It has been nineteen years since noted
sporting expert Tina Turner proclaimed rugby league ‘simply the best’. South
Sydney and Canterbury-Bankstown proved her right in front of the [Insert
Sponsor’s Name Here] Stadium’s largest post-Olympic crowd, as they played out a
bruising and entertaining encounter, the result of which broke the former’s
forty-three year premiership hoodoo.
The signs that the match wouldn’t
disappoint were evident from the kick-off, whereupon the head of Canterbury
enforcer James Graham collided with that of his compatriot Sam Burgess, doing a
number on the tough Yorkshireman’s cheekbone. The Bulldogs were jittery and
error-prone in the first few minutes, and when they fumbled a sixth-minute bomb
into the waiting hands of Lote Tuqiri, the Souths faithful thought that the
wait was finally over, until the video showed that the fumble had been caused
by a high shot by a Souths player.
The Rabbitohs only had to wait another
fourteen minutes to open the scoring, when a penalty put them downfield and
Alex Johnston received a crafty shove-pass on the wing. Adam Reynolds made up
for the missed conversion in the twenty-seventh minute: Greg Inglis intercepted
and advanced to within forty metres of the Bulldogs’ line, the fourth
play-the-ball of the set of six was interfered with, and Reynolds duly followed
his coach’s instructions to take the two points.
The remainder of the first half proceeded
trylessly but not without incident. Josh Morris almost scored Canterbury’s
first try but lost control of the ball, which was then pounced on by
quick-thinking Souths defenders. Sporadic outbreaks of argy-bargy occurred,
usually involving Morris, and threatened to break out into good old-fashioned
fisticuffs on the half-time whistle until cooler heads prevailed.
The second half started much the same way
as the first, with Souths pressuring Canterbury into making crucial errors in
the vicinity of their goal. They failed to capitalise, and the match took a
turn seven minutes into the half when i
rossoverdi lost the ball inside their own ten. Tony Williams was the
beneficiary of a perfectly-weighted grubber on the last tackle, and Trent Hodkinson’s
conversion tied the scores at six points apiece.
The Rabbitohs hit back in the fifty-sixth
minute, when George Burgess, back on the field after being cleaned up in the
first half, received the ball from dummy-half and waltzed his way around a few
Canterbury players before grounding under the posts. Two penalties in
successive minutes, one for a shoulder-charge and one for interfering with the
play-the-ball, gave Adam Reynolds the chance to put Souths further ahead; he
fluffed the first and hit the second, bringing the scores to 14-6.
Souths had the momentum, and it was up to
Graham to stop it. The feisty Lancastrian stopped the clock in the sixty-eighth
minute with a hip-and-shoulder hard enough to put David Tyrrell on a stretcher,
and when normal service resumed, Canterbury looked the more likely side. Twice
in two minutes they forced Souths to knock on in-goal, and it was when the
Bulldogs’ third consecutive set of six was arrested prematurely that the tide
finally turned for Souths.
The avalanche began in the seventy-third
minute, when a Canterbury smother gave Souths a second kick on the last tackle;
Greg Inglis aimed for the far corner, the ball bounced over the heads of one
chaser from each team before Kirisome Auva’a grounded. Five minutes later, Adam
Reynolds couldn’t believe his luck when he duelled with Sam Perrett for receipt
of a kick and the Bulldogs player ran into the goalpost in a slapstick fashion;
by converting both of these, he helped put the Bunnies up 26-6, and we had
reached the Gatorade-bucket-over-the-head moment.
The icing on the cake was provided by
Inglis in the final minute, when he broke through a tired Canterbury line, went
one way and then the other, and scored his team’s fifth try. Sam Burgess was
given the honours but failed to convert, but it didn’t matter. For the
twenty-first time, South Sydney were premiers.
Although he failed to get on the
scoresheet, this was Sam Burgess’ match. The man from Dewsbury had Clive
Churchill Medallist written all over him, from his first-up head clash, to the
blood evident on his face for most of the match, to the tears of joy he shed at
the final whistle. I was going to label him the Joel Selwood of the NRL (one of
the highest compliments this Geelong supporter can give a sportsman), but my
knowledge of northern English sporting history gave me an even better
comparison: Bert Trautmann’s match-winning performance in the 1956 FA Cup
final, when Manchester City’s German goalkeeper inspired his team to victory
despite breaking his neck making a diving save.
Sam, and Souths, you were simply the best.
South Sydney 30 – Canterbury-Bankstown
6
Tries: Johnston 20’; G. Burgess 56’; Auva’a
73’; Reynolds 78’; Inglis 80’ (S. Syd.); Williams 49’ (C.-B.)
Conversions: Reynolds 3/4; S. Burgess 0/1
(S. Syd.); Hodkinson 1/1 (C.-B.)
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