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In honour of Mal Meninga’s anointment as an Immortal, I rewatched the classic Great Britain vs Australia Test at Old Trafford.
This match has been written about previously on The Roar, so I’ll give my hot takes on how the game was played compared to a modern game of rugby league.
1. Rugby league was a lot closer to rugby than it is today. Defences only had to retreat five metres, so it was much harder to make ten metres with a hit-up.
There was way more offloading in the game, with a lot more players looking to pass as they were tackled. So many flick passes. Both sides spread the ball wide on their own line. There wasn’t a lot of ‘percentage footy’.
2. Great Britain loved their kicking. Third tackle of the match – kick for touch. Crowd clapped.
3. Raking for the ball at marker was super dangerous. And not very effective! three or four times Benny Elias raked for the ball at marker and gave away a repeat set of six and always looked like he’d kick someone in the hands or head.
4. The goalkicking was terrible. A combined two from seven and the misses weren’t even close.
5. Great Britain missed two field goals. In the first half. With the score 0-0. The kicks were dreadful. The commentators didn’t mind the tactic! I counted seven shots at field goal in the match and the only one that got above hip height was by Ricky Stuart standing almost at the corner post.
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6. There was a lot more deception at dummy half, especially with which side the pass was going to.
7. There were way less hit-ups from the big men as we see today. There were still plenty, but there was a lot more spreading the ball wide early in the set.
8. The short chip kick or grubber was an option. Generally the halfback was about 5-10m behind the line, with the fullback deep.
9. Players didn’t have a set side or ‘channel’. Watch the first Australian try – Dale Shearer (left wing) is running about 15m in from the sideline and dummies to his left to Andrew Ettingshausen (right wing) who is supporting on the far sideline. It’s easier to cross into North Korea today than it is to switch sides on a rugby league field.
10. There was very little intent to kick to the in-goal to force a goal-line dropout, because…
11. The in-goals were miniscule. Obviously it was limited by the Old Trafford field but still, it just wasn’t an option.
12. The bench wasn’t a factor. Given the quality of players, I was surprised the Australians didn’t even warm-up. Even if only to get the opposition thinking.
13. The game went for 80 minutes. There was no time clock on screen, but there were only a couple of injury stoppages and they were pretty short.
14. The refereeing was dreadful. Inconsistent in every way. I never believed the incompetent French referee schtick until I saw this replay.
All up, this was an excellent game. It was tough, tight and evenly matched. It was definitely rugby league, but noticeably different to what you’ll see today.
For mine, the biggest difference was the 5m defensive line. I know not every match from the past was as well regarded as this one, but you could probably watch this entire match in the time the Bunker spends reviewing decisions during tonight’s game.
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