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Product disclosure: I’m a Manly fan and have been for 40 years.
Those who’ve read previous articles would know that. Born and bred, watched the highs and the lows, the great years and the desperate times post the ill-fated Northern Eagles venture when the club was on the brink of extinction.
Safe to say then, that the last few years have been wine and roses for Manly fans.
While this year’s decider won’t add to the wine or the roses, what unfolded was easily the best grand final since Roosters-Panthers in 2003, and before that, the 1997 Sea Eagles-Knights match.
Maybe that’s the answer – the great grand finals need Manly or the Roosters!
Also no doubt that the better team on the night won.
The Roosters were magnificent right when they needed to be, with the Sea Eagles up 18-8, albeit with a long time to play.
And the man who stepped up was the man who has been talked about, usually by his initials, for most of the season.
Sonny Bill Williams might have made some first half errors but he stamped the SBW imprimatur on the game with a last-quarter display that turned the match in favour of the minor premiers.
His slipped pass to James Maloney which led to Shawn Kenny Dowall’s try to level the scores was a hark back to the off-loading forwards of yesteryear.
But there is nothing “yesteryear” about SBW.
Supreme athlete, a mobile giant who seems capable of just about anything.
There might be an element of ‘hired gun’ about the way he juggles his various sporting endeavours but, possibly outside of the Bulldogs, there’s not a team in the NRL who wouldn’t jump at signing him.
The other Williams has been one of Manly’s best in 2013.
David ‘Wolfman’ Williams’ 20 tries, including a freakish effort in the preliminary final against Souths, is one of the reasons Manly were in the grand final in the first place.
However, he will have nightmares about a leaping Daniel Tupou until he gets a chance to put it right in 2014.
Found wanting under the pinpoint accuracy of the Roosters’ halves kicking game, Williams was bailed out a few times by an overworked Brett Stewart.
Yet all would have been forgiven if he’d been able to hold a difficult pass from Jamie Lyon and gone in to score with the game at 20-18 to the Roosters in the last 10 minutes.
That would have been an interesting momentum shift in a game that already had it all.
Refereeing decisions always add spice to post-game arguments and Maloney’s pass to Anthony Minichello in the lead-up to the Shaun Kenny-Dowell try looked forward to the naked eye.
But that was sitting in front of a TV screen, not chasing the play and making a split-second decision in the course of a breathlessly quick and hard game.
And you got the impression that even if that had been called back, the Roosters were still coming at the Sea Eagles, proven by Michael Jennings’ freakish grounding of the ball to seal the game with five minutes to go.
The only player who could have spoiled the occasion with his stupidity was Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.
Roosters coach Trent Robinson has not put a foot wrong in his preparation and tactics for this season, but all of that could have been undone by Waerea-Hargreaves idiocy in head-butting Justin Horo in the first half.
Having been sent off against his former club once already this season, Waerea-Hargreaves seemed intent on testing the boundaries of grand final law (it’s pointless arguing that certain standards are not relaxed on grand final day).
With his size, strength and aggression, JWH should probably take a leaf out of SBW’s book, and Robinson might be having a quiet word with Waerea-Hargreaves once the celebrations cool at Bondi, letting him know that the big man is no use to the team sitting in the sin bin, or worse, getting an early use of the stadium showers.
In a season where the NRL has been tainted by the ongoing ASADA investigations, it was a relief to put that aside and watch the two best teams of 2013 put on a show that will long be remembered.
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