At the forefront of the game’s 1990s goalkicking revolution, Kiwi winger Daryl Halligan is still regarded as a sensei of the craft for today’s crop of NRL sharpshooters. ‘Chook’ took Big League through his fascinating career.
IT’S PRELIMINARY FINAL WEEKEND DARYL – DO YOU EVER TIRE OF THE REPLAY OF YOUR SIDELINE CONVERSION THAT SENT THE ’98 PRELIM AGAINST THE EELS INTO EXTRA-TIME… AND PETER STERLING CALLING YOU ‘A FREAK’?
You can’t get sick of watching that, it brings back a lot of really happy emotions. We’d had a massive comeback the week before against Newcastle, they were a red-hot team, so running Parramatta down didn’t seem so hard at the time.
YOU HUNG UP THE BOOTS 25 YEARS AGO, BUT YOU’RE STILL HEAVILY INVOLVED IN THE NRL AS A GOALKICKING COACH?
It’s a busy time of year, even though teams are bowing out. This week I’ve got Cronulla and Penrith [playing in the preliminary finals], they’re teams I look after. It’s ramped up a bit more, too, with the women’s game, I’ve got a couple of kicking sessions this week with the girls as well.
YOU’VE BEEN A GOALKICKING COACH FOR A LONG TIME – HAS IT EVOLVED MUCH, AS RUGBY LEAGUE COACHING IN GENERAL DOES? OR DO THE SAME PRINCIPLES APPLY AS WHEN YOU WERE A PLAYER?
It’s pretty old school, I suppose. But in terms of principles and work, there’s a lot more of the mental side of goalkicking these days – reinforcement of imagery, mapping, graphing kicks, graphing what you should do. And the technology that’s come in courtesy of video and analysts.
My first year in 1991, I kicked at 63 percent. If kickers get a hundred attempts a year, that’s a good way of analysing goalkicking instead of trying to analyse 20 or 30 kicks. This year Jamayne Isaako’s kicked 117 goals at 88 percent; Nathan Cleary had a patch where he didn’t kick goals but he’s sitting around that mark [from 87 attempts]. If you’re not averaging about 80 percent from a hundred attempts, I think your club’s looking for another goalkicker.
So the coaching techniques have changed … the detail is a lot more amplified as the game moves forward.
YOU TOUCHED ON YOUR ’91 PERCENTAGES THERE. HOW DID YOU IMPROVE TO A THEN-ALMOST UNHEARD OF 81 PERCENT IN 1992?
I came home at the end of ’91 and I knew things had to change. I’d kicked goals through my rugby union career as well and sat at about the same percentages. I mapped out a footprint for myself, which I replicated three times a week as a kicking session.
I made time and space to get that work done during the week, whether it was at the end of training or at the start before everyone got there.
MATTHEW RIDGE AND JOHN GALLAGHER SWITCHING CODES IN 1990 PUT YOU ON THE FRINGES OF ALL BLACKS SELECTION, BUT YOU DIDN’T GET THE CALL-UP – WAS THAT A SPUR FOR YOU TO HEAD TO LEAGUE?
Being open and frank, I missed out on an All Blacks team that was going to France [in 1990]. A couple of my good mates, [Waikato teammates] Rob and Steve Gordon got in. I had my opportunities that year, I played enough football and didn’t play well enough.
Then the opportunity to go to league arose. I actually had to run it by my old man at the time. He was like, ‘Yeah, on your way boy – you’ve run your race here’. It was a chance to head over and try something different and it worked out fantastically well.
YOUR FIRST SEASON WITH NORTH SYDNEY WAS A SPECTACULAR SUCCESS, BUT YOU HAD A BAD DAY WITH THE BOOT IN THE MAJOR SEMI AGAINST PENRITH…WAS THAT PARTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EXTRA WORK YOU PUT IN OVER THE FOLLOWING OFF-SEASON?
I realised I could no longer just rely on [practising] a couple of kicks here and there. I found out about the history of the Bears in ’91, and if I kicked some goals in that grand final qualifier it would have put them into their first grand final since [1943].
Then a few years later after the Super League debacle, they’re not even in the comp. I took a bag of balls with me at Christmas to Whitianga and kicked two or three times a week through January and February leading back into the pre-season.
WHAT WAS BEHIND THE MOVE TO CANTERBURY IN 1994, GIVEN YOU WERE STILL UNDER CONTRACT AT NORTHS?
Canterbury were minor premiers [in 1993] and bowed out in straight sets – they were looking for a goalkicker. I thought I had done the deal before I left to go on the Kiwis tour, but it dragged on a little bit.
