Rivals: Sports Greatest Battles

By Phil Gifford

An entertaining and informative account of some of the greatest rivalries in world sport.
'I wanted to punch him in the face. But I was so disgusted with him I couldn't do it. He revolts me.' - Alain Prost.Sport by its very nature breeds competition, and competition breeds rivalries that become the stuff of legend. Phil Gifford explores key battles between New Zealand sportspeople and their international competitors, as well as great rivalries on an international stage.Classic encounters include those between John McEnroe and Björn Borg, Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett, the Wallabies and the All Blacks, Don Revie and Brian Clough, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, and many more.told with Gifford's trademark humour and encyclopaedic knowledge of all things sporting, this is a behind-the-scenes look at sport's greatest battles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Aug 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781775490296

Phil Gifford

Phil Gifford is an award-winning broadcaster, sports journalist, speaker and author. Creator of satirical rugby character Loosehead Len, Phil has hosted No. 1 radio shows and won 14 radio awards over three decades in New Zealand and Australia, and is the author of 17 bestselling sports books.

Book preview

Dedication

This book is dedicated to two wonderful teachers at Waihi College in the early 1960s, the late Margaret Cleary, and Charlie Dowdle, who showed me the power of telling a good story.

Contents

Cover

Dedication

Introduction

1 Origin: NSW v. Queensland

2 Joe Louis v. Max Schmeling

3 Muhammad Ali v. Joe Frazier

4 Tonya Harding v. Nancy Kerrigan

5 Rugby: Auckland v. Canterbury

6 John Hart v. Grizz Wyllie

7 Dennis Conner v. all of New Zealand

8 Cricket: Australia v. New Zealand

9 Rugby: Australia v. New Zealand

10 Rugby: South Africa v. New Zealand

11 Alain Prost v. Ayrton Senna

12 Sebastian Coe v. Steve Ovett

13 Bobby Fischer v. Boris Spassky

14 Björn Borg v. John McEnroe

15 Football: Rangers v. Celtic

16 Rugby: The wingers

17 Cricket: Bodyline

18 Roberto Duran v. Sugar Ray Leonard

19 Arnold Palmer v. Jack Nicklaus

20 Quade Cooper v. Richie McCaw

21 Kevin Tamati v. Greg Dowling

22 Brian Clough v. Don Revie

23 Ford v. Holden

24 Norma Plummer v. Silver Ferns

Bibliography

About the Author

Copyright

Introduction

‘Defeat is worse than death,’ the great American football coach Vince Lombardi once said. ‘You have to live with defeat.’

You don’t have to take sport as seriously as Lombardi did to enjoy the drama it provides. And sport as competition is drama, not in some vague way, but as defined by the historical, five-act definition of a classic Greek or Shakespearean play.

Great sporting rivalries fit the mould perfectly. The reality in sport is often so astounding a scriptwriter would dial back the melodrama, or risk being mocked for wild exaggeration. Let me illustrate the theory with stories you’re about to read.

First, in classical drama, comes the introduction, the background to the conflict that follows. Who in the theatre would dare to set a thundering, rainswept scene in which a golfer, Arnold Palmer, hits ball after ball into the teeth of the storm, while an unknown kid who would become his greatest rival, Jack Nicklaus, watches, fascinated? It really happened.

Next comes rising action, as the central character faces setbacks on his or her way to a goal. Try a brilliant young boxer, who plans to take up a university scholarship, and turn his back on fighting, until he finds his girlfriend is pregnant, and he has to turn professional to support her and their baby. It really happened to Sugar Ray Leonard.

The turning point, or third act, is the most dramatic, when things either go well, or very badly, for the hero. In the first State of Origin league game a rotund 35-year-old in the twilight of his career showed the rank underdogs in the Queensland side the way by belting the daylights out of New South Wales players who were his club team-mates. That’s exactly what Arthur Beetson did.

