The IMMORTALS OF AUSTRALIAN RUGBY LEAGUE

By Liam Hauser

The Immortals concept has become an established part of the Australian rugby league scene. It honours a very select group of former players regarded as the game's elite. Since 1981, when four former Australian Test captains were inducted as rugby league's first Immortals, a further nine identities have been added to the prestigious group. These players weren't just high achievers and standout performers, but also influential identities who set a new benchmark and changed the way rugby league is played.The Immortals of Rugby League delves into the illustrious careers of the 13 individuals who have attained Immortal status. The book describes their attributes and characteristics, in addition to their achievements and accomplishments at club, state and international level. The glory, triumphs and heroics, mixed with setbacks, controversies and disappointments, reflect their unique standing in rugby league. With career statistics, personal details and a range of photographs included, readers can enjoy an array of information about rugby league's Immortals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Oct 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781925924855

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INTRODUCTION

Selecting all-time greats in any sport will always be a contentious undertaking, largely because it is impossible to objectively compare players from different eras. Changing rules and circumstances, as well as different roles, responsibilities and playing positions, cause all sorts of dilemmas and debate.

In Australian rugby league, the pinnacle for any individual player is to be named an ‘Immortal’ of the code, as this represents the cream of the crop. An established part of the fabric of rugby league in Australia, the Immortals originated in 1981 when a panel from Rugby League Week magazine selected the inaugural group of four ex-players. Former Test captains and illustrious achievers – Clive Churchill, Bob Fulton, Reg Gasnier and John Raper – formed the original quartet. Eligibility was restricted to those whom the judges had seen playing, meaning that players from before World War II were not considered.

... the pinnacle ... is to be named an ‘Immortal’ of the code ...

Eighteen years after the inaugural Immortals were inducted, Rugby League Week expanded the elite group with the addition of Graeme Langlands and Wally Lewis. Another four years passed before Arthur Beetson was added to the group, and then another nine years went by before Andrew Johns became the eighth Immortal. The selection of Johns differed from previous occasions, as the selection panel in 2012 included media personalities and other identities from outside Rugby League Week. Johns’ inclusion was also hotly debated following revelations several years earlier that drug, alcohol, lifestyle and health problems had plagued him during his career. However, it was made clear that candidates for the Immortals would be judged solely according to their playing career.

Following the demise of Rugby League Week in 2017, the Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) took over the responsibility of the Immortals concept before the next group of Immortals were inducted in 2018. The ARLC changed the format so that players from before World War II became eligible for selection. Three players from that era – ‘Dally’ Messenger, Frank Burge and Dave Brown – subsequently earned selection, in addition to two players from post–World War II: Norm Provan and Mal Meninga.

This book explores the careers of the 13 identities who have achieved Immortal status in rugby league, which has earned the moniker ‘the greatest game of all’. It gives an in-depth overview of their results and achievements, as well as an insight into what set the Immortals apart from other players and how they made such a special and lasting impact on rugby league.

Clockwise from top left: Bob Fulton, Mal Meninga and Wally Lewis.

Clive Churchill, pictured here in his Australian gear, has been rated by a number of sources as the greatest ever rugby league player. Prominent in the 1950s, Churchill was virtually guaranteed selection at fullback in the ARL Team of the Century, announced in 2008.

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Clive Churchill

Clive Churchill has repeatedly been known as ‘The Little Master’ and rated as being the greatest player in rugby league history.

Rugby League Week (1991) and The Daily Telegraph (2000) ranked Churchill number one in the list of the game’s so-called greatest players, and in 2008 he was named fullback in the Australian Rugby League (ARL) Team of the Century. In The Sydney Morning Herald , South Sydney committeeman Jack Purcell said that Churchill’s nickname came from ‘The Master’ himself: ‘Dally Messenger was with Clive at the SCG one day and they passed under the famous photograph of Dally that hung in the members bar. Dally pointed to the words The Master under his photograph and said, If I’m The Master, you’re The Little Master.’

Churchill was exceptionally gifted at what sounds like basic aspects: running, passing, kicking and tackling. But, moreover, he was ‘fast, elusive, tough, unpredictable’, as Collis and Whiticker commented in Rugby League: 100 years in pictures. Churchill stood out, as he went above and beyond what was expected of fullbacks. Rather than merely defend from the back or become involved in a kicking duel, Churchill was adventurous and creative. He could turn defence into offence and was adept at chiming into the backline. With his ability to step, swerve and throw dummies, Churchill was a constant threat when he had the ball. While he set up a lot of tries, he was also a strong and uncompromising defender as he played above his weight, and he saved plenty of tries.

