It’s not exactly an original saying but the locals call it “God’s country” and right about now Sydney’s Sutherland Shire – The Shire, if you don’t mind – must be feeling every inch of it.
Though always content with their lot, which is part of the problem, residents of this wedge of land – one caught between the glittering fingers of the Georges River to the north, the beaches of Cronulla to the east, the heaving lungs of the Royal National Park to the south, and, more or less, Lucas Heights Reactor to the west – have had to endure outsiders looking down at them for what some see as their tacky, nouveau riche, white-bread ways.
Goodness knows many in their number didn’t help matters during and after the Cronulla riots in 2005 when, it seemed, a knuckle-headed last bastion of white Australia circled its wagons against the “threat” to its way of life. But long before that the Shire had been maligned, laughed at, and derided, as the cast of Sylvania Waters would attest. Could it really be that everyone in the Shire (the place, not the 2012 reality show by the same name) is a cashed-up bogan and a xenophobe, or might we consider that classism has played a part in the Shire’s reputation?
The Cronulla Sharks rugby league team, the Shire’s sporting flag-bearers, have copped similar flak since coming into being in 1967, not all that long after the Shire was considered a part of Sydney as opposed to a holiday destination for Sydneysiders. Just as the Shire grew out of the post-war boom, Cronulla’s birth owed much to the success of its booming neighbour, St George, who had just won their 11th straight title when the wee Sharkies popped up on the scene. Not that St George was happy to share southern Sydney with this unwanted bastard sibling. Nobody loves us, the Sharks learned early on, and nothing much changed.
There were brief flirtations with success, most notably in 1973, 1978, 1997 and 1999, but heartbreak was always the result. Or perhaps it was resignation. There were, too, brief flirtations with glamour when, in the early 1990s, pin-up-pretty centre Andrew Ettingshausen was in his pomp and Elle Macpherson, daughter of then-club president Peter Gow, was sashaying about the joint – but only half as well as ET.
And then, during the Super League war of the late 1990s, the Sharks swam in a mirage of money, aligning themselves early on with the breakaway venture (treacherous, really, considering the NSWRL had bailed the mismanaged club out time and again). But mostly the Sharks have been sandy-haired battlers with hands like feet, a team the competition rarely needed to worry about it, a team simply making up the numbers. It doesn’t get much more dismissive than that.
Those days are gone, at least for now, and now carries a lot of currency in sport. Last night the Cronulla Sharks ended their premiership drought in their 50th year. I was about to write, reflexively, “and no-one can say they didn’t deserve it”, but that would not be true. Not even after all these years of disappointment and failure, not even when the Sharks have been actively building towards this since 2012 when the broom went through the place.
No, as the Shire sunshine was tainted by the riots of 2005, Cronulla’s “fairytale” success will be, in the eyes of some, tainted by the much-publicised supplements scandal that almost brought Cronulla to its knees. It could be argued, with some justification, that the Sharks were never punished harshly enough for their supplements program during the 2011 season. This premiership, it will surely be said, was built on a regime of cheating.
Another way to look at it is that Cronulla took the medicine they were prescribed. The club was fined and the players, and coach Shane Flanagan, were sanctioned and, in Flanagan’s case, suspended for a year. When the dust settled the club endured a rock-bottom 2014 when it seemed possible the team might be relocated or culled. You could say the club deserved everything they got. But you might also note just how well they put the whole mess behind them. A rabble in 2014 to premiers in 2016. It’s been a monumental change of fortunes. The residents of the Shire, fans of Cronulla, have every right to revel in that. As do all at the Sharks.
My favourite part of last night’s grand final came during captain Paul Gallen’s acceptance speech on the dais. In it he made a call out to Sharks players of old, “… all you former players, blokes like ET, guys who busted their backsides for the club and never got to enjoy a moment like this”. I thought of them, too, the likes of Tommy Bishop, Cliff Watson, Greg Pierce, Steve Rogers, Kurt Sorenson, Gavin Miller, David Peachey. None of them managed to get Cronulla over the line but Gallen knew that success does not materialise out of thin air, and the present must pay a debt to the past.
Gallen knew, too, of the debt his team had to pay to the people of the Shire, his team’s fanbase. It may not cancel out all the heartbreak, ribbing and jokes they’ve endured over the past 50 years, but the 2016 Provan-Summons premiership trophy is one hell of a down payment.
