As Canterbury-Bankstown and St George Illawarra prepare for an NRL Round 20 showdown at Accor Stadium, Big League marks 40 years since the gripping 1985 grand final between the Bulldogs and Dragons.
St George carried an air of confidence into the 1985 grand final, powering to the minor premiership then sweeping to their first decider in six years with a comprehensive 17-6 major semi defeat of defending champion Canterbury.
Coached by mind games maestro Roy Masters, the Dragons’ success was built around a pack containing internationals Craig Young – the club’s 1979 premiership captain – Pat Jarvis and Graeme Wynn. Dual international Michael O’Connor and Steve ‘Slippery’ Morris provided class and strike out wide, while Dally M Rookie of the Year Steve Linnane, the season’s top tryscorer, added a new dimension at five-eighth.
The Bulldogs’ major semi defeat was compounded by an injury to brilliant pivot Terry Lamb, who would miss the rest of the campaign. But they had an able replacement in Michael Hagan, and Warren Ryan’s side regrouped to thrash Parramatta 26-0 in the preliminary final.
The Mortimer brothers – captain and halfback Steve, centre Chris and winger Peter – and Steve Folkes were remnants of the Canterbury ‘Entertainers’ premiership in 1980. The likes of engine-room trio Peter Kelly, Peter Tunks and Paul Langmack, tough centre Andrew Farrar and young fullback Mick Potter helped form the nucleus of Ryan’s ‘Dogs of War’ that grafted their way to the 1984 title with a dour 6-4 grand final defeat of the Eels.
The Bulldogs’ title defence had been overshadowed for most of the year by reported rifts and crisis meetings, which served to have a galvanising effect on the club.
“The controversies of this year have only made us try even harder for that ultimate satisfaction,” Steve Mortimer said in the lead-up to the grand final.
“The chance to have such a treasured memory has been the incentive to band together and the speculation about the so-called dramas at the club have only steeled us more.”
The Saints made the early running in front of 44,569 fans at the Sydney Cricket Ground with dangerous bursts from Wynn and O’Connor, but both would suffer head knocks that blunted their effectiveness thereafter.
The only points of a ferocious first half came just before the half-hour mark, when front-row duo Tunks and Kelly combined to send Peter Mortimer over. Farrar slotted the angled conversion to push the halftime score to 6-0.
The Bulldogs have the better of a tense second stanza but could not extend their lead, until Farrar took the opportunity to boot a 72nd-minute field goal for a crucial buffer.
A grinding slugfest lit up in the dying minutes after Morris produced a sensational kick-and-chase try from thin air and O’Connor’s sideline conversion cut the deficit further.
But the Bulldogs expertly closed out the latter stages, their 7-6 triumph representing the first one-point margin in a NSWRL grand final since 1955.
“We must be a bloody good side to beat a champion side like St George,” Steve Mortimer gushed post-match.
“To play a side like St George, it brings the best out in you and that’s the reason why we performed so superbly today.”
The triumph capped a banner year for the champion No.7, who earlier in 1985 led NSW to an emotional maiden Origin series victory. In 2008, ‘Turvey’ was awarded the retrospective Clive Churchill Medal as player of the grand final (Churchill passed away in August 1985 and the medal was struck in his honour the following season).
The match featured celebrated rugby league curiosities on both sides.
Twenty-one-year-old winger Matthew Callinan broke into the Canterbury side on the eve of the finals, scored three tries during the playoffs and collected a winner’s medal in only his third first-grade start – but he played just six more games in the top flight before fading into obscurity.
More famously, pint-sized hooker Chris Guider created extraordinary – and unrepeatable – history by playing in all three grand finals at the SCG. After starting in St George’s Under-23s victory over Parramatta and coming off bench in the reserve grade win against Canberra, Guider was used as a replacement in the premiership decider.
The wheels subsequently fell off for the Dragons. They missed the finals in 1986 and spent the rest of the decade in the doldrums. Masters departed at the end of 1987, the Bulldogs’ 1980 premiership-winning mentor Ted Glossop endured an inglorious one-season stay in 1988 and Young took over for an ill-fated stint in 1989.
Canterbury went within an ace of a premiership hat-trick – losing the 1986 grand final to Parramatta 4-2 – before the tempestuous relationship between coach and captain pre-empted Ryan’s exit in 1987. The Bulldogs matched the Eels’ 1980s tally of four titles when rookie coach Phil Gould steered them to grand final victory over Balmain in 1988.