In the fourth act, the falling action, there is often a moment of suspense, when it seems the story may take another turn, but eventually the final outcome is decided. The hot favourite in the 800 metres at the Moscow Olympic Games is beaten by his most intense rival, and told by his father, who coaches him, he has run like an idiot. The runner returns to the track in the 1500 metres, and thrashes the man who had beaten him in the 800 final. That was what happened when Sebastian Coe recovered from a humiliating loss to beat Steve Ovett in Moscow.

Finally, the resolution, when the drama is over, and, for better or worse, the character’s story is resolved. In tragedy the result is catastrophic. Consider Joe Frazier in the years after he fought Muhammad Ali, so bitter he ignored pleas from his own son to forgive and forget. Or Ali himself, too proud to run from Frazier, and paying a terrible physical cost for the blows he took.

In a classic comedy the central character is better off than when he started. Richie McCaw, hounded by Quade Cooper in the lead-up to the 2011 Rugby World Cup, erased all the bad World Cup memories for New Zealand rugby fans when he held the Webb Ellis Cup above his head at Eden Park. A grateful nation lined the streets for victory parades, and McCaw was offered a knighthood.

As sports fans we can live vicariously through other people’s struggles and achievements. In this book are some of the most extraordinary people and athletes in sport, and their amazing battles are living proof that truth is so often stranger, and more exciting, than fiction.

Phil Gifford

Auckland, 2012

1

Origin:

NSW v. Queensland

‘If somebody from his family was in the

New South Wales side, I reckon he would

have beaten the shit out of them too.’

State of Origin league was born out of Queensland desperation in 1980. Sick of always being whipped by New South Wales, the Queenslanders dreamed up a scheme that has become an Aussie institution up there with the Melbourne Cup and the Ashes.

Arthur [Beetson] was bleeding. Rod Reddy was bleeding. You don’t bleed for the fun of it. You knew then they were fair dinkum, and we all thought, Let’s get into it.’

That’s how Queensland centre Chris Close saw the first State of Origin in 1980, and it’d be fair to say going the biff has been a big part of the games ever since.

Many people were involved in getting the idea off the ground, but if one man stood above all others, it was Ron McAuliffe, a Labor Party senator in the federal government, and president of Queensland Rugby League. ‘He loved a drink, he loved an argument, but most of all he loved company,’ said a friend after McAuliffe died in 1988. He also loved Queensland. ‘All things considered,’ he told an interviewer, ‘it’s awfully hard to be humble when you’re a Queenslander.’

But for a league lover in Brisbane the 1970s were the plague years for interstate games. Sydney had become a magnet for all league players, and the contests between Queensland and New South Wales were so one-sided they played them at suburb grounds in the middle of the week before tiny crowds. If NSW ever lost, the presumption was the team had been on the turps before the game. By the time the old state of residence games limped to a halt NSW had won 57, and Queensland just six.

It bugged the hell out of McAuliffe that the best and brightest in Queensland were scooped up by Sydney clubs. Before one interstate game at the SCG he requested special security men at the Queensland changing room, to keep poaching NSW club officials away from his boys.

Presuming he’d heard of telephones, he would have known the move was obviously doomed to failure. But as a symbol it was powerful.

To try to beat the men from the south, McAuliffe set up a training regime for 20 men under the direction of Dr Kevin Hobbs. They lived at Lang Park, training twice a day, the programme drawing on everyone from eccentric athletics coach Percy Cerutty, who coached Australian Herb Elliott to Olympic gold by running him up and down sandhills, to horse trainer T. J. Smith.

Then, with a war chest funded by corporate sponsors, McAuliffe went to Sydney and signed up players to play for Queensland. His first big signing, Johnny Sattler, smashed New South Wales prop Bill Hamilton in the opening minutes of a game. Hamilton staggered to the sideline, eyes rolling in his head, his legs twitching. ‘As far as we were concerned,’ said McAuliffe, ‘Sattler earned his fee there and then.’

