It is just as true in sport as it is in movies – the hero is only as great as their villain.
There are two kinds of victors that stand out, and they seem to be the only ones who truly matter among Australian sporting fans – the powerhouse who runs through the opposition with ease and the underdog who overcame circumstances which made their success seem nigh unfathomable only a short time earlier.
When the latter becomes the former, we no longer relate to or support their triumphs in a similar fashion, but they are just as, if not more, important.
In the 1990s, as the Chicago Bulls ran rampant on their NBA counterparts en route to several championships in succession, one news outlet pondered its impact on the competition by asking the following question: “Are the Bulls bad for the NBA?”.
It is a question that has been posed by many rugby league purists throughout the game’s history as they watched single teams run roughshod over the competition, because rugby league dynasties – in other words, an extended period of dominance by a single team – seem to present a similar paradox.
While seemingly dull and lacklustre for many fans at the time, almost all of them being those of opposition teams, they are the eras of the game’s history that stand out as fans begin to wax nostalgic about the game they love.
When looking back on the 1980s one doesn’t tend to recall specific moments or games but associates the decade with two clubs: the Bulldogs and Eels, who between them won seven premierships from 1980 to 1989. While no team can hope to match St George’s unprecedented 11 championships in succession from 1956 to 1966, similar patterns reveal themselves when looking back on the history of the game and have a tremendous influence on how we remember it.
Although they would have been among the more disliked teams during the years from 1956 to 1966, the Dragons’ run of consecutive premierships established rugby league as an integral thread in the fabric of Australia’s sporting as well as cultural identity.
There had been teams which stood above the competition throughout the previous decades, but none of them made the public stand up and take notice as much as St George during this era. When pressed for an example most symbolic of the indelible footprint this legendary side left on the game, one could look no further than the 1965 decider.
(Matthew Lewis/Getty Images)
After winning nine premierships in succession the Dragons were poised to move into double figures, but only if they could overcome perhaps their most difficult challenge to date: the South Sydney Rabbitohs. While ignored in most retellings of the 1965 grand final, the Rabbitohs’ own history to that point proves as important to the context as that of the Dragons.
The fact that South Sydney were now playing the role of spirited underdogs was rather ironic as it was them who stood out as the rugby league kingpins before the Dragons stood up to the plate – in fact it was the Rabbitohs who won the grand final in 1955, a year prior to St George’s first title win.
The most important difference was that it had taken them 21 years to win the same amount of titles as St George did in nine. This irony is perhaps the greatest testament of all to the role dynasties play in rugby league.
It was truly a landmark day for the game. While the official crowd is listed at 78,056, this number is in fact much less than the number of spectators who were at the Sydney Cricket Ground that day. Many went to extraordinary efforts to get a glimpse of the action, including climbing onto the top of the grandstand and adjacent buildings.
While there was certainly no small contingent of Dragons supporters, the majority of the crowd were undoubtedly voracious in their desire to see the reigning champions usurped from atop their mighty throne, and the Rabbitohs seemed to be the team most capable of doing so. In the end the red V-clad warriors held onto the trophy, winning the game 12-8 following a tightly fought encounter.
While the Dragons would extend their run of championships by one more the following year, the fact that a side could so much as provide a threat – as South Sydney had done – provided fans with a great deal of excitement.
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Again, it is highly unlikely that a team will maintain their dominance over the competition for such a prolonged period as the Dragons did during the 1950s and 60s. Nonetheless, there have been teams able to build dynasties in the subsequent decades, and they have proven just as important to the game.
Personally, to reincorporate the aforementioned Chicago Bulls example, I do not follow nor have much interest in the NBA; despite this, I have maintained a fervent interest, as much of the world did during that time, in the Bulls’ run of championships during the 1990s. The Chicago Bulls during this era represented not only an ability to outsmart and outskill their opponents on a basketball court; they were an icon of supremacy.
In an ordinary world the Bulls were extraordinary and were thus worth taking note of. While dominant teams in the NRL aren’t as prominent in a global context, they still hold a great degree of significance within the landscape of rugby league and even Australian sport overall.
From 2006 to 2009 the Melbourne Storm appeared in four consecutive grand finals, winning two of them. When these titles were subsequently stripped after the club was found to have breached the salary cap, many were quick to write off their successes and bemoan the impact its fraudulence had on other teams.
Craig Bellamy and his side have since proven that even within the confines of the salary cap they would have still perhaps been able to achieve as much as they did. Despite this, even if their fortunes were to have taken a significant downturn, what many seem to overlook is how their now ignored victories benefited not only the Melbourne Storm but the game overall.
(Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
When fans think back to the Newcastle Knights triumph over Manly Sea Eagles in the 1997 grand final, scenes of ecstatic triumph immediately come to mind. It was a wave of euphoria the likes of which has seldom been seen or experienced. While it’s significance as the club’s first title can’t be underestimated, much of it was also due to their opponents at that time, a fact that has since been largely overlooked.
Coming into the decider, Manly had qualified for two consecutive grand finals, losing the first before beating St George in 1996. The fact that Newcastle were able to overcome such a dominant powerhouse was an ineffable demonstration of tenacity and determination, ideals Australia has come to strongly associate with our own cultural identity, and so their story was easy one to relate to.
Of course the reason I provided this particular example is that Newcastle’s next premiership victory, and their final one to date, took place under much different but not completely contrasting circumstances and thus garnered a different reaction.
Their opponents that evening, the Parramatta Eels, had managed to win the minor premiership that season but weren’t seen as anything close to a powerhouse of the game.
In fact the Knights themselves had accomplished more than the Eels during the prior seasons but hadn’t been able to prove their quality in a dominant nor sustained fashion either. While Newcastle’s victory in that grand final certainly remains a cherished memory for their supporters, it doesn’t stand out among other premiership victors throughout the history of rugby league, nor does the game itself hold much significance among fans of other clubs.
Undoubtedly, much like the villain in a movie, it is important for teams not to remain on top forever. Rugby league is very much a blue-collar sport, and so fans relate to those underdog teams more than any other.
Despite this, and very much because of it as well, it is the dynasties which are equally important to the fabric of the game, as problematic as they seem in the eyes of officials and fans. The longer a side maintains their dominance, the greater our desire to see them get beaten, which in turn makes their failures more celebrated.
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