The NRL Round 13 schedule features a clash between South Sydney and the Warriors, and a showdown between Manly and Brisbane – the same fixtures that officially kicked off the NRL era in the opening round of 1998. Big League revisits that historic night.
After three years of unrest, bitter division, courtroom battles and chronic overspending – and separate competitions in 1997 – the warring ARL and Super League factions brokered peace under the National Rugby League banner. A 20-team, 24-round NRL premiership in 1998 was the hastily organised result.
Super League glamour club Auckland Warriors and ARL-loyal battlers South Sydney Rabbitohs had the honour of kicking off the NRL era at Ericsson Stadium on Friday, March 13.
“I’d just come back and we’d signed Tim Brasher, but we were clear underdogs,” Kiwi prop Terry Hermansson, who had returned to Souths in the off-season after three seasons with Sydney City, recalls for Big League.
“They had a big, strong forward pack – we couldn’t match them for size. But we just went in with spirit … if you hang in there for 80 minutes things can turn around in your favour. We knew we just had to absorb everything and be there at the end to give ourselves a chance.”
Against a team coached by New Zealand Test mentor Frank Endacott and containing 11 Kiwi reps in its starting line-up, South Island product Hermansson had extra impetus to put in a strong individual showing back on home soil.
“Those of us Kiwis that the Warriors hadn’t shown any interest in signing, it motivated us to play well against them – show them what they missed out on,” he says.
Hermansson’s ARL contract had also blackballed him from Kiwis selection for the previous two seasons.
Controversial Rabbitohs utility-back Julian O’Neill posted the first points of the NRL era via an early penalty goal, while underrated back-rower Darren Burns scored the competition’s maiden try as the Auckland crowd shuffled uncomfortably in their seats.
Solo tries to captain Stephen Kearney and five-eighth Gene Ngamu put the Warriors 18-12 in front, but champion Australian Test fullback Brasher sliced through off a deft pass from mercurial playmaker Darrell ‘Tricky’ Trindall to lock up the scoreboard in the 63rd minute.
The impasse was broken by an unlikely source with hooker and captain Sean Garlick’s darting break backed up by the hulking Hermansson, who streaked away untouched to score under the posts with five minutes to go for a 24-18 boilover.
“Front-rowers don’t get too many tries like that,” Hermansson beams.
“I’m grateful for the work that Sean Garlick did for me, stepping out of dummy-half and giving me a good inside ball. I had 20 metres of clear, open space and just pinned the ears back – pretty memorable to score the winning try.”
For the Warriors, the familiar fadeout was a harbinger of another season of jarring underachievement, winning just nine games and finishing 15th. The Rabbitohs, meanwhile, would chalk up just four more victories and land 18th.
The marquee encounter of the NRL’s opening night – and indeed Round 1 overall – was between Super League powerhouses Brisbane Broncos and ARL figureheads Manly Sea Eagles.
The Broncos won the 1997 Super League premiership and World Club Challenge in a canter, while the Sea Eagles’ third straight ARL grand final appearance had culminated in a heart-breaking last-second loss to Newcastle. A total of 17 internationals lined up in front of almost 40,000 fans at Brisbane’s ANZ Stadium.
The archrivals traded penalty goals for most of the first half, before Broncos centre Darren Smith crossed for the belated opening try to provide the hosts with an 8-6 lead at the break.
Brisbane busted the game open five minutes into the second stanza with a blistering 60-metre exhibition of trademark razzle dazzle. John Plath, Michael Hancock, Darren Lockyer, Gorden Tallis and Steve Renouf combined brilliantly to produce a try dripping with star-studded, adlib mastery finished off by skipper Allan Langer.
Veteran winger Hancock sealed a 22-6 result in the 69th minute with a typically barnstorming effort from close range.
The blockbuster was overshadowed by the performance of polarising, Super League-aligned referee Bill Harrigan, who caned the Sea Eagles 17-6 in the penalty count and sent off Geoff Toovey and John Hopoate for dissent in the dying stages.
Former referee Greg McCallum blamed “fallout” from the Super League war for tensions bubbling over between Harrigan and the Sea Eagles. Manly coach Bob Fulton was later fined $10,000 for allegedly abusing Harrigan post-match and labelling him ‘the biggest lair in rugby league’ in the Sunday Telegraph.
But the game was on the back pages for the traditional, football-related reasons again after the first tentative steps of on-field reconciliation in the wake of three years of turmoil.
“They were tough years, going through the Super League war,” Hermansson laments.
“It created a lot of emotion for all of us. Everyone said the players were the big winners – and financially they were – but I remember thinking I’d give all the money back for the competition we had prior to the war.
“It created a lot of lying, greed and bad feeling. In the end it gave players the money they deserved, but they were definitely tough times.”
