IT'S difficult to imagine a player with a deep Yorkshire accent, who played just 34 of his 546 senior matches at Balmain, being welcomed home to Leichhardt Oval. But sure enough, that's what the words on the old scoreboard there read yesterday.
''It gave me a wonderful thrill,'' Ellery Hanley said.
Down memory lane … Englishman Ellery Hanley in the Leichhardt Oval scoreboard.Credit: Steve Christo
Hanley will be in Sydney for three weeks. His most famous stint with Balmain didn't last much longer. But it sure was an eventful one; having joined the club late in the 1988 season, he played eight games, helping the Tigers into the grand final against Canterbury.
He says now that his first stint with Balmain - he played again in 1996-97 - was ''one of the greatest feats I've been involved with''.
Hanley with old Tigers teammate Ben Elias.Credit: Steve Christo
It also included one of the most infamous moments in grand finals; Hanley, the Great Britain international, was taken out off the ball by Bulldogs five-eighth Terry Lamb. He played no further part in the game, which the Tigers lost.
''I've never ever watched the game,'' he said. ''I've been told different versions of what happened. I have no malice towards Terry Lamb. It's just one of those things, what happens on a football paddock. You've just got to move on. It was just unfortunate it happened that particular time because we had a wonderful run.
''It probably rocked the boat a little, but even if I had stayed on, there was no guarantee that we would have won the football game because they had a good team as well.''
Hanley has not spoken to Lamb since, but it is likely that at some stage during his visit to Sydney that the pair will cross paths.
Hanley will not be idle. He will be at Leichhardt Oval tomorrow when the Tigers play the Roosters, is set to be inducted into the Balmain Hall of Fame, while he will attend a gala dinner in his honour on June 28 at Curzon Hall, along with his former Great Britain teammate Garry Schofield. He also witnessed State of Origin live for the first time last Wednesday, visiting the victorious NSW dressing room and admitting to be ''overawed'' that Robbie Farah wanted to meet him. ''I was really stoked about that,'' he said.
Yesterday, sitting alongside his former teammates Paul Sironen, Garry Jack, Ben Elias and Gary Freeman, along with current Tigers import Gareth Ellis, he had some sobering words for rugby league in Britain; the 51-year-old does not expect to see England topple Australia's overall dominance of them in his lifetime.
''It's the best league in the world by a million miles,'' Hanley said of the NRL. ''When you compare it with Super League - there is no comparison. This is the best league by a country mile. It's simply that … there's only four teams in the [Super League] competition who will win the trophies at the end of the season. All the rest just juggle for positions.
''In Australia, every single game is intense. The level is just so far ahead of England.''