A short history of modern rugby league

After last Sunday’s game between the Dragons and the Storm, I wrote on The Roar’s live coverage that I thought Tyrell Fuimaono was hard done by and that Ryan Papenhuyzen was falling into the tackle.

On another viewing of the incident later on, I realised that I was completely wrong. Fuimaono’s hit left Papenhuyzen unconscious after falling to the ground. He was stretchered off and played no further part in the game.

Fuimaono was sent off and so he should be for such a reckless attempt at a tackle. Peter V’landys’ crackdown was meant to teach players that such tackling will not be tolerated in rugby league and I must compliment him on making player safety important.

I played rugby league and was advised by my doctor to give the game away at the end of the 1972 season. I was 16 when I was knocked out badly in a trial game and spent the whole year getting knocked out. I suffered the effects of brain damage in many ways.

I was expected to breeze through my 2F mathematics exam with full marks, but with the pressure on, I got stuck differentiating a quadratic equation and couldn’t think straight.

I didn’t do well in my first level exam, although I got an early entrance to ANU to study pure mathematics, applied mathematics, physics and statistics. I got a B.Sc but I always had trouble doing exams and was lucky that assignments contributed to the final assessments.

I have always been an advocate for cleaning the game up to ensure player safety, but in the ’80s, when State of Origin became one of the biggest events on the calendar, the game seemed to go backwards in player safety.

The NSWRL was run by Ken Arthurson and John Quayle who added Canberra and Illawarra in 1982.

In 1983, they hoped to make the game better by increasing the value of tries to four points in an attempt to enhance the game as a spectacle. They wanted to increase crowds with the promise of more tries.

Parramatta had their greatest teams during this period, with their backline being one of the best of the relatively new limited tackle era.

(Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)

Arthurson and Quayle’s lack of duty of care was on display in the 1985 grand final, won by Canterbury 7-6 and refereed by Kevin Roberts.

St George had beaten Canterbury in the major semi-final, 17-6, with Graham Wynn and Michael O’Connor playing big roles in the win refereed by Mick Stone.

In the grand final, the Canterbury tactics were to nullify the major attacking weapons of St George, who had won the two earlier grand finals.

Michael O’Connor was hit by an Andrew Farrar forearm and was left concussed, but did not leave the field. He did not have his usual effect on the game and was unable to make a break for the rest of the game.

My memory of the ensuing events were backed up by Steve Haddan, who wrote in 100 Years of National Rugby League Finals: “Graham Wynn – always dangerous around the rucks early – was king hit from behind by Peter Kelly and then by Steve Mortimer after a scrum close to the St George line.”

He was ineffective for the remainder of the match and amazingly Canterbury came up with the penalty on both occassions. Four tackles later, the Bulldogs scored to lead 6-0 after 29 minutes – even though the pass from Michael Hagan to Paul Langmack looked forward.

In 1988, Arthurson and Quayle invited the Gold Coast Giants, the Brisbane Broncos and the Newcastle Knights to field teams in the new 16-team competition.

In 1995, the North Queensland Cowboys, South Queensland Crushers, the Perth Western Reds and the Auckland Raiders entered teams to make a 20-team competition that led to the Super League war.

This gave us two competitions, with the addition of the Hunter Mariners and the Adelaide Rams in the Super League competition, before reuniting with the ARL to form the NRL in 1999 with Perth, Adelaide and Hunter merging to form the super club Melbourne Storm and St George and Illawarra entering into a joint venture.

In 2000, Balmain and Wests merged to form the Wests Tigers and North Sydney merged with Manly to form the Northern Eagles. In 2001, Auckland became the NZ Warriors and in 2003 Norths were rejected by Manly to former the competition we know today.