- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
In 1979 and 1980, the Canterbury Bulldogs were known as ‘the entertainers’.
Their team from those years included the three Mortimers and the three Hughes brothers. They played an attacking brand of football that was great to watch.
The side had a great balance. A tough forward pack that did the hard yards in attack and were solid in defence, and backs that threw the ball around and scored most of the tries.
That free-flowing style can be summed up in the famous Steve Gearin try in their 1980 grand final win.
In the modern era of formula-based football, and obsession with dummy-half running and completion rates, I got thinking about assembling a ‘dream team’ of entertainers.
These entertainers would play in the spirit of that Canterbury side from long ago. A team of former NRL players from any club and any era who you would love to have seen play in a team together in their prime.
The criteria for being picked in a dream team of entertainers is easy. Picking the players is harder.
The backs would have to be prepared to throw the ball around, do chip kicks and have the flair to play what is in front of them no matter where they are on the field. To balance that out, you would need some hard heads in the forward pack to do the work up front, both in attack and defence, and who could also put some fear into the opposition.
They would need to be as entertaining as the backs, just in a different way.
I have picked one or two players out of their preferred position in the backs, purely to squeeze them in for their entertainment value, plus a few of the original entertainers in my dream team.
1. Matt Bowen
2. Nathan Blacklock
3. Jarryd Hayne
4. Steve Renouf
5. David Peachey
6. Anthony Mundine
7. Steve Mortimer
8. Kerry Hemsley
9. George Peponis
10. Geoff Robinson
11. Gorden Tallis
12. David Gillespie
13. Ray Price
But that is just my dream team. Who would you have in yours?
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.