Just for The Greenhouse, this is an exclusive extract from Steve Mascord’s new book, “Two Tribes: The untold story of rugby league’s divided year and the birth of the NRL”. The Canberra Raiders headed to England for Super League’s World Club Challenge in 1997 and this is what happened.
Thanks to the author, the readers of The Greenhouse have access to a special discount when purchasing the book. Save $2.50 off the cover price at: www.stevemascord.com/product/twotribes and £1.99 off at www.shop.stevemascord.com/product/twotribes. The discount code is: greenhouse.
Laurie Daley says now that maybe a few players on both sides of the equator were on the lookout for a holiday. Canberra scored 136 points in their first two games but so lopsided was the competition that a single loss for a southern hemisphere side meant certain elimination.
That’s because under the rigged structure; the finals had to feature four sides from each league.
“We were lucky ... well I don’t know about lucky,” Daley says. “But we lost our first game so we were straight out of the tournament!
“So the following two weeks was a game of footy for us on the weekend, knowing we couldn’t make the semi-finals. So we treated it as a bit of a holiday, a couple of weeks’ away trip.”
London Broncos’ 38-18 win over the Raiders on July 21 is regarded as one of the highlights of that club’s entire history. “A lot of us were young enough to play in Australia but Super League split us all up,” says Josh White. “We were still ambitious and we still had fight in our legs and beating Canberra proved that we’ve still got it.”
London traffic made the Raiders very late to the Twickenham Stoop - and then things got worse. Daley and Woolford each admit the preparation wasn’t the best, even if they don’t recall some of the wilder stories kicking around at the time, like one player ‘surfing’ on the back of a black cab and another spending the night in a police lock-up.
Woolford says: “Mal was the coach and he liked a drink so we pretty much got straight off the plane and got on the beers for the next two or three days.”
Luke Davico, who seems to have been unofficial entertainment director for the trip, describes the first night as “crazy”. Daley recalls: “The first night we arrived ... we went out into Covent Garden or somewhere like that and a couple of boys got into a blue.
“I can’t remember who. We just went there, got on the drink and a bit of trouble happened. The boys got into a stink with someone.”
Davico: “Someone was on the back of a cab. Someone said (a player) had beaten a cabbie. We got out. Next thing there were police everywhere. The bobbies started pointing at us and I was like ‘go, go!’
“They grabbed us and the brought the taxi driver over to ID us. It’s the closest you get to being in a lineup! He looked at three of us and said ‘no, it wasn’t none of them’ and he said ‘you guys can go’.”
Of the game, Daley says: “We were stunned that they beat us but it was funny. We were disappointed but we weren’t that disappointed. Looking back now, we didn’t really treat it like a serious competition. You treated it like a competition ... if you had the opportunity now, you’d be saying ‘this would be pretty special’.
“It was just trying to give the English clubs something to look forward to from signing with Super League, you know? It was something extra. For us it wasn’t the comp we wanted to win. The comp we wanted to win was the Super League premiership. Once we lost and we knew we were out of it, we were just over there having a good time.”
Woolford adds: “Our leaders were real characters. Ricky (Stuart) and Laurie, they trained hard and they drank hard.”
North Queensland hooker Jason Death being sent home for performing a lewd party trick called The Helicopter was the same day the Raiders went to the Ashes Test at Headingley. Daley doesn’t recall the baggy green cap being stolen but does remember many drunken misadventures with the cricketers.
Davico says: “I went and got outfits for everyone. We got ladies singlet tops and wigs. You’ll see photos. We stormed the pitch as they won, then we got back into the sheds and celebrated with the Aussies. It was unbelievable.
“There was a whole heap of signed bats. One of the players said ‘you can take it, no worries at all’. I was geeing up saying it was Glenn McGrath’s bat and I walked out with it. The manager chased me out and grabbed it and said ‘Glenn McGrath did not give you that bat!’
“I think Michael Kasprowich’s cap might have gone missing but it wasn’t from any of us.
“We had Jason Croker sitting next to Shane Warne in the sheds, just going ‘well done guys’ and then I picked up someone’s bat and Toots (Croker) is blind and said ‘hit me across the head’ so I hit Toots across the forehead with this bat.
