Legendary rugby league coach Jack Gibson pulled off some impressive feats across his 21-year coaching career and one of his greatest achievements came at the Roosters in 1975.
Gibson had already weaved his magic in the Eastern Suburbs during his first stint at the club in
1967 and returned again to lead the Roosters to the 1974 premiership.
“Between 1963 and 1966 the Roosters won just eight games in four seasons and in 1966, they didn’t win a game, they lost every single match,” club historian Alan Katzmann told
Big League.
“Then Jack arrived in 1967 and took them to the finals. In one season they went from the worst defence in the comp to the best defence and there wasn’t a huge change in personnel between 1966 and 1967. It was all Jack, he completely changed the club when he came in 1967.”
Gibson coached at St George and Newtown before returning to Bondi to lead a star-studded Roosters outfit to the ‘74 title.
His job in 1975 was made a whole lot tougher though following the introduction of a new competition rule.
“They introduced the 13-import rule after 1974. Essentially, you could only field 13 players from outside of your local area across the entire club,” Katzmann explained.
“We’d won the club championship in ‘74 but we had to get rid of 17 players from the club that summer.
“Jim Porter was the biggest name, he played in the grand final in ‘74. But the others who played mostly in reserve grade were the players that got called up whenever we had injuries.”
Gibson had no choice but to call upon players from the local park competition.
“There was a bloke called Bruce Ayshford who’d played first grade in 1969 and lower grades in 1970 and when he wasn’t going to go any further he went back and played PaddingtonColts for the next three years.”
“Suddenly, he was back playing for the Roosters and I remember thinking ‘how the hell are we going to compete?’”
Gibson chose to train all sides together in one squad that season, a tactic rarely seen before according to Katzman, and it had the desired effect.
“Before that, all the teams used to train separately. But for at least one or two sessions a week, everyone was in together and the players felt a lot more a part of the club.
“Because of that, not only did we compete with the rest of the competition, the Roosters won
19 matches in a row during the season and went on to win the first grade premiership.
“Plus, in what I think is one of Jack Gibson’s biggest achievements, we won the club championship again as well.”
