While Greg Smith owns the title of worst debutant, Paul Carige is a strong contender for worst ever performance in Australian Rugby League.
Carige debuted for the Illawarra Steelers in 1996 and featured in 16 games in a solid first season. For 1997 he joined the Eels, managing 45 games for the club in two seasons only to completely disappear at the conclusion of the 1998 preliminary final. It is a game etched in folklore due to the incompetence Carige exhibited on the day.
The great Paul Carige was playing fullback that day, a position he had made his own in a promising start to his career. The Eels led the Bulldogs 18-2 with just over ten minutes to play. A number of shocking errors from the Eels allowed the Bulldogs to miraculously level the scores at 18-18.
But those errors were nothing compared to the meltdown that was about to occur in Carige’s brain. With under a minute remaining Carige attempted to gain a 20-metre restart by putting his foot over the dead ball line and touching the football, the problem was, the ball had already stopped moving. This gave the Bulldogs an opportunity to break the deadlock via a goal line drop out. While the Eels survived a field goal attempt from that set, Carige inexplicably decided to kick the ball on the first tackle ten metres out from his own line giving the ball straight back to Canterbury.
Craig Polla-Mounter then attempted a field goal which fell agonisingly short meaning the match went into extra time. The Dogs edged ahead with an early field goal in extra time and with his time now trailing 19-18 Carige inexplicably decided to field a misguided crossfield kick jumping into the air a metre inside the left hand touchline. Carige was pushed into touch and the Dogs would then go on to score a try.
The second period of extra time would incur another brain explosion for Carige. This time the fullback would field a bomb and walk straight into touch causing Eels legend and commentator, Peter Sterling to loose his cool with a blunt “He’s caught the ball and walked into touch.”
The Eels went on to lose the match 32-20 and Carige was never seen on an NRL field again. In fact for a time he wasn’t seen at all. Carige fled to Coffs Harbour after copping verbal abuse wherever he went.
In a 2007 interview Carige admitted that he suffered a few brain explosions during the match.
“Look, I was just trying my best for the team, sometimes those things come off and you come up with a win. We gave it our best shot, I suppose it was an exciting game, good for the fans.”
Carige attempted to resurrect his career in the UK but was unsuccesful. He would later play for Wynnum-Manly in the Queensland Cup in 2002 for a few seasons and as of 2007 was working as a teacher in the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre.
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