In That’s Rugby League (McNeice and Collis, 1996), Churchill’s club teammate and one-time Test teammate Bernie Purcell commented: ‘He was a typical little man – a really cheeky little bugger on the field. I think it sums up all the great footballers, they’re seconds in front of other players on the field and in that time they can do untold damage … and he used to. He didn’t give two hoots if they were big men, front-row forwards or anything.’ Purcell said Churchill didn’t like kicking duels and ‘just couldn’t get the distance’ during one such duel with Newtown’s Gordon Clifford in a club match. Then the Souths fullback turned around and kicked towards the Ladies’ Stand. Purcell recounted: ‘I said, What did you do that for? And he said the people are out here to watch us play football, not to kick to one another. Anyway, he said, Don’t worry, we’ll score a try instead … we won the scrum, he came into the backline, gave it to [Ian] Moir and Moir raced 50 yards to score under the posts. He turned to me and said, Isn’t that better than kicking it to one another?

Churchill gets a kick away under pressure in difficult conditions during a rugby league contest in the 1950s.

‘That’s the sort of player he was.’

Veteran rugby league journalist Alan Clarkson, who went to secondary school with Churchill, reported in The Sydney Morning Herald in April 1985 when the league legend was fighting for his life: ‘I have been following rugby league for more years than I care to remember and of all the players I have seen, I rate Clive Churchill as No I.

‘There are no ifs and buts about that statement, no apologies to those who rank among the immortals of the game.

‘Whatever they were to the game, their class, skill and flair pale in comparison to Churchill’s.

‘He was a football magician who mesmerised Sydney and international opponents for more than a decade.

‘The real tragedy is that his incredible football exploits have never been really at any length on film. Present-day players and most rugby league followers probably believe people like me are exaggerating the marvellous and exciting feats of this man Churchill.

‘There is always the danger with legends that the years will embellish their record and put an aura around them they do not deserve. But whatever has ever been said about Clive Churchill is true.

‘He was, very simply, the greatest.’

Clarkson also echoed Bernie Purcell’s sentiment that Churchill was cheeky. Clarkson deemed that Churchill was no angel, as he ‘played the game as hard as he could’ and often gave ‘a bit more than he received. He lived his football life dangerously. Churchill rarely weighed more than 66kg yet hurled insults and raspberries at some of the biggest and toughest footballers of his era.’ At http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/churchill-clive-bernard-12317, Bede Nairn reported that Churchill’s ‘mercurial side-stepping, swerving and changing of pace were spiced with gibes and gestures at his opponents in the style later made famous by the boxer Muhammad Ali’.

Intriguingly, try-scoring was not among Churchill’s assets. He never scored a try in his 37 Tests for Australia, which is quite astonishing. Meanwhile, he crossed the stripe 13 times in his 164-game career for his beloved South Sydney Rabbitohs. He didn’t score a try for Souths from 1947 to 1950 before registering five tries in 1951, and in his last five years with the Rabbitohs he scored just three tries. While his lack of tries in no way diminished his worth as a player, it showed how different the fullback role was in his day compared with Billy Slater’s day. Yet it will always be Churchill – rather than Slater or any other fullbacks, including Graeme Langlands – who is credited with revolutionising the role of rugby league fullbacks.

Churchill excelled as a five-eighth at Marist Brothers Hamilton in his schoolboy playing days, and won a number of premierships while at school. Like a lot of other youngsters he took to the field barefooted, but he still kicked goals from all sorts of distances and angles. Clarkson remarked in The Sydney Morning Herald: ‘I remember going along to watch the school’s nine-stone representative team play the final and Churchill cut the opposition to ribbons. A week later he backed up in another final, this time for the eight-stone team and despite protests from the opposition, played and ripped them apart to chalk up another win and at the same time earmark himself as something very special as a footballer.’ Clarkson also recounted that Churchill was ‘the king of the school; a football genius even at 15’. With the sports master insistent that his players must never tackle above the knees, ‘Churchill developed his incredible tackling ability then and despite his lack of size, was one of the greatest front-on tacklers the game has seen’, Clarkson wrote.

