Retiring Cowboys legend Johnathan Thurston fights on till the very end, writes Paul Kent
JOHNATHAN Thurston was too skinny to be any good. Too slow if he was going to stay that skinny. Get him in the struggle, though, and he beat you every time, writes Paul Kent.
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THE struggle was always Johnathan Thurston’s area.
He was too skinny to be any good. Too slow if he was going to stay that skinny.
Get him in the struggle, though, and he beat you every time.
The struggle is different now, and has been for some time.
Thurston headed out on to the field on Friday morning for his last ever captain’s run.
The Cowboys travelled to the Gold Coast on Friday afternoon.
FAREWELL JT: They can’t all be fairytales
PART ONE: Thurston and the Broncos
There on the paddock the players fell into rhythm quickly. Nothing was said about this being his last game or about extra efforts or promises.
Thurston is an introvert in many ways. He grows uncomfortable when the conversations turns to him.
In many ways what we see now is, not necessarily a lie, but not a truth, either.
The staccato laugh, the advocate, it’s there only because he accepted his changing place in the game many years ago when he began to understand his impact on people.
Many see a little of themselves in him. Or what they would like to be.
He recognised that and worked hard on being the man they needed him to be.
He always understood responsibility.
PART TWO: Who will take the reins from JT?
PART THREE: Remembering the old firm
Yet this year we have seen Thurston struggle like he never has before. And not how you might think.
Nobody knows when it began.
The wins were not coming along and Thurston was going through his own small crisis.
When they allow themselves a little space the Cowboys look back to when Scott Bolton was crashing over late against the Broncos in round two, the score 24-20 to Brisbane and Bolton set to give them a late but solid win. Instead of hitting grass, Bolton crashed into the goalpost.
Somehow, the Broncos prevail.
The Cowboys went on to lose the next four games, a 0-6 start to the season, and were as good as done.
Towards the end of one of those games, the round five against the Warriors in Auckland, a small section of Warriors crowd recognised Thurston would never play again on their shores and, with the final minute of the game counting down, they broke out in song.
“Na, na, na, na ... hey, hey, hey ... goodbye ...”
The struggle was still simple then. Thurston wanted wins, as simple as that.
Winning is a momentum, and nobody understood that better than Thurston, and the Cowboys just couldn’t find their rhythm.
He always understood the rhythm of games.
He understood its pressures and needs. And more often than not he found the big play, the one needed at the right moment, which was often the last opportunity.
If he didn’t win, he brooded.
Cowboys manager Peter Parr said if Thurston lost a game on a Sunday he couldn’t be spoken to until the Thursday.
As the losses piled up this season and the fairytale began to fade Thurston realised he couldn’t behave that way with these young players coming in so, as the Cowboys struggled to win, Thurston went into that reservoir of character and again reinvented himself.
Coach Paul Green was bringing new players into the squad in a bid to rediscover their energy.
Thurston knew he needed to remain upbeat for them. He needed to change everything that had kept his desire burning.
Then it happened.
The Warriors crowd from round five set something off within the game.
Ten weeks later the Warriors travelled to Townsville where, by then, it was clear North Queensland would not make the finals.
“Can you hang back for a sec?” Blake Green said after the game.
Thurston was a little confused.
“We want to say a few words,” Green said.
The Warriors won 23-16 and Thurston was fighting his own private hell.
Cameron Smith tells the story of them playing each other as schoolboys and towards the end of the game Thurston threw an intercept and Smith’s teammate ran 50m to score the winning try.
As they celebrated Smith turned to see Thurston still back where he threw the pass, sitting on the ground. He was crying.
As Thurston waited for the Warriors Simon Mannering grabbed him.
“Can you stay behind?” he said.
“No worries, brother,” Thurston said.
The Warriors pulled him into their circle and thanked him for the pleasure of playing against him.
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It was simple and meaningful and, such a simple gesture, it resonated.
After the Roosters game they presented him with the game ball before the crowd.
Later, the Roosters asked him in to their dressing room for a more personal thank you and Roosters captain Boyd Cordner spoke, saying what it meant to them to have had the chance to play against him.
They gave him a set of cufflinks from Tiffany’s.
Such recognition from opponents is unprecedented.
Retiring along with Thurston this season is Billy Slater, perhaps the greatest fullback ever, and former Test players Luke Lewis, Ryan Hoffman, Sam Thaiday and Mannering himself.
Yet Thurston is treated differently from them all. No special presentations have been made for them or anyone else like this.
The Broncos gave him a specially handpainted headgear, painted in his tribe’s colours.
They escorted him off.
The Sharks commissioned a special indigenous jersey — half Cowboy, half Shark — and presented it to him on the field after the game.
Parramatta captain Tim Mannah took the microphone last week in Townsville.
Mannah, always humble, knew the night was always about Thurston’s last game before his home crowd.
“We were the other team here tonight ...” he began.
The Eels had a headgear hand-painted in his tribe’s colours.
The Titans will present him with a special jersey on Saturday night, his last ever game.
Thurston has remained gracious throughout, ignoring his season’s collapse.
When the captain’s run finished on Friday Thurston grabbed some footballs and set up 30m out from the tryline.
He began with 30m kicks in goals, both left and right side of the field, high and rolling them in along the round. Then he walked in 10m and did it again from 20m out and then all over again from 10m out.
Some goalkicking followed.
Questions about his form have followed the Cowboys’ fall all season. He has battled that with his own instincts to do what he needed, against what the team needed, and few realise he still leads the NRL in line break assists and try assists.
Then after the kicking extras he grabbed one of the Cowboys forwards, like he did every week, and he had them run at him to practice his contact.
“That’s the area opposition teams target him,” Green said.
On Saturday night he runs out against the Gold Coast, the champion of this game and the greatest competitor the game has seen, for the last time.
He did it right to the end.
TIME FOR NRL TO CRACK WHIP ON CAP CHEATS
HOW many stones are the NRL willing to kick over at Cronulla on the eve of the finals?
The news emerging that a private deal with Chris Heighington was the player who prompted Cronulla boss Barry Russell to self-report to the NRL it makes chief executive Todd Greenberg’s claims that the 2016 premiership was untainted seem a little fragile.
Heighington allegedly got paid in 2015 and then ran the lap of honour with the premiership winning Sharks in 2016.
It is possible Heighington had no idea the money he received was coming from illegal means but, regardless, there is simply no way it can be argued the Sharks did not benefit, even if it was not paid in their premiership-winning season.
At some point the NRL has to take salary cap cheating seriously.
Three major cap breaches in three seasons is a distinction no other sport in the world can claim, or would want to.
Most clubs will tell you that there are several clubs who cheat very well and the rest are being busted trying to catch up.
What a sorry state.
This idea the NRL has that punishing the cheats stops them from being a genuine premiership chance — effectively reducing it to a 15-team competition — and that it would see fans and sponsors walk away from that team, is only encouraging cheating.
Teams believe it is worth the risk.
What can’t be measured is how many fans are walking away now. How many sponsors don’t want to be associated with such a game that causes so many self-inflicted black headlines as often as the NRL.
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Originally published as Retiring Cowboys legend Johnathan Thurston fights on till the very end, writes Paul Kent
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