Bobby Bugden thought it was Christmas. Bob was our halfback and a champion beach sprinter, and his pace off the mark was ideal as a support runner off Bath’s close work. Both Harry and Killer had changed the way the ball was handled. The standard pass, direct from hand to hand at a comfortable distance, gave way to a popped pass, a loopy ball that seemed to hang in the air and allowed support runners to line it up. Bath always seemed to pop that pass into a hole, and we all made merry.
Harry stayed for three seasons before he retired at 35 and started life as a top coach. We won all of those premierships and in his last year, when we went through the season undefeated and beat Manly in the grand final, we were simply untouchable. That 1959 side brought in Reg Gasnier and John Raper, and another young goer in John Riley, and Bath had been there long enough to have had his ways well and truly entrenched in the sort of football we all played.
I was a running second rower, but we all learned to look for ways of creating space and using supports. Reg Gasnier, nineteen and straight up from President’s Cup, was an instant sensation, and I could see great profit in linking with him whenever I could make a half break. Over the years we did a lot of that, with Gaz screaming for the ball as I angled my run and he came from the clouds at pace. Killer and Harry had a bit to do with all of that. They had learned lessons in England that complemented the discipline and the fitness and put us well ahead of the pack.
The 1959 grand final, in which Saints beat Manly 20–0, was the last game Harry Bath played in a long and distinguished career. It was somewhat ironic that he didn’t last the game, sent off in company with Rex Mossop nine minutes from the end after a fierce personal battle that seemed to go on forever. The pair had brought a strong rivalry with them from their English club football days, and Darcy Lawler had had enough by the time their team-mates had pulled them apart at the end of the 1959 grand final.
It has been said of Harry Bath that he was the best forward never to play for Australia, and I will endorse that. He played for NSW against England in 1946 only to be ruled out of the Test matches with injury, and he went off to England a season before the 1948 Kangaroos were picked. Even then, in his twilight years with us, I reckon he should have been chosen against England in 1958, and certainly for the Kangaroo tour of 1959. He was left out probably for political reasons, because he had played in England for so long. It was a consolation, I suppose, that within a couple of years of retiring he was appointed Australian coach.
My opinion of Harry Bath as a footballer is pretty straightforward. He was the best forward I ever played with. I know that is a big statement when you consider that I played a lot of years with Johnny Raper and some other pretty outstanding players. Raper had strengths that nobody else had, and he has always deserved his ranking as an Immortal. But for sheer influence on the game . . . for the impact he had on all the people around him and for the knowledge that kept pouring out of him, Harry Bath was a marvel.
Norm Provan, 1958 vintage, about to demolish a Balmain attack. Courtesy of Rugby League Week
Norm Provan is all aggression in a club match against North Sydney.
Arthur Summons on the move against England in 1962. He led them to victory in the final Test. Courtesy of Arthur Summons
The Wests grand final team of 1963. So near and yet so far. Courtesy of Arthur Summons
Back row: John Hayes, Jack Gibson, Kel O’Shea, Dennis Meaney, Noel Kelly, John Mowbray. Front row: Kevin Smyth, Peter Dimond, Gil McDougall, Arthur Summons (captain), Bob McGuiness, Don Malone, Don Parish. Ball boy: John Beaver
Darcy Lawler takes the field ahead of Kel O’Shea and Norm Provan at the start of an epic grand final between Saints and Wests at Sydney Cricket Ground.
It was an age when mud was a part of every season, especially at the SCG. Arthur Summons and John Raper combine to bring down New Zealand hooker Jack Butterfield in a Sydney Test. Courtesy of Rugby League Week
John O’Gready and his trusty camera—an artist who gave Rugby League an enduring symbol.
