Hammerhead
Grey Nurse
Interesting that this article was written almost 20 years ago.... seems like yesterday. Not much has really changed. Gives a good perspective on the Sharks and their history tho.
Sport
CRONULLA: NO LONGER LEAGUE'S MINNOWS
Paul Tait
1828 words
26 August 1988
Sydney Morning Herald
Sport
CRONULLA: NO LONGER LEAGUE'S MINNOWS
Paul Tait
1828 words
26 August 1988
Sydney Morning Herald
PAUL TAIT looks at how the Sharks have overcome adversity in their charge towards this year's Rugby League premiership.
Former Cronulla coach Jack Gibson once said that waiting for Cronulla to win a grand final was like leaving the porch light on for Harold Holt.
The 1988 Cronulla Rugby League side could be about to prove Gibson wrong for one of the few times in his career.
The Sharks - who entered the Sydney premiership in the same year the former Prime Minister disappeared - celebrated their 21st birthday this season by winning the minor premiership for the first time in their short but eventful history.
The club's coming of age has been as difficult as any journey from infancy to maturity. In Cronulla's case that journey has been liberally scattered with problems, most of them financial, and occasional successes.
For such a young club they have done remarkably well. Although they had never won a minor premiership before, Cronulla appeared in grand finals in 1973 and 1978, losing both times to Manly.
Halfback Barry Russell's 1988 Rothmans Medal win brought the club's tally of medals to four. Previous winners were Terry Hughes in 1968, Ken Maddison in 1973 and Steve Rogers in 1975.
Some memorable Cronulla players have served Australia with distinction over the years.
Leading that field is Rogers. A local junior, he is still referred to as"God" in the Sutherland Shire, even though he went to St George in 1983 in search of a premiership.
Another local to graduate from the Sharks to the national side was long-serving captain Greg Pierce. He was there at the beginning as a player in 1967 and coached the side in 1981-82.
Pierce is still co-holder of the record for the most appearances for the club. He and Fred Dennehy played 228 games.
Cronulla's Australian representatives include Maddison, Ken Turner, Steve Kneen and David Waite. The current side boasts three Test players -centres Andrew Ettingshausen and Mark McGaw and second-rower Gavin Miller.
Despite such a sound pedigree, Cronulla's success in 1988 has surprised many judges. The simple and most immediate reason for their improvement this year is that they have so far been able to avoid the injuries that decimated their playing strength in the previous two years.
Cronulla finished only eighth in 1987, with virtually the same playing staff that has been so effective this season.
"The reason we've been so successful this year is the fact that we've been able to consistently put the same team on the paddock each week," said Miller, who rejoined the Sharks last year after four years away.
"This year we haven't been struck with the severity of injuries that we have in the past. The side hasn't been disrupted and we've been able to put the same 17 or 20 players together each week."
Miller left the club at the end of 1983 after captaining the side that season, which remains one of darkest in the club's history.
Cronulla were almost cut from the League because of severe financial troubles which saw the players have to accept only half of their payments. Earlier in the year Miller had been appointed the players' representative and led a mini-revolt before some of their money was forthcoming. Some people saw him as the club's Sir Galahad; others regarded him as the Black Knight.
Miller was discarded at the end of that year. The only reason he returned last year was that Gibson was the coach.
"Jack asked me to come back because of the player crisis at the club through injury," Miller said. He and Gibson are now regular golfing partners.
Many see Gibson's appointment in 1985 as a turning point in the club's fortunes. He and his retinue of coaching assistants brought a modern outlook to the game as well as advancing Cronulla's aim of developing junior players in the vast Sutherland Shire catchment area.
Most of Gibson's coaching staff remains, headed by co-ordinator and long-time friend Ron Massey. The appointment this year of Alan Fitzgibbon, a man schooled in the Gibson style of coaching, can be seen as another important stage in Cronulla's development into one of the most progressive and effective sides of the late-1980s.
It should not be inferred that Fitzgibbon is a Gibson puppet. Gibson maintains that Fitzgibbon was a very good coach "a long time before he got to this joint".
Still, Gibson's professionalism and mere presence at the club for three vital years were enough to inspire and educate the ailing Sharks.
"I'm sure Alan has appreciated the education Jack was able to provide, just like all the players have," Miller said.
Arriving at a troubled time, Gibson lifted the Sharks on and off the field in a way few coaches or administrators would have been able to do.
"Greg Pierce was successful in coaching us into the semi-finals in 1981, but from that point it was certainly downhill in regard to stability off the field," Miller said. "Indirectly that had some effect on the field."
