Creme de la crim: Rugby league’s team of the penitentiary

Some chose stick-ups over hit-ups - they all chose law-breaking over line breaking. Here are 17 footy villains that hogged the headlines.

In the 365-day-a-year circus that is the NRL, off-field player indiscretions are almost a weekly attraction. It’s what keeps the rugby league show going when the final siren has sounded and all sensible people are in bed.

But some players go too far.

They’re the guys who choose law-breaking over line breaking, or in some cases, stick-ups over hit-ups.

Fallen footy heroes who turn to the dark side.

They’re littered throughout the great game’s history, and they include some of the most infamous names to have ever snaffled a Steeden.

Here’s are our all-time footy crims line-up.

Milton Thaiday in his fleet-footed Newcastle Knights days before he was convicted for assault.

1. Milton Thaiday: He had twinkle toes and sparkled as a fullback for the Waratahs and then the Knights, but a history of messiness on the drink culminated in a conviction for assaulting his girlfriend in 2009 and an 18-month bond.

Wests’ Buddy Cain once stood Parramatta’s Mick Cronin up for a blistering try in the late ‘70s.

2. Buddy Cain: Wests Magpies fans of the late 1970s remember the PA announcements declaring winger Cain’s unavailability because he was “assisting police with enquiries”. Teammates said he knew every side street between Lidcombe and Maroubra – which is handy when you’re renowned as a getaway driver.

3. Brett Dallas: Speed was the 1990s Origin hero’s greatest asset but it was also his downfall. After blitzing defences for the Brisbane Broncos, North Sydney Bears and Wigan, Dallas got hooked on crystal meth when his marriage broke down and spent 10 months behind bars on remand in 2021 for aggravated drug possession.

A moody-looking Brett Dallas after a court appearance.

4. Matt Seers: A Bears stalwart up until they were unceremoniously punted from the NRL, Seers was also unceremoniously punted into Wacol Prison for supplying and trafficking cocaine in 2015. The lightning fast back now works on building sites.

Matt Seers in the glorious red, white and black of North Sydney in 1997. Picture: News Corp

5. Joe Kilroy: They didn’t call Kilroy “Smokin’” for nothing. An electric fullback or winger for Brothers, the Broncos and Queensland in the 1980s, he did three years in the clink for trafficking marijuana and hash.

The Knights' Steve Fulmer feels the full force of a Joe Kilroy fend in 1988. Picture: News Ltd. Rugby League A/CT Historical

6. Les Mara: Halves are by definition sneaky buggers, so it’s no surprise there are an abundance of them vying for a spot in the Crims XIII, but no-one deserves the No.6 jersey more than Les Mara. The ex-Souths and Balmain five-eighth was a crafty competitor in the 1970s but when 20 AFP agents bailed him up at a south coast town in 2006, his chip and chase was found wanting. A cocaine kingpin, Mara was sentenced to 13 years in jail for a drug importing conspiracy involving shonky airport baggage handlers.

Former Balmain half Les Mara was arrested in November 2006 by AFP officers at Callala Bay on the NSW South Coast after an 18-month man hunt.

7. Craig Field: A halfback of the tough and tricky variety, Field was often in the news for off-field indiscipline during a tumultuous career with Souths, Manly and the Tigers, but his life spiralled seriously out of control when he retired and he later spent eight years in prison for the manslaughter of a Kingscliff man.

Craig Field pictured not long after being released from Mannus Correctional Centre and eight years behind bars. Picture: Dean Ritchie

8. Martin Kennedy: Prop Kennedy’s story is an excellent cautionary tale in what not to do when you have just signed a whopping $1 million contract. The former Broncos and Roosters hard man took growth hormones and was punted from the NRL for two years and nine months before being banged up for his involvement in a bizarre reptile smuggling syndicate.

Pre-reptile smuggling era Martin Kennedy training hard for the Roosters.

9. Jamil Hopoate: The son of John “Hoppa” Hopoate, Jamil had a flair for capturing the wrong kind of headlines. His extensive rap sheet includes drink driving, assault, domestic violence and large scale commercial drug supply, for which he copped two years and three months in the big house. Somehow, in between all that law-breaking, he managed to trot out 12 games for the Broncos in 2020.

Behind the cool shades lurk the eyes of repeat offender Jamil Hopoate. Picture: Justin Sanson

10. Chris Dawson: Dawson was a glamour forward for the Bluebags in the 1970s, but he was also a pervert, initiating a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old at the school where he worked as a teacher and then topping his wife so he could be with her. Now serving 24 years at His Majesty’s Pleasure.

Chris Dawson was one of a number of Newtown players from the 1970s who ended up a jailbird.

11. John Elias: In his comprehensive career on the wrong side of the law, the well-travelled former Easts and Balmain second-rower was locked up for illegal firearms trafficking, amphetamines supply and grievous bodily harm for shooting a business partner in the thigh. Later mentored Lebanon in the early 2000s, and given his storied bad boy past, would be a moral for the Crims XIII coaching job.

Colourful rugby league identity John Elias in his 1990s Balmain pomp.

12. Bruce Clark: “Bruiser” was a fat bastard but boy could he play, and boy did he have a big heart. The Maggie prop was a key man in the angry Wests sides of the mid-80s. Post-footy, he moved into the transport industry but hung with the wrong crowd and got done for smuggling whisky and fags.

“Bruiser” Clark was a cult hero at Wests in the mid-1980s.

The mug shot of bank robber Garry Sullivan, who was once Australia’s most wanted man - and a Kangaroos representative.

13. Garry Sullivan: There must have been something nasty in the water down Henson Park way back in the 1970s. Sullivan played for Australia in the 1970 World Cup while with the Blue Bags but his wicked gambling habit was gobbling up his match payments. From 1985 to 1991 he racked up 14 armed robberies with his father-in-law partner, collecting $3 million along the way. He was once Australia’s most wanted man but ended up behind bars in Queensland’s Borallon Jail.

DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS

14. Paul Hayward: Pushed Craig Field all the way for the prized No.7 jumper in the Crims XIII, the ex-Newtown halfback spent 10 hellish years in the “Bangkok Hilton”, reputedly the most brutal prison on earth, for heroin trafficking in the 1980s.

Paul Hayward before the tragic turn of events that saw him spend 10 years in a Thai prison and die of AIDS in 1992.

15. Ryan Tandy: The ultimate journeyman, Tandy had more clubs - as the saying goes - than Jack Nicklaus, but never quite established himself at any of them. He also had a filthy gambling habit. It was perhaps unsurprising then that he found himself caught up in a spot fixing scandal that yielded him a lifelong ban from the game in 2010.

Anthony Watts’ fists have often got him into trouble. Picture: Scott Powick

16. Anthony Watts: The Sharks, Cowboys, Vikings, Finks, Mongols – whether wearing NRL or bikie colours, hot head Watts gave it his all. Alas, his commitment to footy invariably took second place to his outlaw hobbies, which included bashing random blokes, driving while disqualified and various domestic violence violations.

Not even Will Chambers and Cameron Smith could bring Danny Wicks down - only drug dealing could do that.

17. Danny Wicks: He was the Knights’ fan favourite, a big old-fashioned forward famous for outrunning Roosters fullback Sam Perrett to score a 60m try in 2008. But he couldn’t outrun the fuzz – they nabbed him for supplying speed and ecstasy. Did 18 months in stir.

Originally published as Creme de la crim: Rugby league’s team of the penitentiary