By 1979 the idea of a State of Origin series was getting stronger and stronger. By then a swag of players from Queensland were making their living in the booming New South Wales competition. Why not bring back some of the local stars for the interstate clash?

There were concerns about the scheme. What if the old boys came back and the Sydney smartarses still beat Queensland? Even worse, what if the local heroes had been infected with the big city ways, and didn’t want to put bodies on the line against Sydney clubmates?

Journalist Hugh Lunn provided the tipping point for McAuliffe when he suggested: ‘Ron, you can take the Queenslander out of Queensland, but you can’t take the Queensland out of the Queenslander.’

In 1980 the first State of Origin game was announced, as a one-off special. The rules were straightforward. You didn’t have to be born in Queensland or New South Wales to qualify, what counted was in which state you’d played your first senior game of league.

There was a ready-made audience in Queensland, where they even had nicknames for the sides waiting to be used. In the 1970s NSW players had been dubbed the ‘cockroaches’ by former Queensland captain and coach Barry Muir, so Queensland were the Cane Toads. Cane toads, you see, were one of the few creatures prepared to eat an insect as loathsome as a cockroach.

But in Sydney they yawned. Manly and Australian captain Bob ‘Bozo’ Fulton called it the ‘non-event of the century’. To entice NSW players Queensland had to promise the winning team would get 10 per cent of the Lang Park gate, a bonus predicted to be over $1000 a man, a big sum at the time.

A key selection for Queensland was the captain, Arthur Beetson. Beetson was born in Roma, Queensland, the son of a bush worker and a mother who was one of the stolen generations. He first played league as a barefoot six-year-old, and at 16 was playing senior club footy in Brisbane. At 21 he moved to Sydney to play for Balmain, and a legend was launched.

Down to earth and with a keen sense of humour, one of the reasons he gave for not attending a 2008 gala ball where he was to be named in the Australian team of the century was that he couldn’t wear shorts and thongs to the black tie function. When he first joined Balmain he was given a job working in the league club’s cellar by chief executive Kevin Humphreys. On his first day Humphreys popped in to see how it was going, and found Beetson playing cards. ‘Mate,’ said Humphreys, ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but you are supposed to do some work here.’ Beetson said he understood. Next day Humphreys returned, and Beetson was in the same card school. Asked to explain, he told Humphreys, ‘I’m having a sickie today, so I just popped in to play cards with my mates.’

If he was casual off the field Beetson was a 105 kg magician on it. The late Jack Gibson, arguably the greatest coach of all the football codes played in Australia, once said of Beetson: ‘He could do it all on the football field and he could sell tickets. He was an entertainer and a great player.’

Beetson was a big man, who often battled with his weight. It was said of him that he never saw a meat pie he didn’t like. But the huge frame carried a sensational range of skills, and a real warrior spirit.

By 1980 Beetson was 35, in his last year for Parramatta. At the first Queensland training session he soon made it clear how seriously he saw the game. Mick Cronin and Steven Edge from Parramatta hadn’t been able to resist teasing him before the game. ‘They were all joking and laughing and saying, Don’t tackle me, and I won’t tackle you. Well, they’re going to get a fright.’

During the day of the first game, Tuesday, 8 July 1980, Beetson wore his trademark battered cloth cap. He’d take it off, place it on a young player’s head, and say, ‘Don’t let me down tonight.’ To a man they stood a little taller.

In the changing shed at Lang Park McAuliffe addressed the team. ‘The future of the game is in your hands. We have taken this bold step. If we are beaten we cannot retreat to any other position. We must win.’ Then he left the room. Beetson told his team how proud he was to be wearing the Queensland jersey. ‘If we stick together we can beat them. But we can’t have anyone bludging.’

By the time they got on the field, in front of 33,210 berserk Queensland fans, the only people not pumped up to eye-popping point were the NSW players.