According to Miller, Gibson had a lot to do with reversing the downward spiral of Cronulla's finances.
"Jack has always had the ability to attract healthy sponsors," Miller said
During the ructions of 1983 the committee resigned and the NSW Rugby League's Bob Abbott was appointed as an administrator. A local official at the time, he had been a prime mover behind Cronulla's inclusion in the 1967 premiership and is now general manager of the Australian Rugby League.
Cronulla had gone through similar financial difficulties in the mid-1970s after the collapse of one of their sponsors. It took a man of similar standing to lead the Sharks back on the path of profitability and premiership success.
That man was Norm Provan.
"When Norm came in there was a complete downer in the area," Abbott said. "We had difficulty meeting our commitments, keeping the players we wanted and gaining sponsorships.
"Norm had to pick that up and put it together again. He had a tremendous effect as a coach."
After the Sharks finished sixth in 1977, Provan coached them to the grand final against Manly the next year.
The 1978 grand final will be remembered for many reasons, not the least being that it was one of the fiercest finals matches ever played at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Cronulla went into the game without captain Pierce and prop Dane Sorensen, who had both been suspended. After a week of frantic legal activity Cronulla eventually decided to drop their appeal against Pierce's suspension. Provan's Sharks managed to keep Manly to a draw after extra time but lost the replay two days later.
Abbott was instrumental in another significant stage in the growth of the Sharks: the acquisition of Englishmen Cliff Watson and Tommy Bishop in 1970.
"The football club committee decided we were looking for personalities, because we could only get attention when we started to win matches," Abbott said. "We had our own ground and we had a future, but we needed top players with experience to develop our younger players."
Cronulla approached journalist Ernie Christensen, who was able to use his contacts in England to arrange an introduction to Watson and Bishop.
"It worked out to be a wonderful combination," Abbott said. "They were able to teach our backs and forwards all the ball skills and the little tricks of the English game."
With Bishop as captain-coach, Cronulla reached the grand final in 1973, only to lose 10-7 to Manly.
While often adventurous, not all of the club's initiatives have been as successful as the acquisition of Bishop and Watson.
During another round of money problems in 1986, Cronulla almost became the first team in the League to be privately owned.
Dr Geoffrey Edelsten's $2.5 million bid to buy the Sharks as an anniversary present for his wife, Leanne, proved premature and ill-advised. The bid was widely greeted with derision and almost backfired on the club, with speculation that it would be expelled from the League.
Fortunately, Edelsten's bid was unsuccessful and the Sharks lived to fight again.
Cronulla became accustomed to fighting from their earliest days in the premiership.
Their first home ground was Sutherland Oval; their first clubhouse was a converted residence next door to the RSL club in Banksia St, Caringbah.
Monty Porter, a long-serving member of the great St George side which won 11 consecutive premierships, was Cronulla's first captain. The first coach was another former St George great, Ken Kearney.
Porter remembers his early days at Cronulla with affection, particularly those first games at Sutherland Oval, where the dressing sheds had slatted wooden floors.
"Have you ever been in a shearing shed? The kids used to wait underneath while we were getting changed, because if you hung your trousers up the wrong way all the coins would fall out of the pockets," Porter said.
"We won three games that year and we treated them all like grand finals. We celebrated after each one as if we'd won the grand final."
Porter went on to become a member of the NSWRL board and was president of Cronulla for 4 1/2 years, taking up the position at the height of the club's troubles in 1983. He decided not to stand again for the post at the start of this season.
He believes many of the club's recurring cash crises stem from the fact that Cronulla is the only club in the League to own its own ground. The Sharks took up residence at Endeavour Field (now Caltex Field) in 1968.
Although owning a ground has advantages in fostering loyalty and building an identity for the club and its players, it also means servicing a $500,000 debt each year.
But the battles and shoestring budgets of the past 21 years have had a positive effect on the club in terms of loyalty and spirit. Such spirit almost inevitably breeds success, which is why no-one in the Cronulla area is surprised by the side's change of fortune this year.
"It goes all the way down the line," Miller said. "It's not just those in first grade, because we don't dissociate ourselves from the players in the rest of the club.
"Success breeds spirit and we have been successful this year. The reality is that we've got to continue on a roll."
The next phase of that roll is Sunday's major semi-final against Canterbury. A win would provide Cronulla with their third grand final appearance.
"We've had a few bumpy rides on the way," Porter said. "I just hope we can win it this time."
