NRL Grand Final 2021: How the Rabbitohs missed out on linking up with Luke Lewis
That Luke Lewis ‘reneged’ on a deal to join the Rabbitohs is part of rugby league folklore, the only problem is, it’s not true.
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Luke Lewis has admitted that he would have created history by becoming the only player to have won a premiership with Penrith and South Sydney had it not been for one of the most controversial backflips in NRL history
“Yeah I probably would have been there (in 2014) if I had signed that deal,” Lewis said of the Rabbitohs deal he turned his back on.
“It probably ended up costing me a premiership.”
And that’s when we mention the backflip. When we ask him if he should have honoured the contract he signed to join the Rabbitohs in 2008 instead of recommitting to the Panthers despite having his South Sydney deal done.
“Well no one really knows what happened,” Lewis said.
“Not the full story anyway. I have never really spoken about it.”
On the eve of the match that will see the team he won a premiership with go head to head with the team he could have won a premiership with, Lewis has broken his 13-year-silence to finally reveal the truth behind the deal that never was.
“The truth has never been told about that whole thing,” Lewis said.
“Everyone thinks that I just signed the contract and reneged. That I said ‘no I am not going. I want to stay at Penrith’.
“But that wasn’t the case. We actually agreed on terms but I never got the contract. I was playing each week at Penrith and telling Souths that I needed to get the contract signed. It was never written up. I was playing and I started worrying about getting injured because I only had an agreement for the following year and not a contract. I had no cover if something happened. No fallback. I let it sit for two weeks, then three and then four and still no contract
“Apparently, whoever did the contracts at Souths was overseas. Anyway, I had a chat to Penrith and they had a deal for me so it was a bit of everything. Richo (Richardson) was the Souths boss at the time but I won’t go into that because we had a gentlemen’s agreement not to talk about it. I will say there were no hard feelings.”
The failed deal became one of the biggest stories of Lewis’ glittering career. “I loved Penrith but the next best place for me at the time was South Sydney,” Lewis said.
“I have always rated them as a club and they went on to win a premiership four years later. But anyway that is history. What I can say heading into this one is that I do have a soft spot for them.”
In a sliding doors moment, Lewis may have missed out on winning a premiership with the Rabbitohs in 2014 but he went on to win his second after joining the Sharks.
Lewis was awarded the Clive Churchill Medal in 2016 after helping the Sharks win their first ever title.
“That award wasn’t really mine,” Lewis said.
“My name might have been on it but it came as a result of what the boys did throughout that whole year.”
Lewis will be supporting his boyhood club in Sunday’s decider.
“Yeah they were the side I always supported and always wanted to play with,” Lewis said.
“And I reckon they will get the job done like we did in 2003.”
BENJI’S ONE BIG REGRET FROM INCREDIBLE CAREER
Benji Marshall has opened up about his one career regret as the Rabbitohs veteran prepares to farewell the NRL in Sunday night’s Suncorp Stadium grand final.
Marshall will make what is expected to be his final appearance in the NRL when South Sydney tackles Penrith in the historic Queensland premiership decider.
It will be Marshall’s 346th NRL game and comes a remarkable 16 years after he played a starring role in the Wests Tigers’ 2005 grand final triumph.
Then a 20-year-old rising star, Marshall’s famous flick pass to sink North Queensland has been etched into grand final folklore and kickstarted one of the great NRL careers.
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That flick pass ðŸ˜
— NRL (@NRL) April 12, 2020
Benji Marshall announced himself to the rugby league world during the 2005 Grand Final against the @nthqldcowboys in what would become an iconic moment. Watch the full game replay from 4:00pm AEST @NRLcom 👉 – https://t.co/qnjbChdIAJpic.twitter.com/9LfETYEPzl
Now 36, Marshall will come off the bench for the Rabbitohs after resurrecting his career multiple times with the help of coach Wayne Bennett when he was on the cusp of retirement.
“Wayne’s saved my career twice, I should be retired by now,” Marshall said.
“I’ve been thinking this week about how exciting it is to be back in this position and how hard it is to get into a grand final.
“It’s Souths’ second grand final in 50 years. That’s crazy when you think about the history of the club.
