Face-slapping Magpies: How league’s most infamous TV moment happened by accident

Jack Jeffries must have enjoyed face slapping – a rival coach said sarcastically – given that the lightweight hooker left St George to join me at Wests and then left with me to join the Dragons.

Jack, along with Magpie captain Tom Raudonikis, was featured in the famous face-slapping scene in the dressing sheds at Lidcombe Oval in a 1979 episode of Nine’s 60 Minutes. It has seemingly been replayed more times than episodes of Seinfeld, each repeat reinforcing my reputation as Slapper in Chief.

Jack’s courage in pairing with relentless Tommy in this pre-game rev-up could only have been surpassed if he had linked with Dallas Donnelly and his wrecking-ball paws.

Tommy and Dallas are gone, as is Jack who died last Friday night, aged 68, following a stroke.

He called me a week ago, immediately after he left the surgery of a doctor who was treating him for cancer.

“The doctor reckons I’ve probably got only two weeks left,” Jack said, confused because he did not feel unwell.

The news precipitated phone calls to former Wests players Les Boyd and Ray Brown who were also featured in the Lidcombe scene. I separated them after it erupted. (Face slapping requires each partner to swap roles and Les was never known to turn the other cheek.)

Jack’s captain at St George, Craig “Albert” Young, has been a regular visitor to his Culburra home and, aware of his ex-teammate’s imminent exit, contacted former Roosters Royce Ayliffe and Ian Schubert to arrange a farewell meeting. All played on the 1972 Australian Schoolboys tour to England, which I also coached. Jack was voted the best player, an honour considering Young, Ayliffe, Schubert and Boyd were later Kangaroos.

But only three days after the doctor’s bad news, Albert called with the sad tidings of the stroke and less than 24 hours later followed up with another devastating message: “We lost Jack last night.”

Rugby league friendships endure in a way people in other callings do not understand. It’s the shared camaraderie of physical and mental pain, the mutual understanding that entire careers are often the result of forces beyond our control: a wicked bounce, a gust of wind, a referee’s whistle. The code also teaches you to accept blame, even if the missed tackle or the wrong call was the fault of another.

Jack Jeffries playing for the Magpies in 1980.Credit: Pearce; Alan Gilbert Purcell/Fairfax Media

The Lidcombe face-slapping situation was never planned. It happened on a cold, grim Sunday afternoon and the players arrived rugged up, pasty-faced and certainly in no mood for football. Wests had a highly intense trainer, Dave Dickman, who had a background in martial arts. I recall saying to him: “Get them going. They’d rather be home watching TV.” Dickman paired them off, with one of the wingers relieved rugby league is a 13-player game.

‘I recall saying to him: “Get them going.” Dickman paired them off, with one of the wingers relieved rugby league is a 13-player game.’

60 Minutes had been following us for six weeks and captured the face-slapping. Perhaps it was the insulting suggestion our aggression was fuelled by pharmaceuticals that led us to grant the camera crew unrestricted access. As it transpired, 60 Minutes concluded that the only high we were on was the love of teammate and club.

However, when I heard reporter Ray Martin whisper “did you get that?” to a cameraman after the Raudonikis-Jeffries fury and the Boyd-Brown scuffle, I knew enough about the media to realise a storm lay ahead. When the episode finally aired, a Monday night meeting of the NSWRL saw club delegate after delegate stand up to castigate Wests. The only club to remain silent was St George.

It’s not as if the Dragons had any dressing-shed secrets because the only condition of my subsequent appointment at Kogarah was no face slapping. Perhaps they shared my concerns over the hypocrisy of the other clubs’ false virtue, considering the rorts prevailing at the time. My anger was reinforced over the next few seasons when I saw opposition players run out onto the field with beetroot red, swollen faces.

It’s also ironic that the 60 Minutes episode is now shown, to the fascination of many, as emblematic of rugby league in the ’70s. No, Jack Jeffries symbolised that decade and the ones either side. All sinew and bone, he tackled those twice his size and had a memory for a multitude of moves. While he was a focus of 60 Minutes, he was also a fulcrum of the dressing room, his infectious cackling laugh unifying all.

Typical of the understated men of that era, he declined to have a funeral.

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