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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:50:38 GMT 10
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:52:09 GMT 10
The 1981 New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership was the 74th season of Sydney's professional rugby league football competition, Australia's first. Twelve clubs, including six of 1908's foundation teams and another six from around Sydney competed for the J J Giltinan Shield and WD & HO Wills Cup during the season, which culminated in a grand final between the Parramatta and Newtown clubs. NSWRFL clubs also competed in the 1981 Tooth Cup and players from NSWRFL clubs were selected to represent the New South Wales team.
Finals The elimination semi-final between Newtown and Manly-Warringah will always be remembered for the notorious all-in brawl, with the main combatants Newtown's Steve Bowden and Manly hardman Mark Broadhurst. Bowden was marched for the incident and was unable to take part in the Preliminary Final against Eastern Suburbs or the Grand Final against Parramatta.
Grand Final
Newtown had reached their first grand final in twenty-six years. Parramatta led 7–6 at half-time, but the Jets looked set to spring a major upset when tough half back Tommy Raudonikis crashed over to score early in the second-half. Then the Eels' brilliant backline exploded into action. The combination of Brett Kenny, Mick Cronin, Peter Sterling, Eric Grothe and Steve Ella dominated and would go on to feature in five grand finals and four premierships by the end of 1986.
Steve Edge became the first player to captain two different sides to premiership victory having captained St. George to a win over the Eels in season 1977.
Master coach Jack Gibson had just six words for a packed Parramatta Leagues Club auditorium, who had just witnessed the Eels' first ever premiership since their 1947 entry to the competition. "Ding, dong, the witch is dead," he said before the thunderous chants of the success-starved blue and gold army of fans.
Parramatta 20 (Tries: Kenny 2, Atkins, Ella. Goals: Cronin 4.)
Newtown 11 (Tries: O'Grady, Hetherington, Raudonikis. Goal: Morris.)
Wikipedia
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:52:57 GMT 10
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:53:54 GMT 10
Brett Kenny
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:54:31 GMT 10
Ray Price
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:55:14 GMT 10
Bob O'Reilly
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:55:47 GMT 10
Celebrations
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:56:03 GMT 10
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:56:22 GMT 10
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:56:53 GMT 10
Bob O'Reilly
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:57:25 GMT 10
Ray Price and Sterlo
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:57:46 GMT 10
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:58:27 GMT 10
Steve Ella scores a try in the Grand Final.
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:58:54 GMT 10
1981 Grand Final: Parramatta 20 d Newtown 11 at SCG
Trivia: Man of the match: Bob O'Reilly (Parramatta). * MOM 1954-1985 was determined retrospectively by a panel of experts in 2008.
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Post by Rugby League Historian on Sept 19, 2021 19:59:18 GMT 10
1981 Grand Final: Parramatta 20 d Newtown 11 at SCG
By George Dunkerley October 1, 1981
The SCG Hill is the stuff of which Pom nightmares are made. When a small child in the north of England misbehaves outrageously, parents have been known to threaten to send him there on grand final day, and let nature take its course. Just as surely as we know that Dover has white cliffs and Wigan a pier, we know no-one comes back alive from The Hill. So I was bound to be deeply touched when Rugby League Week decided that the legendary slope would be the ideal vantage point for my first-and probably last-grand final. I hoped that it would be quick and clean, and that what remained of my ashes might one day be scattered on Borough Park, Blackpool. The conviction that last Sunday was going to mark the end of a promising career was reinforced by the way in which Parramatta were destined to dominate proceedings. Now, Parra are a wonderful club, and no doubt the majority of their followers are kind to children and animals and buy flowers on Mother's Day. Somehow, I always seem to bump into the other lot. The best policy, it seemed to me, was to get there early, find a quiet spot, stock up with beer and limit conversation to a very occasional "Good on yer, mate." But at 11am, The Hill was already six foot deep in blue and gold, and talk was revolving around rape, carnage, mass murder and the burning of sports stadiums. But, you know, you have to spend time with these people if you're going to find out what warm, lovable human beings they really are. Time is what you have a lot of on The Hill. "Came late this year-got here at eight." This is the elite area of The Hill-right on the back row, with the bar at your left elbow and the SCG's Museum of Victorian Plumbing a short stagger away. Most of the customers are milkmen-because they all have a crate to stand on. The less fortunate have to resort to standing on their Eskies, something which can give to the most resolute of fans cold feet. It's a lousy afternoon to be an Eel. Souths' backline cuts the under-23s to pieces right in the shadow of The Hill, and Wests' forwards stomp all over the supposedly unbeatable reserve grade. Then real real disaster strikes. A cheap, made-in-Hong Kong, Esky crumbles under the weight of a couple of milkmen, and a treacherous slurry of tinnies and crushed ice flows down the slope like the climactic scene from the great Australian disaster movie. Worse is to come. The bar runs out of beer, the toilets are overflowing, and the milkmen are starting to get very severe with passing strangers. Someone is claiming to have been stabbed, and he's either right, or he went completely overboard putting the tomato sauce on his pie. It's discovered that beer is still obtainable, if you bribe a barman in some distant corner of the crowd, and the flood waters from the gents are starting to rise alarmingly. The first-grade game causes so much agitation among the milkmen that most of them topple backwards off their crates. By the time they climb back up, Newtown are ahead. A solitary blue and white flag waves briefly, before committing suicide by then falling off its pole. But life soon gets better for the milkmen. Hitherto undiscovered bottles of rum appear as the Eels take control. After each try, the upper slopes of the Hill sway and totter in delight and fall in a heap. "I feel sorry for those blokes in the Brewongle Stand," says a milkman, "I really do." And as for the idea of transforming The Hill into another stand, the milkmen are adamant that they will never permit such a thing to happen in their lifetime. "Not a chance, mate-the game just wouldn't be the same."
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