“I’m just grateful to be here, to have the opportunity from Wayne and the club, and for the players believing in me.
“I’ve just got a lot of gratitude.”
Marshall shot to stardom in 2005, helping the Tigers to their first, and what remains their only, premiership as a joint venture.
He quickly became one of the NRL’s biggest drawcards, with his dazzling feet and ball skills making him a marvel to watch and a New Zealand Test gun.
But his decade-long alliance with the Tigers ended controversially in 2013 when Marshall found himself on the outer at the club following a slow start to the season.
Having grown up playing the 15-man code, Marshall signed with Super Rugby’s Auckland Blues for 2014 but struggled to find his feet and after six games returned to the NRL with St George Illawarra.
While he doesn’t regret switching codes, Marshall admitted the nature of his Tigers exit remains the one sore point of his career.
“Maybe when I went to rugby, the way I left was a little messy,” he said when asked if he had any regrets.
“It was the best thing I did for my mental game. I don’t really want to go too deep into it because it’s not really something I like talking about.
“I didn’t really want to leave the Tigers but they had ‘Brooksy’ (Luke Brooks) and (Mitchell) Moses coming through and made it clear I wasn’t going to be involved.
“That’s why I moved on. I didn’t have anywhere to go.
“I needed that break to reassess what I wanted to do and ended up back at the Dragons to start again in the NRL.”
After three seasons at the Dragons with mixed success, Marshall’s career was once again at a crossroads.
He had nowhere to go for the 2017 season and faced retirement, before a call to then Broncos coach Bennett gave him another chance.
“Being the New Zealand captain, I played five years in a row of All Stars with Wayne,” Marshall said.
“We just had this bond and connection. He was always up front and honest, loved the way I played and I always found with him that I played good footy.
“I think he likes me. I’m not your average guy, I crack a lot of jokes and when he’s being serious I reckon I’m pretty good at picking the time to lighten the mood a bit. He likes that.
“I just be myself and that’s what Wayne loves about me.”
After one season at the Broncos, Marshall made a fairytale return to the Tigers in 2018, only to once again be pushed out the door last year.
After deals with the Cowboys and Bulldogs fell through, it looked like it was over for good before another call to Bennett, now coaching the Rabbitohs, gave Marshall one last chance at winning another NRL title.
“He rang me up and said ‘my deal’s fallen through – I’d love to come to South Sydney’,” Bennett said.
“I went and saw (fellow playmakers) Adam (Reynolds) and Cody (Walker) because I didn’t want them to think that I was undermining them, and they wanted him to come.
“So I rang him back and I said ‘why do you want to come to South Sydney?’ And he said ‘I think you can win the premiership, I think you can be in the grand final. And I want to go out on a good note’.
“Like a lot of us, Benji doesn’t want fanfare or fuss about it, but you can’t retire in a better moment in your football career than a grand final. It doesn’t get better than that.”
Now, 18 years after his NRL debut in 2003, Marshall’s shot at a fairytale farewell has arrived.
“I’m just a completely different player from then,” he said.
“So different, more mature, and know more about the game.
“Back then I was an up-and-coming rising star, now I’m just the old dude who comes off the bench and fills in wherever.
“My wife said ‘remember 10 months ago when you were at the rubbish dump and no one wanted you but Wayne?’. I was just going to retire. It’s incredible.
“I didn’t come here to just mentor young kids. I came here to win a grand final and now we’re a chance.”
WHY BUSTED BENJI NEVER WALKED AWAY AFTER HORROR STRETCH
The man who helped put Marshall back together says he has “defied” medical logic to play on for 13 years after career-threatening shoulder issues.
As Marshall approaches what is likely his final game on Sunday, his career almost ended prematurely. Marshall had five shoulder operations – including four on his right side – before his 24th birthday.
Donald Kuah, who was the long-term Wests Tigers doctor, says Marshall “had been warned about longer term impacts” of each operation.
Kuah recalls crisis meetings that included Marshall and coach Tim Sheens where the realisation of the player’s predicament was laid bare.
“There was a predisposition for him with his shoulders,” Kuah says. “It wasn’t just one operation. It wasn’t just one shoulder. It was recurrences of it. It’s understanding physically and psychologically what you have to overcome to get through those challenges.
