Paul Kent: Why Benny Elias deserves a spot in NRL Hall of Fame
He transformed hookers from undersized second-rowers who could pass, to genuine playmakers and gamebreakers, but legendary Tiger Benny Elias is yet to join former teammates in the NRL Hall of Fame.
Opinion
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His name is Benny Elias and he remains one of the great characters of our game.
Characters come and go, though, and Elias deserves something more permanent.
Thursday afternoon he sat at a table at Kingsleys in Woolloomooloo, the band back together.
Wayne Pearce sat to his left, with Steve Roach left of him. Opposite was Bryden’s Lawyers owner Lee Hagipantelis and the fourth Beatle, Paul Sironen.
“Twelve knee operations,” Elias kept saying. “He’s had 12 knee operations.”
“A few were arthroscopes,” Pearce admitted.
“Twelve knee operations Blocky, can you believe it?”
“That’s because he kept running off me,” said Roach. He pretended to throw a short ball that sent Pearce straight to hospital.
“Too many play one hit-ups,” said Sironen. “Your ball, Junior.”
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It was one of those golden afternoons. The sun was dipping down behind the tall buildings of Sydney and the air was filled with four old mates who, in their own way, played off each other like a vaudeville act. There should have been a soundtrack playing in the background.
Sironen joked about pushing Pearce in front of him to take the tough hit-up off their own try line, waiting for what they call good ball, before gently pushing Pearce aside.
“You have a rest, I’ll take this one.”
They sat and chatted and the conversation bounced seamlessly between past and present. The last time all four played together was 30 years ago, a September afternoon in 1990 when they went down 16-0 to Manly in the minor preliminary semi-final at the Sydney Football Stadium.
It was the end of the run.
The two previous seasons they went down in grand finals to Canterbury and then Canberra and, nobody knew it then, but the Raiders defeat took everything from them.
Their squad was nearly identical but never the same.
As coach Warren Ryan said when he left Balmain to coach Western Suburbs for the following season, the lemon had been squeezed dry.
They were offended by it at the time but, and they’ll admit this now, it was the truth.
Pearce, now 60, retired after the Manly loss. Roach, 58, retired two years later and Elias, 56, two years after that.
Sironen, 55, was the last Tiger left, playing on memory as the Tigers dwindled from a premiership powerhouse to a team that battled to find any kind of win.
And as they sat in the sun and talked the afternoon away, the conversation rarely going to old battles, something wasn’t quite right.
Pearce and Roach are in the Hall of Fame. Sironen and Elias are not.
A dozen years ago now, a year for each operation Pearce had on his knees, the NRL announced the game’s 100 greatest players to celebrate its first 100 years.
When the NRL Hall of Fame relaunched several years later it was only natural to include those men and, since then, more men have been added.
But naming the best 100 was not an exact science. A voting college was organised and, if memory is correct, there were six players who tallied the same votes to fill the final two positions, 99 and 100. The judges were called again for a countback.
Where Elias and Sironen finished nobody should say.
Since then, though, there have been numerous chances to correct the record without the right result going through.
The vote for Benny Elias should be that he, quite simply, changed the way the position was played.
Cameron Smith would likely not exist today without Elias.
Before Elias came along hookers were basically undersized second-rowers who could pass. Their greatest value to the team was their ability to win the scrum.
If they could hit you on the chest with a pass it was a bonus.
Elias changed everything about the position. He came to the position with a half-back’s creativity. He began showing the ball one way and finding a runner the other side, selling it to the defenders.
He began kicking tactically out of dummy-half. Nobody had seen a hooker do that, either.
He brought sleight of hand to the position, skipping out of dummy-half and picking up runners short or finding someone out the back. Elias brought a subtlety to the position that never existed.
He was the best player on the field in the 1989 grand final and nearly won it for Balmain. He ran the Tigers’ whole attack, sometimes dropping in to first receiver like Smith does now.
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Part of the reasons offered for why Elias is not already in the Hall don’t make a whole lot of sense. Some argued he was replaced as NSW and Australian hooker by Royce Simmons, arguing does that make Simmons a candidate?
Such basic thinking overlooks that it was often a selection based as much on strategy as talent.
Peter Sterling was a playmaker at half and so was Wally Lewis for Australia.
For team balance it was sometimes better to simply have service from the ruck.
At the same time coaches were not always picking the best player, as representative teams once were about, but what suited the team structure best.
But Elias was such a revelation at hooker soon other coaches were trying to convert halfbacks to hooker just to keep up. They needed some creativity there, too.
The entire position changed. Steve Walters came along, built like a small tractor. Now at Newcastle, Warren Ryan shifted Danny Buderus from fullback to be his new hooker. It turned him into a Kangaroo.
The position evolved, to where Smith is now regarded as not only the greatest hooker to play the game but possibly the greatest in any position.
And where it began is very easily identified. It began with Benny Elias.
The NRL is still determining the format for this year’s induction. The COVID-19 pandemic might change it from a gala event to a simple television ceremony.
What is certain is Benny Elias should be in the Hall of Fame.
SHORT SHOTS
Most complaints about the Sydney Roosters signing Sonny Bill Williams always contain a nudge and a wink in respect to the Roosters’ salary cap.
The sombrero, they famously call it.
Few want to admit what a superb job the Roosters have done to manage their salary cap.
Latrell Mitchell is playing for the Rabbitohs Saturday night because everybody around Mitchell was telling him he was a $1 million a year player, one club even tried to table it, and the Roosters valued him at $800,000.
When Mitchell refused to budge the Roosters didn’t collapse and give him the extra $200,000. They kept their resolve and withdrew the offer.
Mitchell took himself to market and, unfortunately for him, could find a deal only with South Sydney, for $600,000 this season. The money saved there will now go towards Williams.
The discipline to not only know a players value but not go over it is crucial in the NRL.
This week Canterbury paid $600,000-a-season for Nick Cotric and, when some baulked at the money Cotric will be paid, the Dogs revealed the money was well spent because they plan to play him in the centres.
If Cotric was a centre, then why did Canberra coach Ricky Stuart not play him there? When the position became vacant, why did he buy Curtis Scott instead of shifting Cotric in one?
It’s a tough job getting off the bottom of the ladder, but the same discipline that is required to get off the bottom is required to stay at the top, as the Roosters are showing.
Originally published as Paul Kent: Why Benny Elias deserves a spot in NRL Hall of Fame