Our team of NRL experts tells the story of their favourite rugby league memory from the 1980s
MULLETS, Tina Turner and the mighty Parramatta Eels. Our team of footy experts tells the story of their favourite rugby league memory from the 1980s.
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AS Fox League takes a step back in time with retro round this week, reporters and commentators from Fox Sports, the Daily Telegraph and Courier-Mail recall their favourite memories from the 80s.
You remember the 80s, don’t you? Tina Turner, Sirro and Blocker, King Wally, mullets, the chip and chase and rugby league at its finest.
It was era dominated by two clubs — the Eels and the Bulldogs — with both picking up four premierships each. The 1986 Eels premiership was also the last time they raised the trophy, which was then the Winfield Cup.
The decade was topped by possibly the greatest grand final of all time when the Raiders stormed home to beat the favourites the Tigers 19-14 in extra-time to win their first ever title.
Here are some more memories from our team of rugby league experts, let us know yours in the comments section.
TROUBLE: Could this be the end for Des?
AGAIN: Eels just keep winning
Phil Rothfield — Daily Telegraph
Thousands of fans are jammed inside Parramatta Leagues Club like sardines.
It’s grand final night, 1981.
There is little club security and no responsible service of alcohol laws back then.
Your correspondent is there to report on it.
The great Jack Gibson walks onto the stage in the auditorium surrounded by Ray Price, Mick Cronin, Peter Wynn, Bob O’Reilly, Peter Sterling, Brett Kenny, Steve Ella, Eric Grothe and the rest of their champions.
He delivers one of the most famous quotes in rugby league history:
“Ding Dong the Witch is Dead”
I have never seen sporting celebrations anything like it.
Finally the pride of western Sydney had delivered a premiership with a stirring victory over the Newtown Jets.
Later that night Parramatta Eels fans burnt down the old grandstand next door at Cumberland Oval.
You have never seen anything like it.
Yvonne Sampson — Fox League
My favourite moment of the 80s was the beginning of the mighty Brisbane Broncos!
Suddenly every rugby league fan north of the Tweed had Wally & Alfie to cheer for.
That first game at Lang Park against Manly felt like a State of Origin.
Manly were the defending premiers and the Broncos were the new kids on the block.
When Wally Lewis crossed the line in the first half the crowd went ballistic and when the Broncos ran away with a 44-10 win, Brisbane knew we had a team that would always do us proud.
Paul Kent — Daily Telegraph
The greatness of the 1986 grand final came in the very last minutes. It was high in theatre, from the moment Mick Cronin needed a police escort to the ground after being caught in traffic to the full time whistle when he was lifted on the shoulders of teammates.
In those final moments, Parramatta led 4-2 and the Bulldogs were hammering their tryline for set after set and looked set to break through Parramatta’s left side, the Eels pushes to the point of exhaustion.
The Eels came from everywhere, pushing Andrew Farrar into touch. They had to peel five Parramatta players off him so he could eventually get up.
Desire.
Mark Gasnier — Fox League
It would have to be the 1989 grand final, I remember the Tina Turner advertising campaign and playing football on the front lawn in the lead up as it was tradition to have a BBQ and watch all three grades.
I was a Raiders fan because I used to like Ricky Stuart and Laurie Daley, so when they won I was over the moon.
Favourite moments were Chicka Ferguson’s try to level things just before full-time and then the Steve Jackson try in extra time to win it.
He carried three players across the line to score and I’ll never forget it.
I still have the number seven Raiders jersey from back then when Woodgers was the major sponsor.
Steve “Blocker” Roach — Fox League
Sunday afternoon footy, house full at Tiger Town, playing in the mud in the middle of winter — not on a lawn bowls field like today!
David Riccio — Daily Telegraph
WHEN it comes to grand finals, very rarely do we recall the actual game.
But one thing is certain, we always remember a moment.
For me, the 1988 grand final produced the most unforgettable moment of that entire decade.
The SFS (Allianz Stadium) hosted its first-ever grand final in 1988.
Only Canterbury and Balmain fans will recall the result. For the record, the Bulldogs won 24-12.
Instead, it was the sight of Balmain’s British import Ellery Hanley felled in a controversial tackle by Canterbury’s Terry Lamb which remains etched into history.
Hanley was asleep before his head hit the SFS turf.
Lamb’s decision to flatten the superstar Hanley, forcing him from the field and heavily concussed, is widely regarded as both an act of genius and thuggery — and a moment Lamb still gets asked about today.
Jessica Yates — Fox League
My memories of the 80s are sitting on the hill at Shark Park with my uncles and cousins cheering on a young and inspired ‘ET’ Andrew Ettinghausen, who would later become a hero in the Shire.
I will never forget a packed house roaring to their feet, cheering at the top of their lungs as ET tore down the sideline, silky mullet billowing in the breeze to score for the Sharks.
Nick Walshaw — Daily Telegraph
RAY Price and his Praying Mantis pose?
At age 10, it was one of the great constants in my life.
Up there with desert boots, Hulk Hogan, even a haircut part running right down the middle.
Yep, good times.
Indeed, being an Eels fan in the 80s, it was as wonderful as life got.
Cooler than being a Rockefeller. Or Frank Poncherello in CHiPs.
And leading the parade was Pricey.
Mr Perpetual Motion.
