NRL Grand Final 2021: Brisbane has proven itself worthy of hosting more big events
Brisbane will likely host one grand final in 129 years. We are a city big enough to host the Olympics but allegedly not an NRL decider. Robert Craddock calls the issue out.
NRL
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Even if the NRL grand final never comes this way again Queensland will always have The Battle of Brisbane.
The night when Wayne Bennett prepared a team to deliver one of the most heroic performances of his four decade career – but still couldn’t get what he or they wanted.
The night when a group of Penrith youngsters who grew from boys to men together scratched and clawed and scrambled their way to a premiership which had been their collective dream.
Penrith’s 14-12 win left a trail of euphoria and broken hearts.
Souths Adam Reynolds, the dead-eyed goal-kicker who honed his skills targeting telegraph poles in the streets of Redfern, was shattered at narrowly missing a goal from the corner which would have levelled the scores from wide out.
When the final hooter sounded Broncos-bound Reynolds walked away in shattered solitude away from his teammates, clutching his head and going down on his haunches.
Metres away Penrith’s outstanding playmaker Nathan Cleary shared an embrace with his father and coach Ivan which will be a lifetime highlight for both.
Grand finals never promise justice. Souths conjurer Cody Walker scored one of best individual grand final tries of recent times in the first half and Bennett even patted him on the back at halftime.
But the intercept pass he threw late in the game was for a Stephen Crichton try was a game-shaping howler.
What a match. What a night.
The success of the fixture should be a major spur to local league officials to lobby for more Brisbane grand finals.
It just doesn’t seem right that, in our fickle, Covid challenged world, rugby league can be unsure of what it is doing one week to the next yet it allegedly can tell us with certainty that the 2046 grand final will be in Sydney because next the game will start a 25-year deal to have every grand final there.
This would mean Brisbane would host one grand final in 129 years, leaving it with the curious status of a city big enough to host the Olympics but allegedly not big enough to occasionally host an NRL decider.
The sold-out game proved you don’t need a Queensland team involved to be a big seller.
Whereas some recent State of Origin games have barely sold out the ticket rush indicated that the game (reduced by 25 per cent after all 50,000 tickets were originally sold) could have sold an extra 20,000.
Penrith’s win reinforced the timeless belief that one of the most powerful and successful premiership forces is a group of youngsters who have grown up together.
Nathan Cleary, Jarome Luai, Moses Leota and Liam Martin are among Panthers players who have been together since juniors, forging a collective win that has driven them all the way to premiership glory.
It is a message to all clubs – the Broncos included – that in a world full of floaters and drifters the most satisfying titles of all are home grown, raised in the backyard with old fashioned patience and poise.
Sometimes grand finals become lopsided events here one team turned up inspired and the other gets stage fright.
There was never a suggestion of that. For most of the match these two super teams were like bar room brawlers who dug their fingers into each others throats and tried to wait until their rival turned blue in the face.
Penrith might well have been 20 or 30 points up against other teams given the pressure they applied but somehow the Rabbits stayed in the game.
It was pure brutality, a night of cannon shot versus cannon shot rather than flashing sabres.
Souths defensive line was stretched and thumped and bumped by pressure which would have punched a hole in a brick wall.
Souths, the club which oozes history and a 22-premiership pedigree, was the better supported team with the decibel level for crowd noise for Walker’s mesmeric first half try somewhere approaching jumbo jet level.
The sight of the brilliant Indigenous playmaker, weaving through heavy traffic with the footwork or a ball-room dancer then roaring in delight towards the thousands of Rabbitohs fans deliberately positioned together at that end of the ground was one of the season’s most stirring sights.
But with one flawed pass an hour later, the season was gone …
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