“I know there were issues with him being tackle-shy. I was fearful for his career but I wasn’t certainly at the stage where there was no way he could recover.
“I haven’t seen shoulders as bad on someone who has gone on to play for so long at the professional level. Each time it happened, your heart dropped. The surgeon would always say if it gets broke you can fix it again and again.”
That surgeon was Des Booker who Marshall now jokes with, declaring he paid all of the professor’s bills during his horror run of injuries.
Booker says he was nervous watching Marshall until about 2010. By then, he felt, Marshall had overcome any potential problem.
“A lot of people who would have had these injuries would have thought, ‘bugger it’ and walked away,” Booker says. “Retirement was never discussed.
“I would never have expected (back then that he would still be playing).
“I didn’t have to fight his ego. Sometimes, you’re fighting their ego to get them to comply. He didn’t have an ego at any time.”
THE EX-TEAMMATES
Marshall-mania was real. Everyone wanted a slice of Marshall as he rose from sidestepping whiz-kid to face of the game.
Fellow premiership winner Chris Heighington says he never experienced anything like it.
“He was so recognisable,” Heighington says.
“During that period, he wore a wig a few times when we went out. He just wanted to have a good time with his mates. He did it so no one noticed him.
“One of the worst things the club did in the lead-up to the 2005 grand final was have a fan day. There were 16 blokes standing around while the line-up for Benji was 400 deep and went out of the stadium.
“We were there for two hours just because everyone wanted a piece of him.
“People were jumping all over each other just to see him. I remember thinking, ‘oh my god, I have never seen anything like it’.’’
Marshall and Heighington signed for the Tigers at the same time yet their paths were totally different. Marshall was long earmarked as a schoolboy star while Heighington was given a train-and-trial deal. “During the 2003 pre-season, we had the young guys against the established players,” Heighington says.
“Benji, Liam Fulton, Bryce Gibbs, Robbie Farah and myself; the kids who weren’t in the team. Benji stepped three or four blokes like he did later against the Sharks.
“He took Brett Hodgson on an outline and then cleanly stepped him at fullback. We were about halfway through our session but Sheens stopped it immediately. He disappeared into his office; we think it was to make calls to make sure Benji was signed.”
Tim Moltzen lived with Marshall during the peak of his fame. Marshall’s room was overflowing with boxes from his stack of endorsement deals.
“He would never wear the same shirt twice,” Moltzen says. “His mates would come over and we’d get into his gear, taking his new shirts and he had about 40 pairs of shoes.”
THE TEAMMATE
South Sydney winger Jaxson Paulo was a day shy of his sixth birthday when Marshall was flick-passing to Pat Richards in the 2005 grand final. Paulo attended the same school, Keebra Park, as Marshall.
“Now playing with him and even training with him, that is something crazy,” Paulo says.
“I still remember one of my first grand finals was in 2005 … my uncle Paul Rauhihi.
“Now, all my uncles are giving me strife that they are glad I am on the same team as Benji, unlike your uncle.”
HOW SOUTHS BUILT A PREMIERSHIP ROSTER
—Paul Crawley
Former South Sydney boss Shane Richardson has opened up about the Moneyball-type recruitment strategy that has been the secret weapon behind the Rabbitohs’ march into Sunday’s grand final.
Many fans think because the Bunnies have played in three straight preliminary finals it’s been a cruisy ride the whole way through since they won the 2014 premiership.
In fact, the Rabbitohs dropped alarmingly down the ladder after their grand final win to finish seventh in 2015 followed by back-to-back 12th placings.
They have had to deal with the retirement of their three standout leaders and best players in Sam Burgess, Greg Inglis and John Sutton.
They also had to go through the shake-up in the coaching ranks that included the sacking of Michael Maguire and the decision by Anthony Seibold to choose the Broncos over the Bunnies, which opened the door for Wayne Bennett.
From that 2014 premiership team, only three players remain in Adam Reynolds, Alex Johnston and Tom Burgess.
Yet here they are playing in Sunday’s grand final with a team that has been put together with limited star signings but shrewd recruitment and quality coaching.
While the Rabbitohs certainly have their share of star power, very few came to the club on big money.
