Newcastle 1997 side re-u-knights
The roar of the crowd is as loud as ever in Robbie O’Davis’ mind as he recalled the last five seconds of the 1997 Newcastle Knights grand final against Manly.
The Knights trailed most of the game until Darren Albert scored the winning try on the siren.
“I ran straight past Darren and around the fence, high-fiving as many people as I could until I found my child,” O’Davis said.
He was walking back on to the ground with his daughter, Keeley, before Andrew Johns had even kicked the conversion.
O’Davis celebrated the 20-year reunion of the grand final win, Fathers Day and his birthday all on Sunday.
He said it was great being back with the ‘old boys’ as they were introduced as the 1997 premiership team before the Knights and Cronulla Sharks game at Newcastle’s McDonald Jones Stadium.
“We hung out until all hours, telling stories about how good we were,” he laughed.
The former Toowoomba junior made his A grade debut at just 15 years of age for the Newtown Lions before he was picked up by Brisbane Easts and went on to play NRL.
Sydney Football Stadium was the venue for the 1997 decider and it holds great memories for the Toowoomba junior.
It is where he scored two tries in one of the greatest grand final upsets of all time.
It is also where he played his final NRL game in 2004.
“A lot of people stayed around after and waited for me to walk the ground,” O’Davis said.
“It ended up being the longest victory lap of all time, it took me two hours to sign everything.”