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This is the opening salvo in a series on three NRL grand finals that were decided at the death – from sheer luck, calculated cold hearted cruelty, sheer genius or an error from a player who will never forget, a memory that, according to Michael Ennis, “seeps into your soul”.
First off it’s the 2015 grand final.
It often doesn’t matter how talented you are or how much you’ve trained for the moment.
The brief encounter that can glorify you … or destroy you.
Oh yes, you can say you have been the better team right up to this snippet of time when you find yourself alone confronted with the burden of making the decision and executing the play that will determine your, and your teammates’, destiny – the effect of the label “premiership player” on future employment and comradeship. A lifelong justification for what you put yourself through.
We know from numerous accounts and from personal experience that in moments of imminent danger time appears to slow – evolution’s gift to our physically fragile species providing us with an opportunity to make the decision that saves us from extinction.
The same sensitive and complex brain though can also send us into another realm – prickling with panic, inaction, hurried over reaction, an overwhelming need for the drama to end.
Of course the “big moment” that decides the game is often founded on earlier events. On acts of brilliance or lapses of judgement or discipline. Could there be a worse word in the biggest game of your life than lapse?
One of the finest finishes to a match was the one to the 2008 semi-final between Brisbane and Melbourne at Suncorp Stadium.
The minor premiers from Melbourne had been victims of a dramatic last-minute loss the previous week to the Warriors in the qualifying final. They had been trailing Brisbane all night with the home crowd singing their team home, and were on the verge of a straight sets finals exit, when after 78 min and 36 seconds … Ray Warren and the dramatic interjections of Matty Johns can take over from here:
Warren: “Now it’s with (Ashton) Sims. He’s lost the ball!!! And Melbourne have the ball with a minute and 20 to go!… It’s gone to Cronk. They’ve got numbers.
(Johns: “Aaah!!!”)
Inglis is over to score!
(Johns: “Aaaah!… Unbelievable!!!”)
The premiers are back! The premiers have scored!
(Johns: “Aaah, Rabbits!!!”)
This is just an amazing, an amazing fightback! The crowd can’t believe it! The Storm by two as the full-time siren is about to sound! Broncos have sunk to the ground all over the park.
And here is the mistake.”
The replay shows Sims being tackled from the side by Israel Folau, tilting him slightly and the ball impacts Sika Manu’s hip and spills out. The cameras and commentators seek Sims out just as they will seek Ben Hunt out seven years later. He is shown squatting with his head down, fingers pressing hard into his forehead.
“Ashton Sims is demoralised!”
But in the end, it’s the end that counts. A fortnight later in the game that really mattered – the grand final – Melbourne would be obliterated by Manly 40-0.
During the presentations following Manly’s 1996 grand final victory Paul “Fatty” Vautin said: “And each of those blokes standing there will go to their grave a happy man They’ve played in a premiership winning side … they’ll all be mates no matter what happens for the rest of their lives”.
The allure of the GF is unquestionable because it reduces the test as to who is the best to an 80-minute contest. In the great ones it can come down to the final second.
When asked “could you pick a moment out of your entire commentary career that is special to you?”, Ray Warren replied: “That 2015 grand final. The last three minutes.”
When the final siren of that game between Brisbane and North Queensland was sounding, the Broncos were ahead 16-12. The records tell us they lost 17-16.
What happened in the final moments that cost them the premiership?
In the 43rd minute after consecutive penalties the Broncos, just a couple of metres from the Cowboys’ line, they chose to kick a penalty goal for a 16-12 lead.
Should they have started a new set for a possible try and 20-12 lead?
In the 77th minute, an Anthony Milford steal and another attacking play from the Broncos forwards ends with Andrew McCullough kicking deep into touch.
Hunt’s devastating dropped ball during golden point is still minutes away but he makes two crucial errors just prior to that which may have already cost the team the premiership.
Cowboys coach Paul Green is sprayed by his players with champagne after winning the 2015 NRL title. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
The Cowboys spread the ball from the ensuring scrum. Like Frazier finding Ali with his brutal left hook, Hunt nails Kane Linnett with perfect contact – a tackle he had performed three minutes previously – except this time Hunt’s potent combination of short stature and powerful base impact the hips of the leaner and taller Linnett lifting and driving him almost head first into the ground, drawing a penalty.
It is indicative of the Broncos’ relentless defensive second-half efforts but this one proves too zealous at a crucial time of the game. And Hunt he knows it as he’s seen mouthing an obscenity, towards himself.