Beetson’s team-mate Steve Edge told Wally Lewis’s biographer, Adrian McGregor, ‘It turned out to be World War III. I put my head in the first scrum and Arthur said hello.’ The method Beetson used for the greeting was a punch in the mouth. ‘I’m not playing with you now,’ he said to Edge, ‘I’m playing against you.’

Wally Lewis noted, ‘If somebody from his family was in the NSW side, I reckon he would have belted the shit out of them too.’

State of Origin’s first legendary incident comes from the first game, but weirdly, it’s actually a myth. It has been claimed for years that Beetson showed just how serious he was by belting his other Parramatta team-mate, Mick Cronin, playing for NSW. It never happened. ‘I came over the top [of Cronin] to smother the ball a couple of times, but I didn’t throw any punches,’ said Beetson. Cronin has confirmed Beetson’s memory.

Beetson was, however, right in the middle of the first big Origin scrap. Twenty minutes into the game Queensland halfback Greg Oliphant started trading punches with NSW second rower Graeme Wynn. Wally Lewis recalls, ‘He hit Wynn once, and they probably could have stopped the fight there and then, but he kept throwing them. I thought, How much can this bloke cop before he goes down? Wynn was a shot duck after that.’

Between the fights, some football broke out, and at the final whistle, thanks largely to a brilliant toe kicking performance by a big centre celebrating his twentieth birthday called Mel Meninga, who slotted seven out of seven, Queensland had won 20–10.

Since then State of Origin has become the biggest event in world league, eclipsing test matches and league’s World Cup. The audiences are bigger, the attention greater and, generally, the intensity and standard of play have been higher. In 1981 the second game was played at Suncorp Stadium. There was still uncertainty, especially in Sydney, about whether a series would work, so, after two old-style residency state games had been played, the deciding third game became a State of Origin clash.

The game, on 28 July at Lang Park, provided an unforgettable image in the way a try was scored just after halftime by Queensland centre Chris ‘Choppy’ Close. Colin Scott had been tackled by the giant NSW wing Eric Grothe near the tryline. ‘I fancied my chances to score,’ said Close, ‘but Grothe wouldn’t let him [Scott] go. I grabbed him by his hair and pulled his head back, but he still hung on. I then hit him with the biggest backhander I could muster, got the ball and scored.’

There have been so many great performances since 1980 it is hard to call one man the superstar of Origin, but Wally Lewis, the man they call The King, has a powerful claim to the title.

Statistics tell some of the story. He captained Queensland a record 29 times, won man of the match awards a record eight times and captained Queensland to victory in seven series.

But as well as the record it was the genius of his play that stood him apart and ahead of the field. A Sydney league writer, Peter Frilingos, summed up his talents like this:

If you like an attacking first five who moves with the power of a tank and the speed of a Porsche, Wally’s your man. If you like a skilful organizer who can pass the ball 40 metres and land a bomb on a postage stamp, Wally’s the one. If you want all of these qualities, plus a player who can tackle like a pile-driver, then Wally’s definitely your man.

Bobby Fulton said Lewis was a player who could sense and then organize a try no other man in the game would see. ‘He’s probably thinking a half a second ahead of anyone else on the field.’

When a Sydney newspaper in 2010 named the top 50 Origin players, Lewis was at No. 1. Former NSW captain Steve Mortimer reckoned the choice was correct. ‘His greatest asset was to not just read a game, but to set up the blokes outside him. He was a natural and very composed. I haven’t seen anyone better in Origin football.’

It’s a quirk of fate that Lewis is also associated with the most vivid image of Origin, a referee (David Manson) trying to separate Mark Geyer and Lewis at the Sydney Football Stadium in the second match of the 1991 series.

After the game Geyer was described by Queensland coach Graham Lowe as a lunatic. Geyer swears he was told by a NSW official before the game to ‘go out and get into them. So I followed instructions and I got a six-week suspension. To say I was bitter wouldn’t even begin to describe how I felt.’