“And the cricketers are looking up going ‘what’s going on here?’ Toots is going ‘c’mon, hit me harder!’ so I just started hitting him across the forehead. He took his false tooth out and took Warney’s hand and put his false tooth in Warney’s hand and then stood up and said ‘c’mon hit me!’ so I’m smashing him across the head while Warney’s holding Tootsy’s false tooth!
“Out of control - and there’s so many of those!
“Then we went back to the hotel and we welcomed the Aussie cricketers back to the hotel.”
Daley: “I remember singing the song (John Williamson’s ‘Hey True Blue’) and they were using bat handles and poking holes in the roof, pushing the roof up. What some of the boys did was they gee-ed the security up to go and grab Mal like they were kicking him out, to the roar of the crowd. It was all good fun but Mal had no idea what was going on.
“What I do recall of that night was Mal ... we were getting pissed with the cricketers and a few of the boys thought they could tackle Mal. We were geeing Mal up, going ‘these blokes reckon they can give it to you’ and we were saying to the cricketers ‘you’ll bash him, he’s soft, he’s quite easy’
“So we had this comp where Mal had to run with a can of beer in his hand and he had to score a try at the other end of the room. There was a couple of the cricketers, it might have been the Waugh brothers and Michael Bevan, Slats (Michael Slater) or someone. I just remember a couple of them going into tackle Mal and Mal’s just dropped the hip and shoulder and ‘bang’ they’ve all gone flying off him and hit their heads and fell over and Mal’s just slammed the can down and goes ‘try!’ Hahaha.
“I remember waking up the next day and finding out Deathy was chucked on a plane.”
Woolford: “They reckon Steve Waugh had a crook shoulder for months after that. I think Jason Croker, he picked up Michael Bevan and threw him through the roof I think.
“I was wearing Steve Waugh’s baggy green back at the hotel for about an hour. I actually got a photo of Steve Waugh wearing my wig and him wearing my baggy green. I think it was Kasprowicz. I’m not even sure he got that (baggy green) back.
“In the dressing room afterwards was unbelievable. Luke Davico had a big fat lip, he had a big scab on his lip. He got knocked around the day before against Halifax. He lost a tooth. It went through his lip.
“He’s there in the motel and Shane Warne’s there with a smoke hanging out his mouth and Luke Davico just grabbed the smoke and had a drag of his smoke and gave it back.
“I remember Warney just looking at him, having a look at the lip ... he didn’t know what was wrong with the lip and he said ‘nah, nah mate. You can keep that’.
“I remember I tackled Luke at the bar and he’s knocked into (television journalist) Jim Wilson and Jim Wilson had a glass of wine and that went everywhere and he was filthy. He wanted someone else to buy him a glass of red wine.”
Davico: “I’ve still got video of Jim Wilson. Before we went over I said ‘this is gonna be the trip of a lifetime’. I bought a new video camera. The video camera got passed around like a cricket ball the day they won the Ashes.
“I vividly remember picking up the video camera the next day in the hallway and it was in bits and pieces. We salvaged the video and we’ve got some great footage. The footage there with Jim Wilson is hilarious. We kept going up to Jim going ‘Jim, give us a report of the Ashes!”
‘Statue” Davico remembers the Jim Wilson incident slightly differently to ‘Germ’ Woolford - but the prop has the footage to prove the accuracy of his version.
“There’s one bit where Jim is going ‘what a fantastic day in the Ashes - we shoved it up England’s ****’ and you can see Simon Woolford coming from behind. He cuts him in half, tackles him, and the glass of red flies everywhere and Jim and Simon are rolling around on the ground. He’s going ‘where’s my red! Get me another red!”
Two Tribes by Steve Mascord
It’s the most important year in rugby league history – but it’s one the game wants you to forget. In 1997 rugby had it’s second great schism, the advent of pay television in Australia enabling a dissatisfied faction within a booming Australian Rugby League to break away and form their own competition. When it was over, clubs disappeared, families were shattered and friendships ruined. Out of the ashes emerged the NRL, the biggest club competition of either code in the world. What was the ARL-Super League War about? Who won? What did we learn from it? Steve Mascord traces 15 months of recriminations, bitterness, passion and high farce with more than 100 interviews with all the leading lights from the year of Two Tribes.
Purchase a copy: http://stevemascord.com/product/twotribes/
Copyright: Steve Mascord
