Johnathan Thurston is not the first legend not to have a fairytale finish and he won’t be the last

SOMETIMES it feels like everything about the great players is inevitable, especially when it comes to their retirement. But Johnathan Thurston is living proof that’s not the case.

North Queensland Cowboys v Parramatta Eels from 1300 Smiles Stadium, Townsville. Cowboys Johnathan Thurston. Picture: Zak Simmonds

EVERYTHING about the great players, the really great ones, feels inevitable.

It feels as though whatever odds may be stacked against them, whatever else is happening around them, they remain the masters of their own destinies at all times regardless of what anyone else decides.

PART ONE: Thurston and the Broncos

PART TWO: Who will take the reins from JT?

PART THREE: Remembering the old firm

For the longest time, it felt that way for Johnathan Thurston, just like it did for Darren Lockyer and Andrew Johns, like it still does for Billy Slater and Cameron Smith.

Cast your mind back to Origin II last year, for example. Dane Gagai scored inside the final few minutes to level the scores. Thurston’s arm was flapping in the breeze. His shoulder was, as they say in the classics, absolutely cooked. He probably shouldn’t have been playing. The surgery he underwent after the match most likely goes a long way to explaining why he’s looked mortal this year.

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But was there any doubt in your mind, even for a second, that he would kick the goal and win the game? There wasn’t any in mind. It was difficult to even consider. Darryl Halligan once said the best attribute about Thurston as a kicker was his character. Other players may strike the ball better but nobody absorbed the pressure kicks like Thurston. It’s a trait that lives across his game, not just his work from the tee.

Of course, as you well know, he landed the kick. He won the game. After the match he couldn’t lift his arm to high-five his teammates. Thurston didn’t play again that year. It was the final gasp in his legendary Origin career. He had seemingly bent the universe to his will, making what would have been the kick of a lifetime for anybody else a mere inevitability.

It’s not that way, of course, but that’s how it feels.

Thurston’s final season will not end with a premiership. Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images.

Calling Thurston’s last year a dud or a disappointment is selling him a little short. The years have certainly caught up with him. He’s not the player he was, but the player he was is one of the best players ever. A variety of factors have contributed to North Queensland’s plummet, but Thurston slipping is a fair way down the list.

Even so, this isn’t how Immortals are supposed to finish. They are supposed to make it happen one more time and march to greatness to the last, either taking another title home or going damn close. It’s not supposed to finish at Cbus Super Stadium against a club with less seasons to their name than Thurston himself. Legends are supposed to have fairytales.

The last player of Thurston’s standing in the game to retire was Darren Lockyer in 2011, and while his Broncos were title contenders to the last, his end was what dreams were made of and outside the script at the same time. His final game for Brisbane was unforgettable, with the Broncos legend landing a golden point field goal with a broken face to beat the Dragons in front of a delirious Suncorp Stadium crowd.

Nobody knew at the time it would be Lockyer’s last game. Picture by Jono Searle.

But that was the end. Lockyer was not passed fit to play in the prelim. Nobody knew when they were watching it that time had come for Lockyer. He was not afforded the long-run in of tributes Thurston has enjoyed, there was no sense of finality leading into it all.

Andrew Johns, Thurston’s rival for the title of the best halfback ever, had an even more ignominious finish. In Round 3 of the 2007 season his Knights were smashed 48-18 by the Raiders. That week at training, Johns copped a bump on the neck and that was the end. He never played again. The greatest player of his era said farewell in front of 13,109 punters in Canberra and got smashed. Will Zillman scored three tries.

Andrew Johns never got the retirement tour.

Mal Meninga had the golden moment, a premiership with Canberra capped by an intercept try, but he’s one of the few at this level of the game to get that glorious departure. Brad Fittler lost a grand final, a frustrating 16-13 defeat to the arch rival Canterbury Bulldogs in 2004.

Graeme Langlands lost a grand final as well, in humiliating fashion to the Roosters. Langlands, known for his speed, swerve and step, was rendered worse than a passenger at the back that fateful day in 1975 wearing his infamous white boots as a painkilling injection gone wrong put him on rubbery legs as the Dragons copped a 38-0 belting. He played on for four pointless matches the next year and gave it away, slinking into history on a low note.

It was as harsh an end for Reg Gasnier but with a much softer spotlight. Gasnier broke his leg on the first Test of the 1967-68 Kangaroo tour, but was only 28, seemingly near the peak of his powers. He returned to the field against Avignon in France, near the tail end of the year. In front of a couple hundred French punters, the prince of centres packed down in the back row, didn’t feel right, and announced his retirement.

Less than 1000 people watched Reg Gasnier’s last game.

Arthur Beetson and John Raper played on until they couldn’t anymore, in the Brisbane and Newcastle competitions. Bob Fulton was taken down by a knee injury that stopped him in his tracks in 1979.

The best comparison for Thurston’s situation is another Queensland giant, Wally Lewis.

Twenty-six years ago this weekend Lewis, as captain coach of the Gold Coast Seagulls, ran out for the last time. Like Thurston, he’d retired from rep footy the year before. Like Thurston, his team’s chances at finals footy had vanished long before.

Wally Lewis also finished on the Gold Coast.

There was no full house to watch “The King” play his last — just 10,160 fans travelled down to Tweed Heads to watch the Seagulls run around. It wasn’t even their biggest crowd of the season. But Lewis did it, scoring a try in a 12-8 win over the Panthers. Sometimes one more time is as simple as getting a win in a game well played.

What does this mean? Nothing, really. All it means is that no matter how great a player may be or how inevitable their success may seem, nobody is guaranteed the exit the fans dream up for them.

Thurston will play one more time. Picture: Zak Simmonds.

Talk about the Titans moving this game to Suncorp Stadium or Thurston playing for the indigenous All Stars next season always felt wide of the mark. No player, not even Thurston, is bigger than the game itself and creating a match around him at this stage of the season would feel contrived.

Thurston’s just going to play the game he’s played his whole life, for the team to whom he gave a new life. He’s just going to do it like he’s always done it, the only difference being after this there won’t be one more time. That’s inevitable.

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Originally published as Johnathan Thurston is not the first legend not to have a fairytale finish and he won’t be the last