Latrell Mitchell, Jai Arrow and Dane Gagai were all targeted recruitments and paid well, although in both Mitchell and Arrow’s cases they were offered more by Wests Tigers.
But others have been home grown or came as a budget buy.
“Obviously we were trying to rebuild without saying it,” Richardson said. “I hate when people say they are rebuilding. It is just an excuse.
“We didn’t make any excuses at the time but we had a few changes we had to sort out.”
They included bringing Richardson back after he had left to work with the NRL in 2015. Then Blake Solly was appointed as chief executive after previously being in charge of the English Super League.
Ben Rogers, now Parramatta’s recruitment chief, did a great job, as did football manager Mark Ellison. Together, they poured over hours and hours of video to pick the eyes out of available talent. The trick then was to make sure it fitted into the equation on the whiteboard that sat in Richardson’s office.
“Everyone would laugh at the big whiteboard but I had a succession plan on it mapped out for three years,” Richardson explained. “I didn’t think you could do it any further.
“But as the year went by, you would change things around and move people up and move people back and that is really what you would base your recruitment on.
“We designed our own recruitment system a bit on the Moneyball-type thing with percentages.
“We watched all the tapes and put them into a computer and it came out with the best young players we thought could fit into what we wanted.
“And if the percentages were the same and this bloke has been offered a fortune over here but this guy was pretty close, well, we would go for the guy that was pretty close because he rated on our system.”
From that the Rabbitohs ended up winning the under-20s competition in 2019.
There are also six South Sydney juniors in this team: Blake Taaffe, Campbell Graham, Alex Johnston, Adam Reynolds, Cameron Murray and Keaon Koloamatangi.
Richardson gives praise to Souths Juniors boss Keith McCraw, in particular, for not only nurturing the talent but making sure it didn’t get lost in the system.
But Souths also did some clever recruitment.
Cody Walker was the standout given he was in his mid-20s and playing in the Brisbane competition when Souths signed him on minimum wage to be Luke Keary’s back-up.
Jaxson Paulo was playing for the Burleigh Bears.
Tevita Tatola wasn’t even playing. The former Wests Tigers under-20s co-captain looked washed up when he was booted out of Concord and working on a concrete truck.
“Willie Peters came to us and said, ‘Richo, this kid can play’,” Richardson said.
“But he was overweight and the film was terrible. But Willie said, ‘Just give him a train-and-trial Richo, you can’t go wrong there’.”
Tatola trained so hard that summer he ended up running out in the NRL team for the Charity Shield. On Sunday he will be running out in a grand final with his bookend buddy Mark Nicholls, another offcut from Melbourne.
“We knew he could do the job and he was cheap. That was the bottom line,” Richardson said.
But with Bennett’s magic dust, the stars have aligned.
Richardson is part of the Firehawks bid team pushing for the new Brisbane NRL franchise for 2023. He has Bennett locked in to coach if they get the call-up, and the old Broncos chief executive Shane Edwards on the board.
What’s happened at Souths is a great example of why there is enough talent for expansion providing the systems and structures above them are doing their job.
“Success is built on and off the field and you can easily see success,” Richardson said.
“Because you see a profitable balance sheet and you see a team that wins.
“You can’t always win grand finals but our target has always been to be a top-four team.
“If you are a top-four team, you are a chance of winning a grand final. If you are not a top-four team, you are not.
“And if you are a top-four team, you are a chance of being a success financially.
“But if you are not, it makes it harder.”
ASSEMBLING A GRAND FINAL ROSTER
FULLBACK: Blake Taaffe
Unwanted at Roosters before he was handed a lifeline with a train-and-trial contract and ended up the halfback in South Sydney’s premiership winning under 20s. Now replacing superstar Latrell Mitchell in what will be his eighth NRL game.
WINGERS: Alex Johnston & Jaxson Paulo
Local junior Johnston is one of three survivors from 2014 premiership-winning team while Paulo was spotted playing for the Burleigh Bears in the same team as Preston Campbell’s young bloke Jayden.
CENTRES: Dane Gagai & Campbell Graham
Gagai is one of the few Rabbitohs who came for good money while his young centre partner is one of six Souths juniors and a former Australian Schoolboys captain.