Sculptor Alan Ingham at work in his Sydney studio as the original Winfield Cup takes shape. Photo: David George
The moulds are crafted as the work is painstakingly progressed. Photo: David George
Great icons begin with small steps. The stick figures were the sculptor’s early guide as work began. Photo: David George
The original Winfield Cup on show, with satisfaction all round from photographer John O’Gready (left), sculptor Alan Ingham, Winfield executive Maurie Brien and Arthur Summons. Courtesy of Arthur Summons
Tina Turner presents the Winfield Cup to Brisbane captain Alfie Langer after the 1993 grand final win over St George. Photo: Newspix
Melbourne Storm champions Cameron Smith and Greg Inglis with NRL CEO David Gallop, Norm Provan and Arthur Summons at the 2008 launch of Rugby League’s centenary season at Birchgrove Oval in Sydney. Photo: Newspix
Norm Provan and Arthur Summons replicate the image of another time for a centenary season TV commercial at Leichhardt Oval in 2008. Photo: Newspix
Already a tough guy . . . Norm Provan shows off his physique as an athletic three-year-old, circa 1934. Courtesy of Norm Provan
The Provan brothers (from left) Ian, Donald, Norm, Rupert and Peter. Courtesy of Norm Provan
Norm Provan at the start of it all—a young man on the way to greatness. Courtesy of Rugby League Week
Norm Provan is the knockabout boss at a Norm Provan Discounts Christmas party in the 1970s. Courtesy of Norm Provan
Arthur Summons at four years old. The nose is still straight, and the world is his oyster. Courtesy of Arthur Summons
Arthur Summons (holding football) with his Homebush High School First XV in 1952. Courtesy of Arthur Summons
The Gordon Rugby Union premiership team of 1956 boasted eight Wallabies. Arthur Summons (seated far right front row) was one of them. Courtesy of Arthur Summons
In December 1956, 21-year-old Arthur Summons tied the knot with his wife of 56 years, Pam Laidlaw. Courtesy of Arthur Summons
Ken ‘Killer’ Kearney was the man who set St George on the road to glory . . . a hard and uncompromising hooker who had to fight for his success at every scrum.
Melbourne’s Cameron Smith is a champion of the modern game, a classic example of how the hooker’s role has evolved into a collection of silken skills in the fashion of the modern playmaker. Photo: Newspix
Norm Provan gets the medical once-over. Many teams of the era were lucky to have much medical assistance at all. Courtesy of Rugby League Week
Captain–coach was a role in which Norm Provan thrived. Here he lays down the law to his team of champions at training.
NSW Rugby League secretary Harold Matthews wishes Kangaroo captain Arthur Summons good luck as the team departs Mascot at the start of their 1963–64 tour. Courtesy of Rugby League Week
The 1963–64 Kangaroos, who became the first team to bring back the Ashes from England, and who remain one of the greatest teams of all time. Courtesy of Arthur Summons Back row: John Gleeson, Barry Rushworth, Jim Lisle, Graeme Langlands, Paul Quinn, Graham Wilson, Peter Dimond, Les Johns. Middle row: Frank Stanton, Johnny Raper, Michael Cleary, Dick Thornett, Peter Gallagher, Kevin Ryan, Ken Thornett, Brian Hambly, Kevin Smyth, Reg Gasnier, Noel Kelly. Front row: Arthur Sparks (manager), Ken Day, John Cleary, Ian Walsh (vice-captain), Arthur Summons (captain–coach), Ken Irvine, Barry Muir, Earl Harrison, Jack Lynch (manager).
Arthur and Pam Summons with Norm Provan and Dave Emanuel, another champion second-rower of Arthur’s Rugby days and a lifelong friend. Courtesy of Arthur Summons
Norm Provan, Arthur Summons and the original trophy that brought them enduring fame. Courtesy of Arthur Summons
Norm Provan poses with the painting that hangs in his living room—a masterful representation of John O’Gready’s original photograph. Courtesy of Norm Provan
Arthur Summons and Brian Clinton’s painting, a dominant feature of his Wagga lounge room. Courtesy of Arthur Summons
15
MAGPIES AND MILLIONAIRES
THE WESTERN SUBURBS MAGPIES of 1960 were a club on the rise. Under the aggressive management of their exuberant secretary, Lou Moses, they had rounded up a bunch of superstars for a serious assault on the premiership. Internationals Kel O’Shea and Harry Wells came first, along with the South Sydney flyer Ian Moir, and later on Queensland’s volatile hooker Noel Kelly. Such committed team-building earned Wests the tag ‘The Millionaires’. They were the first club to offer signing-on fees of 1000 pounds to their international recruits. Into this environment came Arthur Summons, signed up in 1960 as a Rugby international. Wests’ hopes for him were modest, welcoming him in their annual report of that year with the hope that ‘this boy will fit into our side and that he will be a huge success’. For his part, Summons was a nervous recruit, unsure of his capacity to handle a new game and a new environment. It was the tentative beginning of a rich career.
