News - AU Rugby
Brutal Reds-Waratahs clash fitting tribute to Queensland great
Greg Growden
March 30, 2016
At long last an encouraging sign in Australian rugby.
Eventually we had some reprieve from the financial woes gutting the Western Force, the internal fiasco that has turned the Brumbies into a hilarious Judge Judy saga and the scrummaging debacle that has seen the Waratahs disintegrate into the powder-puffs of the Super Rugby competition.
Yes, finally the Queensland Reds, for so long the basket case of the local 15-man game, is starting to regain its fight, fizzle and pop. And again we have a Waratahs-Reds encounter worth watching.
Maybe the Queensland revival had something to do with the sombre message on the Suncorp Stadium scoreboard last Sunday afternoon which announced that one of the state's most committed rugby administrators -- Norbert Byrne -- had died over Easter.
The current Reds players probably wouldn't know much about Byrne, as he was at his prime as the Queensland Rugby Union chairman before they were born -- between 1970 and 1988.
He was a special rugby character. I had countless animated discussions with Norbert over the years, as he relentlessly pushed the "poor old Queensland" cause. Norbert was entertaining, committed, knowledgeable and knew how to stress his case. Unlike some officials who take themselves far too seriously, Norbert had a good sense of humour.
His reputation lasts, as his enthusiasm for everything Queensland Rugby, alongside numerous other highly competent administrators north of the Tweed such as the Terry Doyle and Dick McGruther, was instrumental in turning Brisbane and beyond into an international rugby powerhouse. During that period, Queensland was a formidable rugby beast, persistent in their belief that they were mightier than everyone else.
That has dissolved in recent times, especially with the currently wayward Queensland Rugby Union fumbling the ball big time with their pig-headed belief that Richard Graham was a capable coach. Graham's time with the Reds was a calamity, prompting a mass exodus of leading players, a dramatic slump in home crowds, with what now remains at the province only a shell of what it once was.
The QRU hung onto Graham a season too long, but reality at least returned at Ballymore after a much needed change at the top of the administration tree, with Damien Frawley taking over from Rod McCall at chairman, and the coach was farewelled after two rounds of this year's Super Rugby competition.
© Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images
The caretaker coaches -- Nick Stiles and Matt O'Connor -- haven't been left with much, in particular having to make do with fly-half Jake McIntyre who has been catapulted into the limelight far too early. But they at least have generated a bit of belief among their players. That wasn't happening when Graham was around. It was Death Row stuff. Now the Reds are at least trying.
If they had used their brains against the Waratahs, they could easily have finished victors. They crushed an impotent NSW scrum, but elsewhere failed to take the advantage, letting the Waratahs get away with an unconvincing victory.
The Reds' level of on-field intelligence still has to improve markedly, but at least their traditional spirit is starting to come back. There was plenty of niggle, fire in the belly stuff, the occasional knee to an opponent's head, devastating tackles, edgy pushes and shoves to show that there remained some venom in this long interstate rivalry.
Pity Norbert wasn't there to see it because there were glimpses of the old NSW-Queensland battles, which for decades was the real highlight of the Australian season, certainly on a par with any Test encounter, including when the All Blacks were in town.
And why these interstate encounters were so special had a lot to do with how Queensland, its players and officials, approached it. It was for them "get square" time -- the moment when they could pay New South Wales back for treating them like second-class citizens for far too long. Basically Queensland treated this game as war.
© Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images
Queensland have never stopped believing that New South Wales had treated them badly, especially in the early 1960s when it cancelled an interstate game supposedly because the northerners were too weak.
The 1962 Australian Test team, which was dominated by New South Wales players, discovered how thin-skinned some Queensland officials were when in the lead up to the Brisbane Test against New Zealand they were barred from using several local training grounds and locked out of their Exhibition Grounds dressing room until an hour before kick off.
Years on, "Boo a Blue" became one of the QRU's most famous advertising slogans and interstate matches often turned into bloodbaths. The sledging between the two states in the lead up to an interstate match was standard for several decades, starting in the 1970s when Queensland coach Jim Kenny said of his NSW counterpart Dave Brockhoff that "he couldn't coach a choko vine over a dunny door".
Players got into it, with Queensland forward Chris Handy turning it into an art-form with such quotes as: "The only thing NSW can beat Queensland at is in the number of former chief executive officers, presidents, coaches and bankruptcies." To which NSW captain Simon Poidevin replied: "It was great touring with Queenslanders because it always ensured there were some terrific banjo players in the team."
Even in the 1990s, Reds captain Peter Slattery proclaimed after one interstate triumph: "It's great to be an Australian, but it's even greater to be a Queenslander."
For a long time, NSW could get back at Queensland via the seedy world of Australian rugby politics. For years, NSW held the power on the Australian Rugby Union board -- and they often used that to their advantage, especially after Australia's dreadful 1995 World Cup campaign in South Africa.
Wallabies coach Bob Dwyer was on the nose, and his successor was going to be Queensland coach John Connolly, long-time NSW coach Greg Smith or the new Waratahs coach Chris Hawkins. The undisputed favourite was Connolly.
© Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images
However, in an outdated system NSW had five of the 14 ARU votes. Queensland only had three, while each other state and territory had a vote each. Those two extra votes gave NSW enormous influence. As long as its delegates could get the support of several minor state delegates, NSW controlled the board.
As several of the minor state delegates were completely out of their depth, some not even knowing the candidates they were voting for, they were at the mercy of the lobbying skills of NSW and Queensland. Promises were made for votes.
John O'Neill, who was about to join the ARU as its new chief executive, provided some insights into the infamous coaching decision meeting in his biography It's Only a Game. He had been told before the meeting that Connolly was a "shoo-in" and that it was a "done deal"; but when it was announced that Smith had won the vote, "Pandemonium ensued," he wrote.
"Fists hammered on the table; there was a rush of noise; papers flew in the air. QRU chairman Dick McGruther could be heard above the din claiming treachery. His fellow Queensland delegates, John Breen and Norbert Byrne, were finger-pointing and the language was blue. [ARU president] Phil Harry called for order, and the three Queenslanders simply stormed out of the room. They eventually returned, still seething, while NSW delegates sat there with heads down and the hint of a smile playing at the corners of their mouths."
As expected, Smith was a Wallabies coaching flop.
The edge between New South Wales and Queensland had died off in recent times. So it was rousing -- when fists and knees were going in every direction last weekend -- to see that it still means something.
Vale Norbert Byrne. A tremendous man.
© Greg Growden
Brutal Reds-Waratahs clash fitting tribute to Queensland great
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