FIVE-EIGHTH: Cody Walker
Signed by Richardson when he was playing for Easts in Brisbane and came on minimum wage to be a back up for Luke Keary. Could now name his price on the open market.
HALFBACK: Adam Reynolds
The home grown skipper will go down as one of the club’s all-time greats, another of the survivors from the 2014 premiership winning team.
PROPS: Mark Nicholls & Tevita Tatola
Both props signed for minimum wage, Nicholls wasting away at Melbourne and Tatalo let go by Wests Tigers before he got a job on a concrete truck.
HOOKER: Damien Cook
Tried his luck at Penrith, St George Illawarra and Canterbury before Souths turned him into a superstar.
SECOND ROW: Keaon Koloamatangi & Jaydn Su’a
Koloamatangi was a Mascot junior from the age of eight and Su’a let go by the Broncos.
LOCK: Cameron Murray
“You never want to lose a junior, especially to the dark side (the Roosters) … but when Nat Butcher was going, Keith McCraw (Souths Juniors boss) said, ‘If he wants to go let him because this kid Cameron Murray is special. Not just good, he is special.” Shane Richardson.
INTERCHANGE
Benji Marshall was thrown a lifeline by Wayne Bennett after the Tigers didn’t want him and neither did the Bulldogs.
Jacob Host played under Jason Demetriou at the Illawarra Cutters.
Tom Burgess is the third survivor of the 2014 premiership winning team.
Jai Arrow was targeted to be the man to replace Sam Burgess.
PLAYER RANKINGS: TOP 10 STARS WHO WILL DECIDE GF
—Nick Walshaw
Who will stand up under pressure and lead their team to victory in the NRL grand final on Sunday night? Nick Walshaw ranks each player for South Sydney and Penrith, from 1-34.
1. NATHAN CLEARY
Favoured for the Clive Churchill Medal, Cleary is all vision, deadly kicking and just like a pregnancy test, can change the course of everything in seconds. Incredibly, has lost just three games in two years.
2. CODY WALKER
Plays rugby league the way all of us say we’re going to as kids before quickly realising we don’t have the skills, smarts, speed, instinct, desire, deception, sleight of hand, turn of speed, the tenacity, the touch, none of it basically.
3. CAMERON MURRAY
Supercoaches are made by super players. And this bloke, as we’ve written before, is exactly why Wayne Bennett still dances around rugby league dressing rooms at age 71.
4. ISAAH YEO
When looking beside you in a defensive line, foxhole, bar fight, whatever, you pray there’s a fella like Isaah Yeo. Runs the hardest of lines, offloads and has churned through more tackles this year than any other Panther.
5. JAMES FISHER-HARRIS
Dally M Prop for the second straight year thanks to that game lifted straight from The Purge. The type of fella, we reckon, who would demand to conduct his own autopsy.
6. DAMIEN COOK
Since 2018, nobody has made more tackles than this livewire No. 9 who also attacks as if shot from a cannon. Especially out of dummy-half. May have read somewhere about him being a former beach sprinter? Can’t be sure.
7. ADAM REYNOLDS
Would sit higher on this list except for that groin boasting almost as many headlines as Elvis Presley’s after appearing on The Milton Berle Show in 1956. Will he kick Souths to a premiership in his last ever game at the club? Will he even kick at all? We wait.
8. JAROME LUAI
Penrith’s Chief Energy Officer brings the tunes, the flair and that smile most young men would give up a kidney to loan out, even for a couple of weeks. Represents everything great about Mt Druitt.
9. API KOROISAU
Undeniably, Penrith’s fabric is comprised of flannelette and this bloke. Seven years after helping gift Russell Crowe his first NRL premiership, when replacing the suspended Issac Luke, now attempting to strip the Gladiator of a second.
10. BRIAN TO’O
Appeared to be channelling Christopher Skase on Monday when he fronted the media in a wheelchair. But again, don’t be fooled. Come Sunday it will be all go for this kid who averages 230m per game, easily the most on record.
11. VILIAME KIKAU
I went to a Texas rodeo once where the cowboys chased longhorns on horseback, then dived off, tackled the beast’s legs, roped its legs, then held them tight as a mate raced in, glass bottle in hand, to milk it. All of which still looked easier than trying to stop Kikau.
