The rise, fall and rise of Steve Jackson, Canberra’s first premiership hero

Thirty years after he scored the try that changed his life and won a grand final, Steve Jackson has revealed the one story he’s never told before.

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Steve Jackson has spent all week telling the same story about himself.

But it isn’t this one.

No, this yarn, the Mackay chicken shop owner has never told.

Not to anyone.

And why?

“Because it’s when things got so dark,” he says, softly, “that I went close to losing my life”.

Which isn’t how anyone remembers this 1989 Canberra premiership hero, right?

No, what we remember of Jacko is the try.

That swerving, twisting, stretching movement which — in the dying minutes of extra time against Balmain — not only secured rugby league’s greatest ever grand final, but immortality for the burly, young Raider in jersey No. 20.

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Jackson scored the match-sealing try in 1989.

A moment so unforgettable, 30 years on people still stop Jackson to relive it.

“Although when re-enacting the try, they always throw out a right hand,” he laughs. “But watch the replay, I’m a leftie.”

Still, everything else remains clear.

A truth proved over the past 24 hours.

When after jetting into Sydney on Thursday as guest of NRL chief Todd Greenberg, this retired Queensland Origin player has been transformed into something of a grand final week celebrity.

Attending lunches, conducting interviews and, continuously, reliving that try.

All up, a crazy swirl that started some weeks back when, with Canberra looking playoff bound, Jackson emailed Greenberg asking if, just maybe, he could “put one foot onto ANZ Stadium” if his beloved Raiders got into the decider.

Jackson became a grand final hero in 1989.

Already, he wrote, Canterbury were flying him down for the game, with the father-of-four set to be special guest of a Bulldogs luncheon recognising the three greatest grand final tries ever.

Which is ironic, Jackson continued, considering before the ‘89 decider, he was such a long shot to even play off the bench, officials brushed him from the grand final breakfast.

Then within four years, well, he was brushed from the game too.

But still, he never mentioned this particular story.

“Nah, haven’t told anyone,” he says. “Until now”.

And so with that, Jackson takes us not to the end of that ’89 decider, but his career.

When sat inside a Gold Coast presentation dinner, aged 28 and having been forced into retirement by consecutive back surgeries, he awaits that customary pat on the back from Seagulls, his third and final club.

After all, here was a bloke who scored the try that sealed a premiership, scored the try that won an Origin, even scored $150,000 for each of his three years at Seagulls.

But that farewell speech, it never came.

Jackson simply left to disappear.

So he did.

“It was like my life, everything I’d done, it didn't matter,” he recalls. “I looked at my wife Lisa and said ‘gotta go, I’m going to cry’.

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“And the Seagulls club, it was opposite the footy field.

“It was around 10 o’clock at night, pitch black, but I went over, jumped the fence and started walking up and down the field.”

Eventually, found himself sat on halfway.

Shattered by the snubbing, sure. But it was more, too.

“Playing football, I was always able to chase something,” Jackson continues. “It was ‘how good can I be? How fast, how strong?’

“But suddenly, I had nothing. Only darkness.

“I felt worthless.”

Depression?

“Nobody even knew what that was,” he shrugs. “And please, don’t make this sound like I'm wanting sympathy.

“I don’t.

“Back then, there were a lot of us finished with nothing to fall back on.

“But four months after footy left me, my wife left too.

“Then I lost my job.

“I was a school liaison officer but when you can’t play, that goes.

“Then it was my house. Most of my money.

Jackson endured some tough times when his career finished.

“I was 29 and had nothing.”

So the man we remember as a moment, he disappeared.

“Spent four years completely lost,” he says. “I’m not proud to say it, but I got into drugs, booze, wrecked relationships … eventually I went home to Mackay with $2500.”

Which is when that try in ’89, the persistence, the grit, it really began to define Steve Jackson.

Like first, getting employed in a chicken shop.

The one he now owns.

“Started out as a chicken boner,” he recalls. “Knew nothing, so that was my first challenge.”

And when that was done, he chased another one.

Like managing a store. Then owning it.

Over the ensuing 20 years, also remarrying, quitting the booze, gaining a real estate licence, coaching Mackay juniors, more recently A-Grade, becoming a life member, selling dead chickens, again divorcing, but amicably, while also now living for children Kortney (21), Lleyton (19), Kai (16) and Nate (13).

“But it’s like footy,” says the man who now wakes every morning to an ocean view. “However many times you get dropped, get up one more.”

Jackson will be there on Sunday. Photographer: Adam Yip

Which is why Sunday afternoon, this fella remembered as a moment will be at ANZ Stadium, too.

Put one foot on the field?

Hopefully.

The big fella certainly deserves it.

Regardless though, someone will recognise him.

They always do.

“I’ve actually had people come up to my shop counter,” Jackson explains, “and say ‘I hate you’.

“I just laugh and reply ‘Tigers supporter?’.

“They always say yes.

“So then … yeah, I try to sell them a chicken.”

Originally published as The rise, fall and rise of Steve Jackson, Canberra’s first premiership hero