[Bears coach] Peter Louis had told me I could go, but the Board didn’t really want to let me go. The clubs sorted it out by the time I got back. Peter wanted a winger who could run out of dummy-half and Jason Taylor was coming to the club to kick goals – I was on borrowed time there, basically.
IN LIGHT OF THAT, SCOOPING THE DALLY M WINGER OF THE YEAR AWARD MUST HAVE BEEN PARTICULARLY SATISFYING?
It was, but I nearly go dropped in ’94, courtesy of defence. [Bulldogs coach] Chris Anderson came up to me halfway through the year and said, ‘‘Chook’, I know you’re having a pretty good year, leading the pointscoring, but we go up and in at Canterbury and we stop the ball – we don’t slide’. He said he’d give me a month to start coming up and in.
I started making a couple of tackles and feeling more comfortable. I was never an absolute demon at it, but it made you feel better when you’d come up and stop plays, pick up a couple of intercepts.
AS A FULLBACK IN RUGBY UNION, DID YOU EVER PUSH FOR A GO IN THE NO.1 JERSEY IN LEAGUE? THE BEARS AND BULLDOGS BOTH HAD VACANCIES IN THAT SPOT AT TIMES…
I had a game at fullback for the Kiwis against Wigan in ’93 and I filled in, but not often. Initially I thought I’d come across and handle the fullback role, but I got shuffled onto the wing and pretty much stayed there – and I was fine with that.
I never had a really big step or the footwork or blistering pace of a Rod Silva, even Scotty Wilson, or Brett Mullins. I didn’t have the X-factor.
AFTER THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE ’94 GRAND FINAL LOSS TO CANBERRA, SALUTING IN ’95 AFTER AN INCREDIBLE FINALS RUN MUST HAVE BEEN EUPHORIC?
I look back at the grand final day against Manly and think, how come we defended so well? We’ve got Jason Williams on one wing, Matt Ryan and Jonny Timu in the centres, myself on the other flank and Rod Silva at fullback…we’re not all good defenders, so who’s making all the tackles?
In the grand final Manly scored four points from two penalty goals – we just had a really good buy-in defensively through that September.
YOU BROKE CLUB RECORDS AT NORTHS AND CANTERBURY, BECAME THE FIRST PLAYER IN PREMIERSHIP HISTORY TO SCORE 2,000 POINTS – HOW FOCUSED WERE YOU ON STATS AND RECORDS WHEN YOU PLAYED?
I was totally oblivious to it at the time, but I’m really proud [of it now] – a little bit of an acknowledgement to yourself, that I put a lot of work into actually kicking all those goals. Nothing comes without a really heavy workload.
It’s a bit bizarre, that someone jumped across the Tasman and scored more points than anyone else in the history of the game – but [records] don’t last for long.
LOOKING AT YOUR LAST THREE SEASONS (1998-2000), YOU KICKED AT OVER 85 PERCENT. THAT STACKS UP IN ANY ERA. HOW DID YOU MAINTAIN SUCH A GREAT RECORD WELL INTO YOUR THIRTIES?
Fear of Hazem El Masri taking over! But I think you should get better at stuff as you get older, especially an isolated skill like goalkicking. But they were special years.
THE KIWIS WERE FLUSH FOR WINGERS AND GOALKICKERS DURING THE 1990S, YET YOU STILL MANAGED 20 TESTS. ANY HIGHLIGHTS STAND OUT FROM YOUR INTERNATIONAL CAREER?
Obviously the [match-winning] field goal against Great Britain in ’92 was a big one. But the end-of-year tours with the Kiwis were real opportunities for the guys that had been across the Tasman to get together and really celebrate being Kiwis, that’s what I enjoyed.
One of my first Tests up in Papua New Guinea [in 1994], I desperately wanted to kick goals. Frank Endacott was coach and I said to him, ‘Oh, ‘Ridgey’ said he hasn’t been practising too much lately – I’ve already spoken to him about it and he’s happy for me to kick goals’. We’re up in Goroka and in the team meeting Frank says, ‘If we get a penalty early, ‘Chook’, just knock it over for us and get us in front’. Ridgey looks over at me like, ‘What’s going on here?!’ It was pretty funny.
If I was on the field, I wanted to be kicking the goals. It was probably a bit selfish, but sometimes if you’re not selfish, you don’t get ahead.
DATE OF BIRTH
25 July, 1966
CURRENT AGE
59
BIRTHPLACE
Waikato, New Zealand
POSITION
Winger
PLAYING HISTORY
1991-93: North Sydney Bears
1994-2000: Canterbury Bulldogs
REP FOOTBALL
1992-95, 1997-98: New Zealand
TOTAL MATCHES
250
TRIES | POINTS
88 | 2,248
