High Steaks: How Hindy dines out on one Eel of a career
Parramatta legend Nathan Hindmarsh talks triumph, disaster and how the ribbing he cops on-air is just good television.
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Nathan Hindmarsh knows it’s coming. He can’t escape it.
Even 13 long years after retiring as a Parramatta Eels legend – 330 games, 60 tries, 17 Origin matches and 23 Tests – it’s the one thing he wasn’t able to achieve that is continually brought up. That elusive premiership.
Seemingly reminded of it on an almost weekly basis by his TV colleagues on the Matty Johns Show, surely Hindmarsh is bitter at not being able to shake off those two agonising grand final losses?
His hearty laugh suggests otherwise.
“Look, if they didn’t bring it up I wouldn’t be on the show,’’ he chuckles. “That’s the only thing keeping me in a job pretty much, either my weight or not winning a premiership.’’
Oh, and the bagging he regularly cops for “flopping’’ throughout his career.
“The flops shit me a little bit,’’ he concedes.
“I’ve definitely flopped on a few people, but there’s an art to it because you (need to avoid) being penalised. There’s a split second between being a flop or being a third man in, so I made it an art.’’
But, try as he might to convince others – including his four sons – that the ribbing he cops on-air is just good television, he admits it can be difficult to make his case.
“I try to tell my boys at home that I did have some sort of decent career, playing the game, but they don’t believe me because they’re too busy listening to those other dickheads I go to work with on a Thursday and Sunday.’’
Hindmarsh, who retired as a one-club player at the end of the 2012 season, has been fortunate in his post-footy life, and has his fingers in several pies – literally.
Along with his TV and radio gigs, Hindmarsh is also an ambassador for the Your Local Club Perfect Plate Awards, for which he travels around sampling some of the best club restaurant meals in the state.
One such meal will be crowned the winner when the competition ends next Sunday.
It has led us today to the Campbelltown Catholic Club’s Kyubi restaurant, where we are dining on its signature dish – and one of the hot entries in this year’s awards – the Schottlanders Wagyu steak.
As we savour the tender, medium rare striploin, the conversation turns to the other meaty subject on today’s menu – Hindmarsh’s record-breaking career at Parramatta.
His journey to becoming one of the club’s all-time greats began in the backyard of his family’s home at Robertson, in the NSW Southern Highlands, where he made the switch from soccer to rugby league at age 12 at the behest of his parents, who feared for the safety of their daughter.
“It was my mum and dad because I kept beating the shit out of my younger sister playing footy in the backyard. I was getting to that age where I was getting too strong for her.’’
It was at his junior club, the Moss Vale Dragons, where Hindmarsh was “discovered’’ by then Parramatta talent scout Daniel Anderson, who would later coach Hindmarsh to the 2009 NRL grand final.
“(He) came down to watch (former South Sydney prop) Scott Geddes (but) I had a good game and they offered us both a scholarship to Fairfield Pats,’’ he recalls.
Hindmarsh had a short stint at the college, admitting “it wasn’t for me’’, but later trialled for Parramatta SG Ball and made the squad.
Rising through the ranks, he made his NRL debut under coach Brian Smith in 1998.
A Bulldogs fan growing up, Hindmarsh was suddenly training with his heroes – Jim Dymock, Jarrod McCracken, Jason Smith and Dean Pay, who had joined the Eels during the Super League war.
“That was a massive highlight for me. My first training session, I’ve walked in and they’re all there and they scared the shit out of me. Especially Jimmy and McCracken, they were scary blokes. I was just in awe. I just did what I was told to do and that was it.’’
Hindmarsh got his first taste of finals heartbreak later that year, losing to Canterbury in one of the most infamous defeats in Parramatta history – beaten 32-20 in extra time, having led 18-2 with just over 10 minutes to go. Many fans put the loss down to mistakes made by teammate Paul Carige, but Hindmarsh doesn’t agree with that view, saying: “I reckon that’s a bit harsh. Everyone made mistakes in that game. He dropped a ball and put his foot on the touch line, and all that sort of stuff, but we had enough of a lead. We blew that as a team.’’
More finals torture came the next year, losing to Melbourne after leading 16-0 at halftime.
But those two losses were just the entree to the main course of finals disappointment for Hindmarsh.
In 2001, after a record-breaking point-scoring season, Parramatta went into the decider – the NRL’s first night grand final – as red-hot favourites against Newcastle. Ambushed in the first half by the Knights, who streaked out to a 24-0 lead, it proved too difficult for the Eels to rein in, resulting in a devastating 30-24 loss.
“2001 for me is the one that got away, with the side we had,’’ Hindmarsh laments.
“No disrespect to Newcastle (but) we were a really good side that year, and we stuffed it, we stuffed it on game night … but that’s all it takes. Newcastle just got the jump on us and we didn’t have enough time to get it back.’’
Of his two grand final losses, 2001 “hurts the most’’, Hindmarsh admits.
Not that he didn’t feel the anguish of losing his second – and last – grand final in 2009. That year, a thrilling late season run – on the back of Jarryd Hayne’s scintillating form – catapulted the Eels into eighth place before they swept through the semis to face the Storm in the decider.
“The things we saw Haynesy do in that era, you won’t see ever again. He was a freak,’’ Hindmarsh recalls.
“We talk about other freakish players at the moment, but I think he’s still another level above them. When it came to individual brilliance, some of those tries he scored were just phenomenal.’’
But it ended in more grand final heartbreak for Hindy.
And it was compounded the following year with revelations the Storm had cheated the salary cap in order to field their star-studded team.
“They cheated the cap, they did,’’ Hindmarsh says.
“But you can pay a player a million bucks a season, you’ve still got to play well.
“Yeah, they got to stick together by cheating the cap, but they still had to play well on the day and they played better than us, and that’s all there is to it.
“People say do you want the trophy? No, I don’t want to be handed something I didn’t win. It’s all about that feeling when the full time siren goes and embracing those blokes who you busted your arse with all season, that’s the feeling you want to have.’’
The year after that loss was the only time Hindmarsh came close to leaving the Eels.
“I was pretty much looking at going to the (English) Super League. I was either going to Leeds or St Helens,’’ he says.
“I was very close (to leaving). I had a few conversations with my wife, a few conversations with other people who had been over to the Super League. But we decided we were happy to stay and see out my career with the one club.’’
In his final year with the Eels, Hindmarsh captained his team to the wooden spoon.
“You captain a club to a spoon, that’s something that sits with you, and doesn’t sit well,’’ he laments.
Which leads us to the current crop of Eels and their bid to avoid the spoon in 2025.
“I’m hoping they will (avoid it),’’ Hindmarsh says.
“With the Origin period now, losing Mitch Moses and Lomax, two of the better players in the side ... it will be close.
“But hopefully not … we’ve had a few.’’
As for Parramatta’s premiership drought, 2026 will mark 40 years since the club last celebrated winning a competition in the golden ’80s.
But Hindmarsh believes new coach Jason Ryles could be the man to return premiership glory to Parra.
“He’s a fresh coach, he’s a new coach. He’s never been in charge of an NRL side before, so give him a chance,’’ he says.
“I think his credentials, who he’s been under as an understudy, put him in good stead.
“But it’s going to take some time. If you’re an Eels fan, you’ll understand that. The majority of us do. It’s going to be a bit of a rebuilding process.
“I’ve got full faith in Rylesy that he’s going to do it.’’
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Originally published as High Steaks: How Hindy dines out on one Eel of a career
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