History that shows why John Sutton is the perfect man to become South Sydney’s first 300 gamer
FOR all their magnificent history, Souths have never had anyone reach 300 games — until now. NICK CAMPTON explains why John Sutton is the ideal Rabbitoh to scale that mountain first.
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THE classic John Sutton gag involves something about his potential.
That was the wrap on Sutton for years. His potential, his future, what he could be instead of what he was.
Sutton was and is the kind of player it’s easy to get carried away with. He’s big, strong, mobile, light on his feet. He’s solid enough to play in the forwards but skilful enough and clever enough to slot into the halves. When he does stuff well it looks so, so easy.
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Pre-season previews of the past would be a graveyard of stories about Sutton, about how this was the year he was going to put it all together and get to the next level, whatever that may have been.
For so long, Sutton was defined by his future. Just being a good five-eighth, then a good backrower, a good clubman and a good player, wasn’t enough. The possibility his skills opened, anything less sometimes did not feel like enough.
Too often good players are defined by their representative careers. Sutton cannot be fit into this limited prism.
His only rep footy came via two games for City, but he was 18th man for the Blues in 2013 (and forced to participate in a memorable and farcical “train-off” with Josh Reynolds) and had he received a NSW call-up at some stage of his long career he would have deserved it.
Parsing apart Sutton’s many years with the Rabbitohs reveals the peaks and valleys of his quality. In 2009, playing in the halves, he was at his most dangerous, dishing out 28 try assists and 24 line break assists to finish seventh in Dally M voting. In 2013 he was at it again, finishing equal seventh as Souths approached their zenith.
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He probably spent too much time in the halves for him ever to hit his straps as a backrower – after all, from 2009 to 2014 he was a five-eighth. When he finally moved to the back-row fulltime in 2015 he’d already played 230 first grade games.
He is only now, four years after the move, becoming the backrower he always had the ability to be. That’s not a slight on Sutton. He’ll be 34 in a few months and there’s a reason they have a saying about old dogs and new tricks. If he’d moved to second row in 2005 rather than 2015 maybe everything would be different.
It was in the backrow when Sutton was there for South Sydney’s 21st premiership, after switching from the halves following the emergence of Luke Keary.
In 2014, when the Rabbitohs broke their premiership drought, Sutton was the one who hoisted the trophy as skipper. Not Greg Inglis or Sam Burgess, but Sutton. When they rattle off the premiership captains of South Sydney for all 21 they’ll talk about Churchill and Sattler and Arthur Hennessy and Jack Rayner and George Treweek, all of them legends, all of them Test players of the highest order. And they’ll talk about John Sutton.
Sutton is the last active South Sydney player who debuted for the club before Russell Crowe and Peter Holmes a Court bought them lock, stock and barrel and changed everything.
He is the final on-field link to the most difficult era in Rabbitohs history, the explusion, the resurrection and the horrible years from 2002 to 2006 when the club finished 14th, last, last, 13th and last.
During those tough years, and the lean decades beforehand, Souths had to live in their history. More than any other club in the league, they are defined by their past. From 1971 until 2007 they made the finals just seven times. When there’s nothing going on, retreating to the past is natural.
As such, Souths celebrate their past and are more closely linked to it than many other clubs and they have a deeper, richer history than any other team in the NRL. The Roosters, their great rivals, may have an extra two seasons on them but their past just doesn’t resonate the same way the Rabbitohs does. Maybe it’s the name changes, maybe it’s down to their reputation as silvertails, maybe it’s the fewer titles, maybe it’s because Souths wear their past so proudly, but it’s just not the same.
In that way, Sutton is the perfect man to bring up the 300 for Souths, who for all their great players have never had anyone reach the milestone. Clive Churchill played just 157 matches, John Sattler 197, Ron Coote 148, Bob McCarthy 211, George Piggins 118.
Part of this is due to eras. When South Sydney were flying and had the best players in the game there were less games in seasons and careers were shorter. McCarthy, Eric Simms and Craig Coleman are the only players from before the club’s expulsion to play 200 matches.
Longer seasons, better recovery methods and extended careers mean it is easier for players to rack up more games. To pick a year at random, in 1954 the regular season consisted of 18 games and the most finals a side could play was three. If a player ruptures an ACL now it means nine months out, possibly less.
Until the 1980s, it meant the end of a career. There were stints in country footy, work commitments for players who still held jobs, possible moves to England in the days when things like that were permanent – there were just so many more factors that stopped players having long, unbroken careers.
To take another example from the past – Sutton has played his 300 games in 15 seasons. Alf “Smacker” Blair, a star for Souths in the 1920s and 1930s, played for 14 years from 1917 to 1930 and managed 158 matches, a mammoth total for the time.
Before the NRL era began in 1998 only two men, Geoff Gerard and Terry Lamb, played more than 300 first grade games. Since 1998, 28 others have passed the milestone. That’s the reason Souths have never had a 300-gamer and why just five Rabbitohs cracked 200. Likewise, the Roosters have nine players in the 300 club, eight of whom played in the NRL era.
The other clubs who had their first glory days in black and white are the same. Balmain had four 200 gamers, Western Suburbs had two, North Sydney only had one before their 1990s stalwarts showed up and pushed the total to four.
By comparison, the Broncos were born in an era when longer careers became far more common and have had 13 players pass 200 games. Melbourne have been around for 20 years and have five.
This quirk of history means Sutton will tread where no Rabbitoh has before and it’s a perfect slice of history for him to claim.
Sutton never received the plaudits from the wider rugby league community that his talent could have demanded, but South Sydney people love him.
He is one of theirs, a final link to the past for a club and a fanbase that cherish that more than most, and because of that he’ll live as long as the last person who remembers him.
He’ll never play Origin, he’ll never wear the green and gold of Australia, but Souths have had plenty of players do that. They’ve never had someone play 300 games, never, not once. And it might be done again, but it can never again be done for the first time.
For all the legends who have worn the cardinal and myrtle over the past 110 years, this one belongs to John Sutton, and nobody else.
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