Bring Back Mal Meninga & Wally Lewis

Hey guys,

I'm a Kiwi but really have not followed league since the days of these legends.

What's happened to league?

On a positive light I rather enjoyed Stacey Jones re-entry into the Team, it's good to see the general
strut his stuff. Amazing the impact of one man.


Aaron Riddell
Wellington

"Here To Share And Learn From You"

What's happened to league?







It's gotten awesomer.


Just ignore all the stuff about fights in nightclubs, girls getting glassed and sexual assault claims.

Perhaps if we had left the biff on the field... the players wouldnt have taken their aggro off it

Interesting ..when the reason given for "cleaning up the on field violence" was PR etc. Well the PR rapage sure doesnt look good either. Does anyone remember such allegations being levelled on playes in the era mentioned?

I gueess it may have gone on unreported but the comparison is kinda startling

mo money, mo problems?

good point, Premier League ahoy. At least the NRL doesnt have much racism problems

I just don't think they cared that much about their off field behaviour back then. The Queensland "bonding sessions" were legendary marathons of excess drinking and partying. Try getting away with that these days.

Also chris_v has fond memories of asking Andrew Gee to sign his jersey and Gee juggling a can of XXXX and a cigarette while signing it for him.


Times and what is termed as "acceptable behaviour" have changed.

Best sport story ever

One of the interesting things about the commercialisation of sport is it goes hand in hand the homogonisation of the sport as well. Ironically, the characters and the biffo and the drama that made the whole thing so atttractive in the first place are slowly but surely strangled when sport simply becomes a division of some media magnates light entertainment division.

It's fully professional now, back then they all had day jobs so didn't have time to get in trouble.

League has been professional since 1908.

Im sure Jono knows that, it was just rather lazy/innapropriate used of the word "fully"

Ya reckon? I reckon he was mistaking league for rugby.


In any case, even back in the old Winfield Cup, it'd be rare to find a regular first grader who had a day job. There's a lot more money flying around these days sure but League has been a "fully" professional sport for a century. It's the whole reason why the Northern Union broke off from rugby union in the first place!

Heh, I don't know much about teh history of league, but I'm pretty sure I've seen some footage of Artie Beetson and some other old leaguie doing some brick-laying work. The story was about the fact that first-graders still often had jobs back then

The real probelm of course is that players these days are given contracts at a very young age e.g. I went to school with Roy Asotasi and he was headhunted (and given a contract) by the Dogs when he was in 5th form from memory.

So NRL players of today NEVER have a "normal" job/life, which means they don't have any sort of perspective at all imo.

Yeah that's exactly it GB.



And Artie Beetson was a legend. And far older than King Wally or Meninga. He played in the 60's/70's and retired in '81. I dunno about him having a day job, I wouldn't be surprised as he was a very down to earth bloke (and an "abo" to boot) but he was captain for Easts for ages and I doubt he would have earned peanuts for that.

Yeah sorry I was using the word fully a bit lazily, prior to Super League most players had day jobs and trained after work. Once Super League came along all that changed, there were players who were paid enough not to have day jobs but they were in the minority. Gary Freeman stated the reason he didn't join Super League was because he was too close to retirement to be giving up work.

Well actually it was earlie than Super LEague that the money cam in that allowed players to give up work to be fair, but Super League was was killed off league players having day jobs once and for all.

Thanks for the comment guys.

So who are the big heroes in league now?

Can you name 5 ?

I would not know where to start.




Aaron Riddell

Aaron makes a pretty good point here, has the way that contempory league and vastly increased salarys essentially evened out the field and left us with fewer superstars than previous eras?

Utter superstars of the game now?

Darren Lockyear
Sonny Bill (yes yes I know)
Inglis

Compare those to

Lewis
Meninga
Andrew Johns
Ellery Hanley
Mark Graham

2nd lot def dominating the game by more than the 1st

Slater
Price
Civoneciva
Thurston
Stacey Jones
Vatuvei
Mason (love him or hate him - he is a superstar - god I hate him)
KHunt
Marshall
Folau
Sailor
Brett Stewart (innocent until proven guilty - if found guilty, then fuck him)


If by superstars, you mean players people pay to go watch, then I think that's a fair list.

What are you on about??



League Players have always been professional in Australia and UK, even before Super League.

The only leagues to be semi pro would have been NZ and lower grades in the aforementioned countries. And that's because not enough games were played a year until the Lion Red Cup came along. Before then, the only ever big matches were Canterbury vs Auckland. Which Canterbury dominated

I should have added Brad Clyde to my original 2nd list


dalai ......you just listed the biggest names in the sport ATM, the question is though "are current superstars as vastly superior to the field as the superstars pre 2000 were?" ....and Im pretty sure the answer is "no"


you secretly love Big Willy mate

Prior to Super League training was in the evenings because some players still had to work. Once Super league came along and the money went through the roof the entire system changed and clubs started training during the day so players having day jobs completely disappeared. While players having to work was definitely in the decline and most first graders earnt enough to not work prior to that it was Super League that killed it off once and for all. Reserve graders and junior players suddenly made as much as the first graders had been, and first graders saw their salaries double or even triple. While some still made really good money prior to Super League, the really big superstar salaries were a direct result of it. Prior to Super League most players lived local to their club, afterwards they all lived in Cronulla or the Northern Beaches and drove their sportscars halfway across the city to training.

