Fifty Years Ago - Round 20, 1971

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George Peterson's weekly look back at the 1971 NSWRFL season continues.

South Sydney responded to three recent losses, with a decisive 40 - 7 defeat of North Sydney in the first match of Round 20. It was, as Alan Clarkson wrote, still, a ‘bits and pieces' Souths team that was without the services of seven first graders including Bob McCarthy, Ray Branighan, Paul Sait and Gary Stevens.   

However, Clarkson wrote, "It was impossible to gauge the merit of the South Sydney performance because of the pathetic display by Norths. It was one of the worst displays of football I have seen. Their defence was a joke and only three or four of the Norths team can label themselves footballers if yesterday's effort is any guide. The rest would be hard pressed to get into a decent third grade team."  

In my 45 years of watching and reading about Rugby League, Clarkson's analysis of the Bears was the most crushing I'd read.  He went on to say "The club still has 32 players under contract, a legacy from the days of Roy Francis, and on yesterday's efforts in both first and reserve grades that's about 28 too many." The Rabbitohs solidified their 2nd place position on the competition ladder and Norths reinforced their hold on the Wooden Spoon. After 20 matches, the Bears have scored just 45 tries while conceding 85 and are yet to win away from North Sydney Oval.   

Sunday saw the largest crowd at Penrith Park, where almost 14,000 went to watch their Panthers tackle minor premier (elect) Manly.  A home win would keep alive their slim hopes of a semi-final but it was not to be. Manly (43) defeated Penrith (22) in a match described in the headlines as a thrashing.  However, despite the nine try ‘exhibition gallop' by the runaway competition leaders, a dislocated collarbone to their star centre Bob Fulton, dominated the write-ups.  The Sea Eagles two wingers were also "mentioned in dispatches".  Dennis Moritz scored 2 tries and kicked 8 from 8 to total 22 points while his partner Ken Irvine bagged 4 tries.   

Eastern Suburbs (32) defeated Parramatta (6), opening the door to both Canterbury and Penrith who started the week, just one win behind the Eels.  Penrith blew their chance, but Canterbury defeated Newtown to join Parramatta in equal 4th. Roosters fans (and Coach Don Furner, no doubt) had expected more from their team, who up until Mid-July had been in the battle for the semis before consecutive losses to Wests R17, Norths R18 and Canterbury R19, ended their season early. The surprise six tries to none win over Parramatta added salt to their wounds, knowing, as they did, that the win helped others but not themselves.  For Parramatta, the concussion and neck injury to star fullback Ken Thornett, just made a bad day worse. The Eels have two ‘away' matches left (vs Cronulla and then Wests) to complete the season and cannot afford to lose either.  Like Fulton at Manly, Thornett is vital to Parramatta's chances in the weeks ahead.   

Over at Belmore Oval, Canterbury (23) defeated Newtown (9) but only after referee Clive Edwards issued 9 cautions (7 to Newtown) in the first 5 minutes. Looking on from outside it seemed that Bluebags coach Harry Bath had given his team clear instructions to try and ruffle the feathers of the home team in the hope of distracting them from their football. It failed.  The ‘Berries' probably finished even in the ‘fight' but once that was over, they played strongly and ran in 5 tries to 1.  Bob Hagan's Canterbury were professional, leading 10 - 2 at halftime and racing away to 16 - 4 with two unconverted tries early in the 2nd half.  Ron Costello and Wayne Peckham scored two tries each and half Les Hutchings scored the 5th try for Canterbury, who were a happy group sitting in the sheds afterwards.   

Phil Wilkins, from the Herald went to Lidcombe Oval with around 7100 other fans and watched St George (15) defeat Wests (13) in a match that few would remember. Wilkins highlighted the work of a player we now know was a giant but like Clive Churchill was regularly the smallest player on the park, Billy Smith.  Smith kicked the winning penalty 5 minutes from time and earlier kicked a field goal, two penalties and was instrumental in ‘Saints' two tries.  According to Wilkins, "After the game, at Lidcombe Oval, Billy Smith said to his Test colleague Graeme Langlands, (who was) sitting disconsolately in "civvies" in the team's dressing-room: "Hurry up, Chang. Hurry up. It's getting hard out there." Even the best players cannot win every match on their own and luckily for St George, they had two greats in Billy Smith and Graeme Langlands. 
 
The last match saw the smallest crowd of 6,300 gather at Endeavour field for the match between Cronulla and Balmain. Both teams had long since given up their chances for the semi-finals.  Balmain (9) defeated Cronulla (7) and this quote from the Herald on the Monday after, says it all. "Balmain struggled to a 9-7 win over Cronulla-Sutherland at Endeavour Field yesterday in one of the season's most mediocre Rugby League games." 

Round 21 sees two matches on Saturday 21st and four on Sunday.  Parramatta and Canterbury, equal 4th on 22pts play Cronulla and Balmain respectively.