Still in his teens, Churchill joined the Central club in the Newcastle competition. He started at five-eighth but found his feet at fullback after being urged to play there. The future of the Central club was in jeopardy due to the imminent formation of Lakes United, and so Central decided that winning the 1946 reserve grade competition would help their cause. Central consequently stacked the team with first graders, and Churchill lined up at fullback in the star-studded team that went on to win the decider 10-6 against Waratah/Mayfield.

After being promoted to first grade for Central in 1947, Churchill represented Country Seconds and quickly found himself playing for South Sydney, having greatly impressed Sydney talent scouts. Churchill played in the last two rounds of the 1947 New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) season, with the Rabbitohs losing 25-20 to Newtown and beating Norths 19-14. Having failed to win a game in 1946, Souths also missed the 1947 and 1948 play-offs, but Churchill stamped himself one of the best in the business as he became an established Test player. Souths won the 1949 minor premiership but St George proved too good in that year’s finals, beating Souths 16-12 in the first semi-final and 19-12 in the grand final.

Churchill and Great Britain’s Willie Horne prepare to lead their respective teams onto Headingley for the opening Test of the 1952 Kangaroo tour. Great Britain won the first two Tests before Australia saved face with a win in the dead rubber.

The start of the 1950s heralded a golden era for the Rabbitohs and for Churchill. He was the NSWRL player of the year three times in four years, and The Sun-Herald best and fairest on another occasion. Souths won all bar one premiership from 1950 to 1955, and was desperately unlucky not to win the 1952 decider as well. Churchill missed the 1952 and 1955 grand finals, having been on a Kangaroo tour on the former occasion and injured on the latter occasion. Despite captaining Australia and sometimes NSW from 1950 to 1955, Churchill did not skipper his club until his final year as a player in Sydney – 1958 – as Jack Rayner was the Rabbitohs’ captain-coach during the period of dominance.

In an early season match against St George at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) in 1953, Churchill scored one of the best ever individual tries after he made the extra man following a scrum around Souths’ quarter line. With a swerving run, sidestep and change of both direction and pace, Churchill beat multiple defenders before being hauled down five yards shy of the try line then having momentum carry him across for the try. Later in the game he was cautioned for rough play and, for the first time in his career, was sent off as he subsequently offended the linesman who reported him. In The Canberra Times, Churchill said he had told the linesman: ‘You want to keep your eyes open.’

The champion fullback showed his prowess in the 1954 decider, which was the first compulsory grand final in the NSWRL club competition after grand finals had only been played in previous years if the minor premier lost a semi-final or final. Churchill was involved in the opening try of the decider when he fielded the ball from a Newtown kick and linked with Ian Moir, who swerved brilliantly on his way to the try line. With the Rabbitohs clinging to a 12-10 lead in the final 10 minutes, Churchill played a pivotal role in two quick tries to Les Cowie to swing the game Souths’ way. Churchill chimed into the backline from the Souths side of halfway in the lead-up to Cowie’s first three-pointer. In the lead-up to the next try, Churchill performed his regular deed of producing clever footwork to leave defenders in his wake. Although he lost his footing while finding open space, Churchill produced a clever pass to set up the try.

Despite Churchill missing the 1955 decider, Souths would not have been in the position to push for a grand final berth, let alone win the premiership, without some magic from ‘The Little Master’. He gave no better example of living up to his nickname than he did in the penultimate round before the play-offs. The Rabbitohs had won only three of their first 10 matches of the season before winning six straight, but they still needed to topple the higher-placed Manly and St George to be able to reach the finals.

Churchill in action during a club match for the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

Churchill prepares to attack as he evades a defender during a premiership match in the 1950s.

Souths’ chances appeared shot when Churchill suffered a broken arm in the first six minutes against Manly. With replacements not allowed, Churchill braved intense pain as he played on. He received a painkilling injection at half-time, and bizarrely used cardboard for padding in the second half. Souths trailed by three points in the dying stages before a try in the corner levelled the score, but a draw would kill off the Rabbitohs’ finals chances. The injured Churchill stepped up to take the sideline conversion attempt, and although he appeared to miscue his kick, the ball dropped over the crossbar to seal a two-point victory.

Churchill was unable to play again all year, but the Rabbitohs incredibly stretched their winning streak to 11 matches to take out the premiership. Many of Souths’ wins involved overcoming a deficit in the second half, and Newtown lost a heart-stopping decider 12-11 when a tough and potentially match-winning penalty kick landed agonisingly beneath the crossbar as full-time loomed. Churchill’s heroics in the second last round