I'm pretty sure Jono's right -- although league has always been "professional", that does not mean to say players were generally earning enough not to have some sort of day job.

And, as he says, training was an evening affair. The players of yesteryear were simply not full-time employees of clubs as they are in today's day and age.

Legend.

You would have to go a long way back to see that though.. perhaps 60s or 70s? If you were playing 1st grade you were a Full time profession in Australia (more so in the UK) and not working side jobs. The leagues clubs over there were, and some still are, quite well off...

Super League wasn't that long ago, only 97... 1st Grade teams were full of Superstars earning good pay packets before then. Team members were not semi pro and working on the side.

The people that were semi pro and had to work were reserve graders. I agree Super League helped that 2nd tier to get paid more, but to say prior Super League that 1st grade teams had to work is lol

Players did work back in the day, but it was mostly a cushy job with one of the sponsors ie marketing manager, or some shit like that. If you watch old footage of early 80's NSWRL, when they bought up stats on players during games they showed their occupation as well.

^ Here's an example. 1.15 in. Try scored by Geoff Robinson, the truck driver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI4iTbKKcLg&feature=related

nacowned!

Yeah sweet, just disagree that Super League changed things; 1st Grade teams were fully Professional by the end of the 80s with the Winfield Cup.

Not at all, he said early 80s, I referenced 60s/70s... to say Super League changed things is bollacks.

Sorry but league is WAY better now than it was in the 80s. The fact that all players are better accross the paddock has removed some of the superstar element, but there's no way those old fellas would be able to keep up in today's game.

Not the King, and certainly not Meninga.

(PS - fkn n00bs coming into sports forum then comparing eras. Not possible!)



gc.

I did a bit of looking into this after the first time this popped up and Nacoa is right. There were definitely still dudes working day jobs in the 80's but during this time the salaries rose massively with the bigger sponsorship dollar.

Yes there were dudes with day jobs but these dudes were the fringe players, the work horses without the big reps, the non stars that help make up a team. The reaslity was though that most of the players in the Winfield Cup age, were paid some decent wages. Once Super League opened their cheque books in '95, the salaries increased massively but there was no way that this was the catalyst for removing players from their former day jobs. It was the sponsorship dollar.

In the Centenary of Rugby League docos that came out last year, much was made of televisions part in growing the game. In the late 70's/early 80's, the Packer empire rewrote the rules on sports coverage and after the success of the World Series and the introduction of one day cricket in the 70's, brought their model to league. Thus giving birth to the midweek Challenge Cup competition and extensive coverage of the NSWRL. Interest soared and higher sponsorship dollars flowed in as a result. This did more for players wages than anything else. Super League had a big impact but came much later.

Schooled motherfuckers!

I love to hate him.

Some more legendary Green Machine players:

Gary Belcher
Brad Mullins
Ricky Stuart (*ahem* cock!)
Laurie Daley
Steve Walters
Glen Lazarus

Whoops, I pressed post too early.


I disagree Maestro. League is faster, harder and players stronger and fitter than they ever were. King Wally used to smoke ciggys FFS! You couldn't get away with that now.

Yep but you misunderstand me I think, what Im saying is

players now > players 80's. obv

but

Stars 80's > ++++ their opposites 80's


Of your new list of superstars I only like Daley, with Walters and Stuart kinda borderline. Stuart missed out on a lot of Kangaroo selection to Langer IIRC

We'll add Fittler and Langer and wont argue about it tho

whoops. My turn to misunderstand, you were jabbering on about Canberra stars

You do realise that a big part of this discussion is our nostalgia right? An 8 year old today would worship the best players in their team/country every bit as much as I did 21 years ago.

I would call it the X Factor. Stacey can make moves out of nothing, so could the old fella's.

Fitness has gone pretty high tech this days though across ALL CODES.



Aaron Riddell

Ricky was my idol as a kid but now

Wasn't it Brett Mullins?

It was Brett IIRC. Also....if we are going to get all nostalgic about great 90's Canberra players...... its a crime not to add John Lomax, Quenten Pongia, Ruben abd my personal fav the intercept king Sean Hoppe

oddly....google wont provide me with a single pic of Sean

Yeah it was Brett. Doh!

Chicka Ferguson anyone?

Always wondered what the big freakin deal was with him tbh. Kinda over rated cult figure imo

We've also all forgotten ol' Toddy

*racked brains for more*


wasnt there another kinda small kiwi wing @ canberra? I keep thinking of Jason Williams but he was a bulldog

There's a few pics of Hoppe on teh google.





gc.

Oh yeah. I meant in a green shirt

TBH I can't even remember him playing for the Raiders.



gc.

He debuted for the Raiders then went on to the Bears before playing for the Warriors.

Yeah looked it up before. Rookie of the year even.



gc.

How bout Ken Nagas? Scored a great try in the 94 GF.