That other Ultimate Warrior who went into battle with greased knees, elbow, eyebrows, beard, all of it.
Who every time an opposing kicker lined up a penalty shot, would not only park himself in front of the sticks, but then tilt his body sideways, with arms raised, in that most subtle of baulks.
And each time said pose was struck, you’d think: Yeah Pricey, this is the game it’s yours.
This is the afternoon that brown leather Steeden bounces off the crossbar and into your arms.
For as a young Eels fan in the eighties, everything went your way.
You won games. You won Premierships.
Hell, you even dominated the Toohey’s commercials.
Success for Parramatta ... you reckoned it had to be forever, right?
Ben Ikin — Fox League
Growing up I was actually a Raiders fan, I was drawn to them by their Queensland contingent of Mal Meninga, Gary Belcher and the Walters brothers, but when the Gold Coast and Broncos came into the comp in 1988 it was massive in Queensland.
I still remember being in the stands at Tweed Heads Stadium when the Giants registered their first ever win.
They beat of all teams the Broncos on Mother’s Day in 1988, it was a real David v Goliath victory.
Dean Ritchie — Daily Telegraph
OK, let’s be politically incorrect during Retro Round for just a few minutes.
My most memorable and shocking match during the wild 1980s?
What about the brutal 1981 semi-final brawl between Manly and Newtown at the SCG.
It was designed to put glamorous Manly off their game — and it worked.
The fight kept going and going.
About five individual fights broke out inside the one giant melee.
Tommy Raudonikis was front and centre, as always. Steve Bowden head butted Manly’s Mark Broadhurst and missed next weekend’s grand final through suspension.
It was the most epic brawl of its era.
Foul and fiery, it will never be forgotten.
Robert Craddock — The Courier-Mail
THERE’s something about seeing an ageing warrior rally for one last challenge.
And its why the 1980s moment which sits most prominently in my mind was not the rise of Parramatta, the sustained excellence of Canterbury or even the birth of the Broncos.
It was Tommy Raudonikis crashing over for a second half try after a cheeky blindside scrum base raid in the 1981 grand final for Newtown against Parramatta.
Maybe it was the fact that Newtown is no more. Maybe it was that Tommy was 31 and nearing the end of his magnificent career which was so spirited that years after he retired he used to switch off the car radio when Australian teams were announced because he could not stand the fact that he was not there.
But it was an unforgettable moment, made all the more special because Tommy celebrated by raising both arms in delirious triumph. Sadly the Jets lost the match.
Braith Anasta — Fox League
I was a massive South fan when I was growing up and I loved Phil Blake.
I remember an ad he did for a Broncos v Bunnies game where he took the mickey out of Wally Lewis being the King, it was brilliant.
Blake’s chip and chases were a stand out for me, I was only a kid, but he was the king and I would try and emulate him in the back yard.
Paul Malone — The Courier-Mail
IT WAS March 6, 1988. The Brisbane Broncos, after a difficult birth, were about to take their first steps in the NSWRL.
Wally Lewis had had his first offer from a Sydney club almost nine full years earlier, staying in Brisbane despite the best efforts of firstly North Sydney and then the Kerry Packer-financed Manly to entice him.
For at least four years, Sydneysiders, most notably Ray Price, argued he would not be able to withstand the week-in, week-out pressure and grind of the Winfield Cup. Queenslanders, emboldened by Lewis’s State of Origin body of work and sheer loyalty, insisted just as vehemently he would.
Well within 80 minutes, the conversation had changed. Lewis had scored two tries in Brisbane’s 44-10 thrashing of premiers Manly at Lang Park.
Belief surged boisterously through the ground even though only 17,451 were there to watch the Broncos set a standard of attacking football which they have sought to match ever since.
“King Wally wowed the rugby league world in a display that will rank with any the game can boast in its 80 years,’’ wrote leading Sydney league reporter Geoff Prenter.
The Broncos won their first six matches, prompting alarmist projections by more than one Sydney commentator that they had so many advantages in a one-team city they could go through the season undefeated. They didn’t make the finals until 1990, by which Lewis had been stripped of the captaincy.
The King was contentiously sent packing by coach Wayne Bennett after three seasons. But no one could take his first NSWRL match away from a man later voted one of the game’s Immortals.
Greg Alexander — Fox League
There was so many iconic moments in the 80s which makes it hard to narrow it down, to just one.
What I loved about that decade was the ferocious rivalry between the Sydney based clubs eg. Eels-Sea Eagles, Dogs-Eels.
That rivalry between clubs filtered down to individuals. The combative nature between opposing players, was something that made that era special and what the fans loved.
Brett Finch — Fox League
I was a baby in the 80s but I remember going to the famous Origin game at the SCG in 1984.
It absolutely poured down and the SCG was a mud bath.
I’d been at school all day and couldn’t wait to get out to the ground to cheer on the Blues, but then Greg Dowling latched onto a kick from Wally Lewis that bounced off the crossbar and the Maroons got up.
The 80s was also huge for us in Newcastle with the Knights entering the comp in 1988.
My dad (Robert Finch) was the coach of the U23s side and I remember getting my first Newcastle jersey with the Henny Penny sponsors logo on the front.
Originally published as Our team of NRL experts tells the story of their favourite rugby league memory from the 1980s
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