After their four-song set of Aussie rock anthems, it was widely agreed among the gaggle of footy fans that I clapped along with that Cold Chisel should perform at every grand final forever. A bit over two hours later, when the champion of all North Queensland Johnathan Thurston slotted a field goal in golden point extra-time to win his club their maiden National Rugby League premiership, the same cheering, teary, beery men agreed that Brisbane Broncos and North Queensland Cowboys should play in every one, too.
How about that game? Desperadoes in defence, side-to-side ball movement, soft hands, hard hits, incisions and scorching fine tries from long-range and short, and kick-offs of such height and length and fear that they effectively decided the game. (Ben Hunt will be bombed by Steedens in his dreams.)
And after 79 minutes and 30 seconds of bombing and running and throwing and belting and flat-out full-pelting, Michael Morgan freed an arm and dished a back-handed delight to Kyle Feldt who touched down in the corner to tie the game up. The try left Thurston with a conversion from the right-hand sideline to win the job lot. He kicks with a right-to-left draw. It was a tough shot, but he’d landed thousands like it.
He took his headgear off, waved away a camera, reset the ball, had a chat with a trainer, put his headgear back on, took a few deep breaths, looked at the posts, looked at the ball, looked at the posts, looked at the ball, and then started in … and hit a stinging, swinging conversion that sluiced in like Jason Day’s knock-down 4-iron and … hit the post! Took the inside corner of the right-hand upright and bumped back into nothingness.
Extra time. Golden point. And we dived back into the cruel sea.
And as you’ll no doubt see in highlight reels across the ages, Hunt dropped one of Feldt’s abominations from space before Thurston won the game and the Clive Churchill Medal. And it pleased everyone who watched, even those who support the team that lost. No wonder politicians pile onto podiums, so keen would they be to immerse themselves among winners and losers who can find solace in the team that beat them.
What a game of footy.
Like their compelling qualifying final three weeks ago, the first half was a belter. Feldt’s second kick-off rained down like he’d channelled Pat Richards before Adam Blair hit it up, popped a ball unexpectedly and set live-wire five-eighth Anthony Milford free on a stepping, ball-showing run. Milford found the impressive Jack Reed who dished to long-striding Corey Oates who scorched 60 metres to score a super grand final try.
The Cows hit back. Justin O’Neill scored under the posts after a Jake Glanville dart before James Tamou plundered over to take it 12-8. Reed, the England international who had a cracking match, scored a fine try after Thurston had dropped the ball in a tackle. We went upstairs to see a strip but didn’t.
And then before it seemed that you’d even nibbled your way around the crust of your hot meat pie, the half was over. It was fast and frenetic because there wasn’t the slow-down wrestle there can be in games coached by less romantic men. No-one had that long to think. The game just happened, and we all went along with it. And at half-time it was 14-12 the Broncs.
The second half was more of the same without as many tries. Desperate defence by the Broncos turned away attacking raids, though bumbling Cow hands meant North Queensland couldn’t capitalise on a weight of possession and territory. The pressure began to show. Rushed passes. Kane Linnett dropped the ball twice and would’ve been a talking point (had Hunt not grassed a more crucial one late). As it is the Cowboys centre ran a game-high 207 metres, one more than the impressive, barnstorming wing man Oates.
After a penalty goal extended their lead to four, Brisbane put up a wall and defended like their line was the Tweed River. The Cows kept on coming. Storming runs was turned back by decisive, try-saving defence by Milford and Reed and plenty of their mates. Corey Parker was all-action, Glanville schemed and defended (a team-high 34 tackles) and enhanced further his rising reputation.
And everywhere, always, the irrepressible Thurston, your Clive Churchill medallist for man-of-the-match. The champion halfback of his generation was in everything, as usual, as important to his team as a quarterback is in the NFL. It’s a constant refrain from North Queensland that they’re not a one-man team and that’s certainly the case. Morgan, Glanville, Matt Scott, Lachlan Coote, rampaging lock Jason Taumalolo, the Cowboys are a testing and tough rugby league team. But their ringmaster, their orchestra conductor, their primo prima ballerina, well, he’s one of the best players there’s ever been. And if he doesn’t play, the Cows don’t win. And that’s just it.
Where does this grand final rank among those of all time? It’s early doors and perhaps better to let it sink in and measure it measured. But hell – it’s got to be up there. The Raiders in ’89, the Knights in ’97, the Panthers’ storied title in ’91. There’s been a few others of import and emotion. You could make a case this decider belongs in that rarefied air.
For this is what you get when two teams don’t spend every tackle cynically piling bodies into the tackle and testing the referees’ patience and strangling the life out of their opponents and the game with the actions of Brazilian jui-jitsu. This is what happens when dumb (albeit effective) brutishness is replaced by fast-twitch action and reaction. This is what happens when you exchange five hit-ups and a kick, five hit-ups and a kick, complete a set, repeat a set, and repeat – and all those boring and glib words of league-speak to describe the building blocks of a “perfect” game – for compelling and frenetic and have-a-go action.
Rugby league’s tagline “The Greatest Game of All” is subjective in the extreme and there are games that can slaughter entire herds of wildebeest as they roam across the savannah as effectively as any dour rugby or cricket Test. But what’s without doubt is that when rugby league is played like this it can produce some of the greatest games of all.
Cold Chisel should write a song about it.
