New golden period
IT’S being rated the best NRL club game in history.
And in the wake of Thursday night’s golden point thriller between Melbourne and the Sydney Roosters, league legends are also saying the overall standard of the football we are seeing since the resumption from the COVID-19 lockdown is as good as it was in the game’s golden era of the 1980s and 90s.
From Matty Johns, to Steve “Blocker” Roach and recruitment guru Peter Mullholland, all are on board.
And it’s no secret what has made the difference is the revolutionary sixto-go set restart rule that many were fearing was rushed through by Peter V’landys too soon.
“I love it. There is that much more adlib footy and it hasn’t lost any of its intensity,” Mulholland said.
Johns added: “That game is the perfect example of how beneficial these rule changes have been.
“In the past, the Roosters versus the Storm, the two best defensive sides, have been good matches. But they have been games for the purists.
“They have been middle-third arm wrestles, give an inch, take an inch.
“Thursday night’s game didn’t lose an ounce of physicality.
“But the difference was going end to end, side to side … and what it did was it set itself up for that finish.
“That finish to the game was a product of two sides that had torn into each other for 70 minutes and in the last 10 minutes both sides are vulnerable defensively.
“I have never seen a last 10 minutes like it.”
Mulholland and Roach went as far as to say Thursday night’s golden point thriller was the best club game they’d ever seen.
“When we are talking normal club games, I haven’t enjoyed watching a game as much as I did that one between the Storm and the Roosters,” Mulholland said.
“And I think the footy this season is up there with arguably the greatest season we ever had in 1994.”
Roach added: “Mate, I would say that is the greatest club game I have ever seen.”
During the COVID break plenty of league fans were watching re-runs of old rugby league matches on Fox League from the 80s and 90s and there was a lot of talk how great the game was back then.
But such has been the remarkable change, what are we are seeing now is every bit as exciting as when Allan
Langer and Kevvie Walters were carving it up for the Broncos — and the likes of Ricky Stuart, Laurie Daley, Mal Meninga and Brett Mullins made the Canberra Raiders one of the greatest team ever.
Johns also agreed with Mulholland that 1994 “was a really special season”. But this could end up being as great. “We look at the 80s into the early 1990s as the golden era of the game,” Johns explained.
“What we are seeing at the moment is we are going into a really, really great period of the game and it is really important to look at what we are going to do with it and how do we make it better.
“In the time that I played I never ever played a team like that ‘94 Raiders. But it was a bit like (Thursday night). They would just bash you relentlessly, and then you’d hand over the ball and they’d just zing it around. They would just kill you both sides.”
Roach was involved in arguably the greatest grand final when Balmain went down to Canberra in that 1989 classic. But he is marvelling at the quality of the footy we are seeing right now. “And just that one rule change, it has made it a lot better game,” he said. “When they got rid of the corner post that changed the game for wingers and I thought that was one of the best (rule changes) I have ever seen. But I reckon this sixagain is better.”
Thursday’s night’s game comes on the back of another club classic last Saturday night when Parramatta beat Canberra in another golden point thriller, and there would be an argument the Eels game the previous week against the Roosters was even better.