| Flashback to Balmain's 1969 11-2 grand final victory against
South Sydney.
Compiled by Matthew O'Neill. of rleague.com
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1969 Grand Final - Balmain 11 v South Sydney 2, SCG, September
20.
The 1969 Grand Final win by Balmain against South Sydney is
one of the most famous premiership wins ever seen and certainly
magic League moment. The game was considered one of the great
grand finals and the biggest upset grand final victory which
was played in front of 58,825 at the SCG on September 20, 1969.
When Balmain supporters took odds, of 7-2 with 7.5 points start
about the Tigers upsetting South Sydney in the 1969 grand final,
it. was regarded as sucker money for the bookies.
After all, Souths, under the coaching of Clive Churchill, looked
unstoppable in their bid to capture their third successive premiership
with a team of awesome potential.
There was forward power from the likes of Bob McCarthy, John
Sattler, Ron Coote and John O'Neill and attacking zip from Dennis
Pittard and Mike Cleary, who represented Australia as a sprinter
and as a Wallaby Rugby player, before winning international
League honours.
 Big Lurch O'Neill being tackled by Keith Outten in the 69 GF. Garry Leo in background
Souths also had a superboot in Erie Simms. So how on earth could
Balmain's battlers hope to match such a juggernaut, particularly
as their star forward Arthur Beetson was under suspension.
Balmain were a team of no names compared to South Sydney. Balmain
were coached by Leo Nosworthy, who was in his first season as
the Tigers coach. Balmain either had young inexperienced players
or players heading towards the end of their career.
To top it all off why Souths were over whelming favourites was
that Balmain's favourite son and "Golden Boots" Keith
Barnes retired at the end of the previous season.
The Top four for 1969 were South Sydney, Balmain, St George
and Manly. Manly beat St George 19-10 in the Minor Semi Final
seeing St George knocked out in John Raper's final game for
the Red and Whites. South Sydney pipped out Balmain 14-13 in
the Major Semi Final to go straight into the Grand Final. The
Preliminary Final was between Balmain and Manly to see who meets
South Sydney in the Grand Final. Balmain won the game 15-14
despite scoring only one try to Manly's two which of course
sets up the now famous and most recent premiership success for
the Balmain Tigers.
Balmain's victory was built on staunch defence which forced
elementary mistakes from Souths and grinded their opponents
to an unfashionable but one of the greatest premiership victories.
Things did not go Souths way during the game but that was their
own fault. Failing to kick the football on the final tackle
allowing Balmain replacement hooker 20 year old Paul Boulton
with only limited first grade experience to dominate in the
scrums.
Terry Parker, in a supreme twist of irony went on to be general
manager of South Sydney, admits frankly: "We had a ploy
to win. Whenever thev looked dangerous, one of us would hit
the deck. The idea was to stop them getting their momentum up,
and it worked. We had a tremendous air of'enthusiasm that year,
and the more people wrote us off, the happier we were. We just
kept hoping Souths would be complacent."
Well, the tackling Tigers certainly didn't regard Souths as
supermen in cardinal and myrtle jumpers. In fact, with the advantage
of the breeze, Balmain led 6-0 at halftime after Kilicen, the
South African who came to Balmain via England, booted two goals
and Bolton potted a field goal. Hustling and bustling as they
moved up quickly, the Tigers continually snul'fed out Souths
although Cleary was nearly in for a try and McCarthy was twice
recalled by referee Keith Page after receiving forward passes.
Frustrated by Balmain's eager beavers before a crowd of 58,825,
Souths began to make mistakes.
Youngsters like McTaggart, for whom the grand final victory
was a springboard to World Cup selection, and Walsh, a snowy-haired
youngster given his big chance when Beetson was suspended, kept
knocking over the Souths big men.
From one such error 15 minutes into the second half, Bolton
snapped up a dropped ball and made a brilliant dash to the blind
side where he tossed the ball to Parker, a player with startling
acceleration who scored 10 tries for the Tigers that year.
Terry Parker recalls: "Three guys came at me, but I managed
to hold the ball up long enough to slip it to Sid Williams."
Williams, who had come on as a replacement for Ruebner, juggled
the ball momentarily and then dived over for a try that gave
Balmain a lead of 9-0.
Souths hit back with a goal by Simms, but the longer play went,
with the Balmain fibp-artists adding further frustration, the
less likely they appeared to break the black and gold defensive
blanket.
Balmain was so magnificantly able to exploit and waste much
time by feigning injury in posession of the football, causing
time to be delayed. The Daily Mirror's Peter Frilingos seemingly
at times waging a lone campaign for the League to do something
about this blot on the game, the rules were later changed so
a team mate can take the ball from an injured colleague and
play it five metres away.
Frilingos, the Daily Mirror's chief Rugby League writer, said
in a 1987 Big League magazine: "With a nothing to lose
attitude, it was tackle, tackle, tackle as Balmain caused arguably
the biggest upset ever made in a major League match. Forget
all the flops when guys went down feigning injury. Balmain fully
deserved to win. There was nothing illegal about what Balmain
did. They simply were exploiting a loophole in the rules which
existed until this year."
So, although Souths' skipper John Sattler complained to Page
on several occasions regarding the number of stoppages, there
was nothing the referee could do. Balmain perfected the injury
in the play the ball as well as Canterbury captain Steve Mortimer
farewelling the the old in-goal catching the ball rule in the
1985 grand final against St George, ensuring Glen Burgess never
forgot what a bomb was.
The 1969 premiership was Balmain's first premiership since 1947
and also proved to be their last premiership triumpj. Captain
Peter Provan played his last of his 159 games in his nine seasons
for Balmain that day. Unfortunately the victory came a year
too late for Keith Barnes who played in the losing 1964 and
1966 grand finals and retired at the end of 1968. The win was
all the more meritorious after Balmain lost key players Dennis
Tutty, Laurie Moraschi and Peter Jones during disputes over
money at the start of the season.
BALMAIN 11
Tries: S. Williams.
Goals: L. Killeen 2.
Field-Goals: D. Bolton 2.
Team: R. Smithies, G. Reubner, A. Fitzgibbon, T. Parker, L.
Killeen, K. Outten, D. Bolton, P. Provan [c], J. Walsh, J. Spencer,
B. McTaggart, P. Boulton, G. Leo. Res: S. Williams.
Defeated
SOUTH SYDNEY 2.
Goals: E. Simms.
Team: E. Simms, M. Cleary, R. Honan, K. Burke, B. James, D.
Pittard, R. Grant, R. Coote, R. Moses, B. McCarthy, J. O'Neill,
E. Walters, J. Sattler. Res: P. Sait.
Note: In 1969, Tries were worth 3 points, Goals 2 points and
Field-Goals 2 points.
Certainly a magic moment and one I had great joy looking back
up on. Most definately fairytale premiership success for the
Balmain club as South Sydney were enjoying their last golden
era when they won four out of five premierships between 1967-71.
Resources:
Information on Balmain's premiership success comes courtesy
of "The History of NSWRL Finals" By Steve Hadden 1991
and "Big League Magazine, 1987".
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