Thirty years on from their last post-season encounter, Canberra Raiders and Brisbane Broncos are preparing for a qualifying final blockbuster this Sunday. Big League revisits the 1990s glamour clubs’ showdown in the inaugural eight-team finals series.
Super League figureheads Canberra and Brisbane headed into their Suncorp Stadium confrontation in the opening week of the 1995 finals series having won five of the previous six premierships between them.
Though a highly anticipated grand final face-off had not eventuated, the star-studded clubs had previously met in two finals matches. The Raiders romped to a 32-4 win in the 1990 preliminary final before securing back-to-back titles, while the Broncos prevailed 30-12 in the minor semi on the way to a second straight grand final triumph in 1993.
Both starting line-ups in this second-versus-third encounter contained just one player who had not represented at Origin or Test level: Raiders second-rower Brett Hetherington and Broncos counterpart Alan Cann.
Mouth-watering individual match-ups abounded: Ricky Stuart and Laurie Daley versus Allan Langer and Kevin Walters in the halves; the sibling duel at hooker between Steve and Kerrod Walters; ex-Raider Glenn Lazarus and Gavin Allen taking on Canberra’s Kiwi enforcers Quentin Pongia and John Lomax in the front-row; Brisbane’s Test wingers Willie Carne and Michael Hancock lining up against long-striding duo Ken Nagas and Noa Nadruku; and Steve Renouf and Ruben Wiki squaring off in the centres.
Defending champions the Raiders carried bragging rights into the clash after a 26-0 rout of the Broncos at Bruce Stadium in April, best remembered for greyhound fullback Brett Mullins’ double-kick-and-regather try.
But it was the Broncos who got off to a qualifying final flyer. Renouf climbed high to grab a Langer bomb and slipped a brilliant offload back to ‘Alfie’, who scampered over for first points in just the third minute.
Brisbane’s defence rebuffed several dangerous surges, but Canberra grabbed a 7-6 halftime lead after Steve Walters burrowed over from dummy-half in the 34th minute and Stuart slotted a field goal a minute out from the break.
The Raiders took a stranglehold on a preliminary final berth in the early stages of the second stanza following a kick-return break from Mullins. On the next play, Daley held up a short ball for incomparable lock Bradley Clyde, who stormed through a gap and outlasted the cover defence for a 50-metre try.
Langer’s exit with a quad injury soon afterwards – pitching an 18-year-old Darren Lockyer into the high-intensity action in just his 10th first-grade game – thwarted the Broncos’ ability to find a response.
The remainder of the match was a fascinating battle governed by herculean defence. Julian O’Neill’s penalty goal trimmed the deficit to five points, while another Stuart field goal at the hour mark provided a buffer of a converted try.
The Broncos gallantly hung in the contest but the Raiders clinically closed out a 14-8 victory in arguably the match of the year.
“Honestly, they don’t come any harder, or faster, than that,” victorious Steve Walters said post-match.
“I might be biased, I suppose, but I don’t think there are too many better games to watch than when Canberra play the Broncos.”
Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett was full of praise for his beaten-but-not-bowed charges.
“I’d have to say that’s the best I have ever felt after a loss…ever,” Bennett said.
“All the experienced guys told me it was one of the quickest games they’d ever played, and some of the youngsters just couldn’t believe the pace.”
The sixth-placed Bulldogs bundled the Broncos and Raiders out of the finals over the following two weekends on their way to the unlikeliest of premiership triumphs.
Meanwhile, the grand final between the two titans of the era never materialised. The Broncos would claim four titles in the next six seasons, but the Green Machine’s golden era line-up gradually disintegrated and the club did not feature in a decider again until 2019.