With under two minutes remaining, the Broncos stop another Cowboys raid on their line. They play slowly, a dangerous ploy as there is still time for the Cowboys to attack if the Broncos fail to gain metres. Despite hit-ups by Sam Thaiday and Corey Parker they have only reached the Cowboys’ 20-metre line.
But, as he has done all match, Milford steps up with a big left step on Jake Granville, another left, a right and an acceleration past the grasping James Tamou and Ethan Lowe.
Now stop it there. It’s 78:48 on the fourth tackle and Milford is in the clear. Surely it is over now. A tackle and kick to come. North Queensland aren’t scoring from deep in their half with less than a minute remaining.
As he crosses over the 30 he slows, searching for an offload. McCullough, initially on his inside but marked by Justin O’Neill turns inside and now there are no options for Milford.
At the halfway line he pulls up in front of Kyle Feldt looking like he is going to surrender in the tackle but, too close to the tackler, belatedly attempts a right-foot step and Feldt’s desperate tackle loosens Milford’s grasp and the ball spills back.
Hunt retrieves it but also finds Feldt in front of him. He slides to the ground. Watching now, it’s difficult to know if he is attempting to surrender in the tackle, prevent being pushed into touch, or scamper back towards the middle. Anyway, the ball is unsecured in one hand and is knocked down and retrieved by Feldt’s repeat effort.
Kyle Feldt. Remember the name.
The final set begins with exactly a minute to go. At no point do you seriously believe they can pull it off. Johnathan Thurston’s first pass is high and fumbled but miraculously recovered by Linnett, a pass and an offload go to ground but bounce fortuitously. On the fourth, Thurston simply hands it to prop Matt Scott.
Then it’s the last. Thurston receives a tired pass from Granville – not his first – that could easily have been knocked on.
He looks to go down the blindside but turns back to the middle. Broncos forward Adam Blair, as he has done successfully throughout the contest, again tries to brutally shut him down but this time overreaches and with a shimmer and shrug, Thurston loses him.
Should Blair have tempered it just a little to ensure proper contact slowing the play to possibly seal the game? Perhaps.
As Thurston is threatening with his dummies and darts Blair desperately gets back to his feet and scampers into line on the blindside … the wrong side.
Johnathan Thurston. (Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
We all know fate has led us here. As early as the fifth minute in the Fox League commentary, Warren Smith had announced: ” A warning shot across the bows of the Broncos as to what they can expect on that right side when Thurston links up with (Michael) Morgan”.
Finally, Thurston doesn’t have a powerful forward right there on his inside. McCullough comes straight at him but is pushed away and can only watch forlornly as the helmeted maestro, belatedly hit by a gallant Parker, sends Morgan on a diagonal run that draws several defenders.
One of them is Milford who, like Blair, has implemented Wayne Bennett’s defensive strategies to perfection by successfully shutting down several of Morgan’s right-side raids and attempted offloads, as well as producing a one-on-one strip.
This time he is partially impeded by the other tackler Jack Reid and finds himself slightly behind Morgan grimly hanging onto this left shoulder and arm as the North Queensland five-eighth delivers a sublime pass putting Feldt over the try line as the siren is sounding; diluted and distorted by the shrieks of joy, despair and disbelief.
Broncos fullback Darius Boyd, unable to get across to Feldt, goes to ground and slaps the turf assuming, like most, that Thurston will end it with his trademark conversion.
Now on his back, his legs become entangled in the cables of the television cameraman rushing forward to film the celebrations. A photographer, standing next to Boyd and also looking for joyous footage, suddenly looks down and notices him thrashing about and chooses instead to record his desolation, and humiliation.
The missed conversion adds further status to this legendary game, but the overriding image is the one of poor Ben Hunt bowed and on his haunches after dropping the golden point kickoff. He knows it’s all over and that he has cost his team the premiership.
As the other Cowboys players celebrate the error, Tamou, in a touching gesture, leans down to offer him some comfort.
Of course, if the Broncos had won it in golden point it would have been Thurston’s missed kick that defined the game’s legacy. Instead he wins the Clive Churchill Medal (it could be argued Milford was the better player) not just through the drop goal which is a relatively easy one but because he keeps the ball alive during the last play and – through sheer will, a little luck, insane timing, and some sort of genius – delivers the victory.
But Thurston still revisits his missed conversion – the distinctive flat powerful curving kick for once collecting the upright and rebounding wide – with an anguished intake of breath, as if he’s still unaware of what is to come.
On hearing that the finish was Ray Warren’s greatest moment he becomes visibly emotional.
What a game.
The match – deemed the greatest of all time by many – will forever be there to watch for Thurston and his premiership teammates and a ghost to haunt Ben Hunt and his Broncos.
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