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Serial pest Michael Ennis reminded us all in the 37th minute of Sunday’s historic NRL grand final of why so much vitriol surrounds him.
After putting a dinky ball to boot that Cameron Smith would cough up, he gave Melbourne’s captain a mischievous pat on the back.
All the wash-up from the NRL grand final:
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» Re-live the match with our live blog
Second-rower Jordan McClean was first at the scene, charging in to send Ennis flying what seemed like 20 rows back.
It was a push that offered a trademark example of just how good Ennis is at ruffling the feathers of the opposition.
Just over 40 minutes of football later, I may well have been a lone wolf in my applause of this same niggling journeyman for retiring with a win in a grand final.
Ennis joined rugby league giants in Mal Meninga, Glenn Lazarus and Shane Webcke to retire with a premiership.
For a number of reasons I witnessed him do this with a smile as big as that of the hammerheads of the Sutherland-Shire.
Straight off the bat, you have got to give credit to the man for remaining one of the most consistent rakes in the NRL across 273 games.
Couple that with the fact that hookers absorb an incomprehensible load of impact in defence every game and you can’t have anything but admiration for the retiree.
What’s more is that Ennis would have to go down as one of the best players to have not pulled on a Test jersey.
No sane rugby league enthusiast would ever have deemed him a fitting candidate for the Kangaroos’ Number 9 jersey – not in light of the giant in Smith who has filled those boots since 2006.
It was the sort of shadow that Stuart McGill felt the antagonising restrictions of in his patchy career in the baggy green.
Despite this, however, Ennis would not have looked out of place in an Australian jumper.
He was given a taste of representative football in 2009, the same year in which he was named Dally M Hooker of the Year, when he was selected for the Blues in Game 3.
It was a position he retained for the following two years, playing in all three games in both 2010 and 2011.
Winning his second Dally M Hooker of the Year award in 2015 and being pivotal to the Sharks’ strong tilt at the 2016 title should have earnt him another NSW call-up this year. However, Laurie Daley opted for rival Robbie Farah in all three clashes.
As for those with the opinion that Ennis was a grub… Really he was a serial pest – nothing more, nothing less.
He revelled in planting an elbow in the ribs and treating a face to a thorough forearm massage.
Giving an opposition player a pat on the back after spilling their lollies was another favourite in ‘Ennis the Menace’s Book of Tricks’.
He also enjoyed having a word or two with the men in pink.
Not once, however, did he do what James Graham did to Billy Slater in the 2012 grand final and try to take a chunk out of another player’s ear.
Nor did he ever exercise the antics of the infamous John Hopoate.
While we’re on that note, nor did Ennis ever pull out the Sammy Burgess squirrel grip either.
He also didn’t feature in the most infamous fist-fight in 21st century rugby league, that being the Adam Blair versus Glenn Stewart encounter en route to the sin bin in 2011 (although that did make for quality medieval theatre).
Ennis was not a grub, rather merely a serial pest.
You could liken him to the Giants’ Steve Johnson in the AFL, forever a pig in mud whenever a couple of tempers boil over.
The theatre that Ennis brings to the stage sport needs.
It’s what a litany of his sporting contemporaries offer as well – not only Stevie J, but Brent Harvey in rag-dolling opposition combatants and David Warner in his relentless barking of sledges from the cover-point region.
Ennis ran out of the sheds on Sunday with a calamitous grand final record hanging over his head.
He was at the Broncos in 2006 when they last won the premiership, however a knee injury forced him to watch from the sideline.
Then in 2012 with the Bulldogs he got a taste of grand final defeat against Melbourne.
Two years later, in 2014 and still with Canterbury, he was again forced to watch from the sideline like in 2006, this time with his foot in a moon boot as the Rabbitohs secured their first premiership in 43 years.
On Sunday night, in his swansong, it was only fitting that he said farewell with a premiership.
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