Chaos is king as glamour boys forced to win ugly on crazy night

From the moment Mal Meninga blew the Huawei horn, there was something a little haywire about Sunday night’s NRL grand final.

Mal’s big blow set off the Canberra Raiders’ Viking clap and, somewhere in Norway, cultural appropriation police remained silent.

James Tedesco and Victor Radley hug after the fullback scores the match-winning.Credit: AAP

Proud Bundjalung prop forward Ryan James showed that nerves affect everyone and ended his acknowledgment of country, unfortunately, in the same way Mal had ended his political career two decades earlier. Things were not going to plan. And things had not even started yet.

The chaotic vibe continued soon after the kick-off, when a likely Canberra try was thwarted by the Roosters’ water boy, only for the ball to be given back to the Roosters, who duly scored their first four-pointer. If we wanted to watch perverse refereeing decisions wrecking games of football, we could have been watching the Rugby World Cup in Japan.

With a series of unfortunate events going against them, the underdog Raiders might have read the signs and given in. Instead, Canberra replied with their first try when Jack Wighton stepped past Angus Crichton. Whether or not it was justice, it was certainly poetic.

The strong nor-easter was blowing the predictable pattern of the match away, and even Gus Gould was losing it in commentary, mistaking his beloved Roosters for his beloved Panthers.

When everyone took a breather at half-time, Canberra seemed ahead but were actually behind, by two points. Did they realise this, and if so, how would it affect them?

Meanwhile, the Roosters, even more than resetting to try to assert control, were hoping that the match could assume the rhythms and shapes of a normal rugby league match. The favourites thrive on control. But then, if we wanted predictable one-sided games, we could have been watching the Rugby World Cup in Japan.

Instead, chaos was having a night out. In his ninth grand final and 372nd and last NRL appearance, Cooper Cronk was sin-binned for a professional foul, a decision arrived at after a lengthy intervention by the video official.

Both sides began dropping the ball, Canberra’s Joey Leilua bungling a potential match-winner in the corner with 21 minutes to go. If we wanted turgid, technical deliberations from a TV booth and people dropping the ball, we could have been watching ... OK, OK.

For the match’s final stanza, the chemistry of the night had been so profoundly altered that the Raiders, the outsiders, had become the clear favourites and their challenge was not to pull off an upset but to keep their composure.

Canberra were in unfamiliar territory, and not just because half of Queanbeyan found themselves in Homebush. The ACT’s favourite male stripper, Josh Hodgson, tried but could not get near his usual party trick of stealing opposition ball.

Nothing was turning out as forecast. Conversely, the Roosters were asked to rely on defence and grit, the glamour team having to win ugly.

Inevitably, a refereeing howler determined the result, with official Ben Cummins changing his signal in the middle of a critical play to favour the Roosters, the second time a probable Canberra score was flipped with decisive consequences. Everyone was losing their head on this bizarre spring night. Apologies will be sent down the Hume.

Raiders legend Mal Meninga blows the horn to spark the Viking clap.Credit: Getty Images

Just as inevitably, the player of the year, James Tedesco, after a largely anonymous match, made an appearance in the final minutes to score the winning try.

After all that, with nothing going anything like anyone expected, events going around the twist and back again, the grand final ended as forecast. Roosters fourteen, Canberra eight, a bland-looking scoreline that told no kind of story. "I’m glad it’s over," said Cronk, and few could disagree.
Time to think about what was, and what might have been.