Easts stalwart relives great grand final try with King Wally watching

Loyal Easts rugby league player Greg Holben was not a footballer to be messed with. However, read about his punching stories that didn’t always go as planned.

Easts Tigers rugby league halfback Greg Holben.

Michael Nunn

If you were strolling through Stones Corner and humming Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger you might look up to see Greg Holben.

The Tigers half was a mainstay of the Tigers from 1974 until 1982, the tough crafty Tiger wasn’t to be messed with at all.

I poured an orange and black beer and sat down with Holben to talk about a great career.

How did you end up at the Tigers?

I was an Easts junior. I played for Easts until under 18’s then had a few years in rugby then came back to Easts. I was never going to play league for anyone else. Although I did have one year at Brothers towards the end of my career.

You come into grade in 1974 and then play in three grand finals in a row - lose in 1976 to Wests 16-1, win 17-13 in 1977 and beat Valleys 14-10 in 1978.

Let me talk you through a certain grand final try in 1978: Penalty against Rod Morris, Des Morris argues the point and Eddie Ward marches the Diehards another 10 metres. Someone makes the point again but Eddie Ward hasn’t changed his mind and marches you another 10 metres. It’s 10-9 Valleys at this stage after the penalty goal and running out of time.

Tigers go down the other end, Lang goes the short side, turns it inside to Backer, to Rod Morris, some footwork from Lindenberg and then McLeod who stops and waits for a flying Holben 10m to run and slams it down in the Milton Road end. Tigers win 14-10. Your memories of that?

Yeah, the grand final tries are special. It was special to win a grand final and score a try at Lang Park. There was 30,000 there that day and Valleys and particularly Wally (Lewis) was terrific. Lewis could have scored three tries.

Were you a better centre or half?

I was too slow to be a centre to be honest. I remember playing Souths at Davies Park and they had Mal Meninga who was pretty young and new at this stage. We had heard about him but I spent the week telling Des Morris to let me mark him and Des and I will sort him out.

I remember saying Des we have to get at this guy, you run at him and that’s the last we will hear of him and I will mark him. Des finally said OK you can mark him - 40 minutes later it is 14-0. Mal has two tries and I have one boot print on my left thigh and one boot print on my chest. I said at half time Des I want to reconsider my plan and he said no.

What’s your favourite story?

We played Redcliffe at Dolphins one day and they had a fearsome pack - Grayson, Tighe, Jones, Barber- Bevan Bleakley is taking on two of our forwards at once and they are ripping in. Bruce McLeod and John Abbott are slogging it out and I see my chance to really get involved. I charge in and give Bleakley my best punch. Well what I thought was my best punch.

Bleakley has stopped punching our two forwards, looked at me and said I will be with you in a second and gone back to punching Abbott and McLeod.

I think you would have been able to see the colour drain from my face. A scrum has packed after that and Bleakley has looked at me and winked. I called out I needed fast ball and clean ball - not the time for a stray pass.

Greg Holben, who played for Queensland in 1982, holding his framed jersey.

Origin in 1982. What is the highlight of the Origin experience?

I sat on the bench with Paul Vautin, it was my only Origin and I got on for five minutes but it was a great experience. It was captained by Wally Lewis and coached by Arthur. My roommate was Greg Conescu, the great Turtle.

You played with two of the great number 6’s - Wayne Lindenberg and Wally Lewis. What was that like?

Wayne Lindenberg and I had a great relationship. We played in the halves together and there was plenty of banter about who should get the ball and why and where you should get the ball. Lindenberg was a special player he could do anything with the ball.

They used to call us Tom and Jerry at the Tigers.

Wally had guile but he was a big man too, so if he didn’t get past you with tricks he could just go over you. Wally was a great player for a long time.

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