Lewis says he thought one shot Geyer was aiming at the head of Maroons fullback Paul Hauff could have ended in a fatality. Lewis and Geyer were at each other’s throats time and again, the feral snarling and snapping reaching its peak just before halftime when, as referee Manson lectured Lewis and Ben Elias, Geyer marched into the conversation. Lewis and Geyer were literally prised apart by the ref, and then, as the teams headed for the shed, Lewis had to be held back from taking another shot at Geyer. It was like the staged hysteria on WWF, but this one was for real.

Oddly enough, the two made their lasting peace just a few weeks after the game. Geyer’s Penrith played Lewis’s Gold Coast in Queensland. ‘I went back to their league’s club and it was the first time we’d been in the same room since that night,’ Geyer told writer Neil Cadigan. ‘I looked around and here was Wally. He had a jug and two glasses and said, Mate, let’s go have a beer.’

Lewis said, ‘I can remember being filthy on what he did in the course of the game, but he had been given the green light by a NSWRL official to basically do anything because he wouldn’t be sent off.’

If there was anything to be said for the violent craziness that hadn’t so much as crept as leapt into Origin games, it was that the men in blue now took it as seriously as the men in maroon.

In 1985 NSW beat the Maroons 18–2 in Brisbane for the first southern series victory. Captain Steve Mortimer sunk to his knees at the end, clenching a pumping fist. This from a man so cool and controlled he didn’t blanch when he returned to his beloved Bulldogs club as CEO in 2002 to clean up after the debacle of the salary cap scandal. Emotion was no longer just a Queensland prerogative.

NSW won again in 1986. But in 1987 Queensland were back, with a new weapon in halfback Alan ‘Alfie’ Langer. Langer, at just 1.65 metres (5 ft 5 in), wasn’t tall, but he was always extraordinarily strong. When he was 15 his first job was moving furniture for a store in his home town of Ipswich. ‘You’d just see this washing machine moving along as if it was walking by itself,’ a workmate of the time recalled. ‘And then you’d see this mop of blond hair showing up just over the rim.’ With Langer tormenting the Blues, the Maroons won three consecutive series.

The start of the twenty-first century felt like a return to the ’70s for Queensland. NSW arrived in 2000 with a team which their captain Brad Fittler says was the best he ever played in. Maroons skipper Gordon Tallis was so frustrated in the first game he was ordered off for calling the referee, Bill Harrigan, a cheat. By the third match, in Sydney, in front of nearly 60,000 people, there was nothing but humiliation for Queensland. NSW won by a record margin, 56–16. ‘It’s the darkest day in Maroons history,’ said manager Chris Close.

From 2006, when Mel Meninga took charge as coach, it has been all one-way traffic, with Queensland reeling off six straight series wins. You’d think it’d make all the hurt go away, wouldn’t you?

Think again. Straight after 2011’s triumph, this is how coach Meninga expressed his pleasure in a Brisbane newspaper column.

‘What the Maroons achieved on Wednesday night was about more than a sixth straight series win, or a fitting farewell for a champion in our captain Darren Lockyer.

‘It was a victory against the very rats and filth that tried to poison a monumental team with lies, personal attacks, arrogance and disrespect.’

Meninga considered Queensland’s achievement over the past six years remarkable, and something not achieved before at State of Origin level.

‘But rather than be a cause for celebration, the Queensland team this year found itself the victim of a smear campaign so malicious and orchestrated that it tainted the entire code of rugby league.

‘And it came from the enemy within the game itself. They are the faceless men of influence who claim their agenda is to benefit the game. Really, their only agenda is to benefit themselves.’

According to Meninga, the detractors’ aim had been to ‘destroy a dynasty’. The attacks, he claimed, had come from ‘the sinister elements of a game that should be sheltering them. It was personal. It was malicious, and it was disgraceful.

‘I know the people who were behind it. I know their personal agendas. Some of them I had considered friends. I know I will never forget what they did.

‘They are the rats who, rather than celebrating a remarkable football