Graeme Langlands was modest, magnificent and Australia’s best to lace on a boot, writes Ray Chesterton

GRAEME Langlands was so revered among his peers he was often labelled with the “best to lace on a boot” tag. But Changa struggled to emulate his on-field heroics away from the pitch.

WHEN the elite rugby league stars of the time came in twos and threes to the centre of a deserted Sydney Cricket Ground in the 1980s for photos to celebrate their selection in a Masters Team chosen by a sporting magazine, they left one place vacant on the dais.

The traditional captain’s position in the centre of the front row was empty. Until Graeme Langlands emerged from the dressing room and sat there — somewhat stunned.

No captain had been chosen in a team that included Test and Kangaroo leaders like Bobby Fulton, Ron Coote, Bob McCarthy and Arthur Beetson but by tacit and genuine appreciation of Langlands’ career and status the players made their own choice.

Graeme Langlands is chaired off the field after a Test match.

It remains one of the most genuine acknowledgements of a colleague’s sporting standing.

“I didn’t know it was happening. I was a bit stunned,” Langlands always remembered. “That was nice.”

That was often as close to fulsome praise as Langlands ever got. His unchallenged fluency of motion on a football field was not always duplicated away from it. He was as modest as he was magnificent.

FULTON: ‘Langlands the best all-round player I’ve seen’

VALE: Rugby League Immortal Changa Langlands dies

A wondrous wraith whose brilliance illuminated rugby league for more than a decade but whose light dimmed as he often struggled with his post-career life.

For all of his flamboyance on the field, Langlands could be painfully shy and introverted when not around people he trusted.

Graeme Langlands escapes the grips of a defender.

Once a year we gather at the Prophet restaurant in Surry Hills for a dinner whose guest list includes dominant media tsar Alan Jones, a disparate variety of former footballers, boxing trainer Johnny Lewis, and on occasions, politicians and prominent medical and legal practitioners.

Langlands told me he stopped coming to the dinner, because being complimented so lavishly made him squirm. If they have newspapers in whatever Elysian Fields he now coaches, he will writhe when he reads that he was Australia’s greatest rugby league player.

It’s a narrow margin and judges may have to go to the bunker for replays but Langlands sets an impossible standard of achievement.

Those who watched his career unfold in all of its brilliant acclaim and glory along with the contrasting train wrecks of his life way from the playing field, it’s impossible to envisage anyone who was more gifted, more courageous, had greater longevity and was more committed to rugby league.

Some players keep scrapbooks. Langlands had a library.

He orchestrated some of the most memorable and poignant moments in Australian rugby league.

In the 1974 series against England Langlands was captain-coach for the first Test. He scored eight points in 12-6 win and was dropped as a player. Great Britain won the second Test and Langlands was recalled for the third.

John Raper, Mal Meninga and Graeme Langlands with the Rugby League World Cup.

He scored the winning try and the capacity SCG crowd to a man stood and chanted “Changa, Changa, Changa” to his acute embarrassment.

“Go and do a lap of honour,” said his teammate John O’Neill.

“You come too,” said Chang.

“No,” said O’Neill. “They want you not me.”

He made the on field success look easy. Too easy for French referee Georges Jameau in the 1972 world cup final against England in Lyon.

In a pre-planned move Australia’s half Dennis Ward kicked the ball downfield from near halfway. From nowhere, Langlands appeared, diving with his arms outstretched to take the ball on his fingertips in the in-goal for the most brilliantly unforgettable tries ever scored.

After seeing TV replays, Jameau apologised for wrongly ruling Langlands off-side. He just couldn’t believe any player could be that pre-emptive.

Only on a football field could Langlands find the freedom for his startling talents and peace of mind. Away from the filed circumstances were often cruel.

Somehow he could never quite co-ordinate it all into a balanced lifestyle.

He was often in financial straits. Money provided by fundraisers seemed to evaporate and he lost his house last year after an ill-judged investment. Last year there were unsavoury allegations of indecent treatment of a girl under 16 in the 1980s.

“I seem to have only been comfortable playing football,” he once told friends.

The seemingly inevitable tragic overtones that scarred so much of Langlands’ life away from the rugby league arena he ruled so majestically, were underwritten by his unexpected illness that deprived his admirers from saying how wonderful he had been.

“Chang was the greatest rugby league player I’ve ever seen in all departments of the game. He didn’t have a weak link,’ says former Souths and Australian captain Johnny Sattler.

“He was a very tough warrior and the captain-coach of larrikins.’’

Originally published as Graeme Langlands was modest, magnificent and Australia’s best to lace on a boot, writes Ray Chesterton