydney rugby league.
So when the opportunity arose, the lung-bursting, seven kilometre BMX ride from my place always trumped listening to the distorted game day screams of Hollywood and Zorba from the family couch.
Arriving was no problem. Freewheeling down North Rocks Road was more relaxed than the ABC’s coverage.
The laughs came two streets later where insights into the enormity of Brett Kenny’s contract were headlined by graffiti on the old gaol wall, “Jesus lives…he wears the number six for Parra.”
If only the genial five-eighth had spared me the ball-breaking uphill return leg, I would’ve arrived home before dark in time to watch Moose Mossop’s replay.
But as Dave Smith might find out, “good things come to those who wait” and after 28 years this was always going to be a recollection-frenzy to savour.
The catchy introductory music set the perfect mood and it wasn’t long before I was in sync with the same tunes imitating Bobby Lindner’s fend during replays of Parramatta’s opening try.
An exaggerated five-metres made for a faster game than I expected and in hindsight was probably a forced initiative to keep fans awake after only four tries were scored across the previous three grand finals.
Another surprising notable was the abundance of free space particularly through centre field where burly props Kevin Ward and Stan Jurd were streamlined in comparison with today’s bulky smash merchants.
For the mop-topped Hasler not much has changed in the three decades since, except for the colour of his threads and the adoption of a robotic game plan.
Even Lord Voldemort was on his case. Back then it was spells cast by referee Kevin Roberts forcing the halfback into repeated scrum misdemeanours.
Although Dessie did redeem himself, slicing through the heart of the Eels for a trademark try, on this occasion it was his opposite who stole the show and Moose Mossop’s voice.
With all the talk about today’s would-be Immortals, I’d forgotten just how damn good Sterlo was.
He pulled Parra’s strings on both sides of the field; sending runners through cleverly crafted gaps, abusing the extra-large in-goals with precision kicks and even returning restarts into the kamikaze path of Ronnie ‘Rambo’ Gibbs!
Luckily for John Muggleton footy was still semi-professional. If ever he needed a real job it was after this match where Sterling had every right to pocket the goal-kicker’s match payments thanks to four hopelessly sprayed toe-pokes.
The last effort from point blank range to level the scores had big Rex seeking Kenny’s divine intervention when he hailed, “Well bless my soul, Johnny Muggleton can’t convert his own try!”
Old Rex certainly was a different beast. After a dual international career that included a send-off in the 1959 grand final for Manly, the Moose graduated to become league’s TV front man in the 1970s.
The power behind his hard hitting comments certainly hadn’t diminished in the 1980s and it wasn’t long before a brutal recommendation after a sloppy play-the-ball had me in rewind damage control.
Owen Cunningham was the target when the quick boot of an Eels marker raked away possession.
Only nine games in to what became a 15-year career, it’s a miracle Cunningham saw the next day after the microphoned enforcer instructed, “Bit of casual football by Manly – he ought to be beaten for that!”
So good was his technical eye, that unlike today’s media little attracted Rex’s attention beyond the boundary fence. However on this occasion as the clock wound down he dropped his guard with a subdued, “The crowd is throwing things at a Manly player.”
And while I don’t recall the incident, a rookie mistake on my part may have stimulated the same perpetrators into remedying blues of their own.
I quickly learned that wearing the away-team colours and expecting air in your bike tyres after full time was one thing. However, escaping a tornado of flying apple cores following a Manly victory were the simple misguided hopes of the uninitiated.
Manly 30 (Shearer 2, O’Connor, Lyons, Ronson, Hasler tries; O’Connor 3 goals) defeated Parramatta 22 (Lindner, Chalmers, Erickson, Kenny, Muggleton tries; Muggleton goal). Round 17, 1987 at Parramatta Stadium. Scrums: Manly 8-7. Penalties: 4-all. Crowd: 25,139.
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