12. JAI ARROW
Plays more direct than a Wayne Bennett sledge about Ivan Cleary.
13. MATT BURTON
Should be dubbed Matrix for the way he dodged that bullet back in February when, wanting to join Canterbury, the kid was made to stay, train hard, substitute in the halves, then the No. 4 jersey, where despite having never played before, he went and won Dally M Centre and now is on the cusp of a premiership ring. So again, Matrix.
14. DANE GAGAI
After 225 games, has finally arrived at his first decider. Better, in the type of form that has, more than once, seen this Queensland Origin favourite rip the head right off NSW.
15. TOM BURGESS
Just like Daniel Day-Lewis in Last of the Mohicans, this English enforcer is also earning high praise for his own starring role in The Last of The Burgeii. Has run for more metres this year than any other Rabbitoh.
16. KEAON KOLOAMATANGI
Boasts a game with all the impact of Chuck Norris throwing hands. Gets to keep his mullet too, apparently, by running hard, tackling everything The Burrow hates except Gerard Sutton and making the most linebreaks of any Souths forward, bar Cook.
17. KURT CAPEWELL
Plays like we’re told to live, squeezing everything he can from the minutes given. A key component of rugby league’s best defensive side.
18. CAMPBELL GRAHAM
Outstanding year for the centre who has scored a try against every NRL club bar one. Penrith. But Sunday? The TAB has him $19 to cross first. Bet big, win big, kids.
19. LIAM MARTIN
Like a newsreader’s haircut, all business.
20. DYLAN EDWARDS
Think a blowfly fuelled by Red Bull. All energy, all the time. A truth proved by his averaging more metres this year than every fullback not named Tom Trbojevic.
21. ALEX JOHNSTON
As far as an ability to finish goes, AJ is on par with the Iron Sheik’s Camel Clutch. Or a Stone Cold Stunner. Still a chance of becoming just the third player to score 30 tries in a season.
22. STEPHEN CRICHTON
Never forget that this kid was still playing third division footy late into his teens. Not only the youngest player on the field come Sunday, but among the most gifted. Huge future.
23. BLAKE TAAFFE
South Sydney can’t win a premiership without Latrell Mitchell? Um, OK. But nobody seems to have told the kid who, in his bedroom at home, still keeps a signed photo from that same No. 1 whose jersey he now wears.
24. MOSES LEOTA
Built like a tattooed fire hydrant, and tougher again to shift.
25. TEVITA TATOLA
Plays exactly as you’d expect the second youngest of seven brothers who was working as a concreter when offered a chance by South Sydney three years ago.
26. BENJI MARSHALL
Can still remember writing Marshall’s farewell piece in The Daily Telegraph … eight years ago. Seriously. First time to a decider, it was all Benji Flick. This time around, it’s more Benjamin Button.
27. MARK NICHOLLS
The bloke is underrated everywhere, right? By everyone. So let this list be no exception. Go well, GOAT.
28. JAYDEN SU’A
St George Illawarra have signed a good ’un in this bloke, who has never missed the NRL finals in six years. Also on an unbeaten run of 11 straight games.
29. SCOTT SORENSEN
Owns a 90 per cent efficiency rate in defence. That, and a surname so feared in rugby league circles it beats the life out of other surnames for fun.
30. SPENCER LENIU
As always, will be looking to impact like a tennis ball to the dusters during your family’s Australia Day backyard cricket match.
31. PAUL MOMIROVSKI
Centre of attention? Not quite. But after humping his swag through four clubs in as many years, two of which won titles with him watching from the sidelines, rugby league’s first ever loan player, and last to score a try at the Sydney Football Stadium, can now add an NRL title to that career doubling as the greatest of pub trivia questions.
32. JAXSON PAULO
The Rabbitohs’ good luck charm, having won all 11 games he’s played in this year. Also celebrates his 22nd birthday on Grand Final day.
33. TYRONE MAY
Strong utility whose Sunday could go myriad ways. Just like last year, when he started at centre.
34. JACOB HOST
There is no shame in being the most anonymous player in an NRL decider. Just ask Canberra premiership hero Steve Jackson, who way back in 1989 – true story — wasn’t even invited to the Grand Final Breakfast.
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