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Opinion
Apropos of nothing, the name Craig derives from the Gaelic word for rock. A very suitable name for rugby league.
If you had listened to rugby league on ABC radio recently, you might have heard a crazy person (me) ring in with a Craig-related trivia question. I’ll pose it again here.
There are four former New South Wales State of Origin players who each have a brother who also played first-grade rugby league, albeit less successfully. There are no representative players among them and nothing much of note in their respective careers.
All four of the brothers share the name Craig. Can you name them all?
None of the four Craigs in question has made it into the team of greatest Craigs.
1. Jim Craig – Balmain, University, Ipswich and Wests
Craig was one of the greats of the early game and is part of the Australian and international halls of fame. A nine-time Kangaroo, he won five premierships with Balmain between 1915 and 1920. After a brief stint at University in 1922, Craig moved to Queensland where he captained the Maroons to multiple interstate series victories.
Upon his return to Sydney in 1929 he joined Wests as captain-coach and led the club to victory in the first official ‘grand final’ in 1930, his sixth premiership won a remarkable 15 years after his first.
2. Craig Smith – Norths and Melbourne
Smith played only 22 games between the Bears and Storm. The last of them – the 1999 grand final – still haunts me. Smith was the player hit high by the Dragons’ Jamie Ainscough and awarded the penalty try that clinched Melbourne’s first premiership.
3. Craig Innes – Western Reds and Manly
Innes was a burly centre and former All Black who was part of Manly’s 1996 grand final victory. He was denied the opportunity to represent New Zealand due to the Super League war but did represent the Rest of the World in 1997.
4. Owen Craigie – Newcastle, Wests Tigers and Souths
Craigie was a versatile player who made 153 first-grade appearances between 1995 and 2004. He was part of Newcastle’s famous grand final victory in 1997 and Souths NRL rebirth in 2002.
5. Craig Hancock – Manly and Balmain
An underrated winger who played 192 first-grade games, Hancock was part of Manly’s 1996 premiership victory. Hancock played on the wing for New South Wales in their famous 0-2 defeat in Game 1 of the 1995 Origin series.
6. Craig Polla-Mounter – Canterbury
Polla-Mounter was a loyal servant of Canterbury for ten years and 192 games. He steered the Bulldogs to victory in the 1995 grand final and played a starring role in the great escape against Parramatta in 1998.
Craig Polla-Mounter (Nick Laham/ALLSPORT)
7. Craig Gower – Penrith and Newcastle
Gower had a really interesting career. He played 238 games for Penrith and captained them to a premiership in 2003, played for winning New South Wales teams in State of Origin and the Super League tri-series and played 24 Tests for Australia.
Then things spun in unexpected directions. He joined French rugby union club Bayonne for four seasons and played 14 Test matches for Italy. He returned to rugby league with the London Broncos in 2012 before a six-game stint at Newcastle in 2013. But for injury, he’d have played for Italy at the 2013 rugby league World Cup.
8. Craig Salvatori – Easts and Souths
Due to injuries in the latter part of his career, Salvatori never quite fulfilled his potential. He did manage two Tests for Australia and five State of Origin appearances on top of 139 games for Easts and Souths between 1986 and 1996.
9. Craig Wing – Souths and Easts
After Wing’s acting career didn’t take off, he turned to rugby league and did well, playing 256 NRL games, winning a premiership in 2002 and playing 12 Origins and 16 Test matches. He also played 11 rugby union Test matches for Japan.
10. Craig Young – St George
Young turned his back on a potential career in football to become a Dragons legend. Over the course of 12 seasons and 234 games he won two premierships and was captain in St George’s 1979 grand final victory and 1988 Panasonic Cup victory.
Young also managed 21 Tests for Australia, including two Kangaroos tours and five Origins for New South Wales, including the inaugural game in 1980.
11. Craig Fitzgibbon – Illawarra, St George Illawarra and Easts
For a guy who played 18 Tests, 11 Origins and 263 NRL games and is the 16th highest point-scorer in rugby league history, Fitzgibbon was a little unlucky. He played in five grand finals and four defeats, including a couple of heartbreakers in 1999 and 2004. He did have his moment of glory with Easts in 2002.
(Nick Laham/Allsport)
12. Bob Craig – Balmain
Bob Craig is Australia’s answer to CB Fry, though it’s not clear if, like Fry, he was ever offered the throne of Albania. But he did almost everything else. Craig was a champion footballer, swimmer and water polo player and won a gold medal in rugby union at the 1908 Olympics. Then he turned his hand to rugby league, where he won four premierships with Balmain between 1915 and 1919 and played seven Tests for Australia.
13. Craig Greenhill – Cronulla and Penrith
Greenhill made an unwanted piece of history in 1996 when he was the first player ever sent off in a State of Origin game. But he had a good career, playing 166 first grade games, six Origins and three games for Australia in 1997.
Bench
Craig Teitzel, Craig Stapleton, Craig Dimond and Craig Teevan
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