ARTHUR SUMMONS
There were several times through my first season at Wests when I was sure the club thought they had bought a lemon. Six seasons of Rugby had ingrained many traits in my game that were a real problem in Rugby League. It took me ages, for instance, to train myself not to hold the ball loose and let it go on contact, as we were required to do in Rugby Union. I gave up so much possession that first season, to the fairly obvious disgust of my team-mates. There was also the matter of defence.
I had played all my Rugby at five-eighth, and that’s where I started in league. It took me a while to readjust to the fact that there were no breakaways in league. In Rugby Union the open-side flanker was the one who nailed the opposing five-eighth, and my role was essentially in cover defence, where side-on tackling was a far more gentle art. I got a good lesson about the different requirements of the two codes one afternoon at the old Sydney Sports Ground, when we were playing St George and my opponent was Brian ‘Pop’ Clay. Tackling Clay at the best of times was like trying to stop a boulder running down a hill, but with my technique I might just as well have waved him through.
I tried to tackle him low side-on, and he just brushed me as if I were not there. He ran through me all day, we lost by plenty, and everyone thought it was all my fault, including me. I eventually worked out that Clay was top heavy the way he ran, and the best way to handle him was to go high and use gravity as my friend. It took a while to work that out though, and in that first season I struggled just about everywhere. I played seven games, Keith ‘Yappy’ Holman was still there at the time, and in hindsight I suppose it was good that I had time in reserve grade to learn the ropes. It was certainly more comfortable in the seconds that first year. I was better tolerated as a rookie, and I made some great mates there in fellow battlers trying to make the grade like Roger Buttenshaw and Don Malone.
It was a traumatic time on several fronts. Changing to league was a big step emotionally, since Pam and I had had a wonderful time at Gordon, and we were leaving a lot of very close friends. While the club wished us well and stuck by us, there were plenty of people in Rugby who did not. There was in those years a fairly pompous attitude within the amateur game that looked down on Rugby League, and an international who switched was regarded as a bit of a turncoat. Outside the originals who kicked off the game in 1908, not many players at that time had made the change.
There was a huge hullabaloo when Trevor Allan switched in 1950 to join Leigh in England, and a few others—Ken Kearney and Rex Mossop among them—had gone off to England around the same time. A lot of league players had done that as well. But even by 1960 there were plenty who considered me something of a traitor for switching. Soon the floodgates opened, of course. Within a couple of years Jim Lisle and Dick Thornett had switched. Michael Cleary too, and ultimately players like Ray Price and Russell Fairfax. Now the boot is on the other foot as the league gets cranky about people like Wendell Sailor, Lote Tuqiri, Mat Rogers . . . even Israel Folau moving to Rugby.
I had a few choices when I signed with Wests. Canterbury had offered me 800 pounds as a sign-on fee plus match payments, Saints offered 650 pounds and Wests were in the middle at 750 pounds. It seems such paltry money—$1500 to sign and about $60 a win—when you measure it against the sort of money that flies about today. But for a young schoolteacher battling to set up home, it was a sizeable windfall.Trevor Allan had been one of my coaches at Gordon and he had been through this same process so I asked his advice. Looking back, I was fairly naïve about such things—I certainly didn’t do any haggling. Trevor suggested I choose a club where I would have my best chance of being in the top side, and said I should make sure it was a club that would win matches, thus bulking up my pay with winning match payments. Canterbury wasn’t winning much, so they were out, and Saints had established stars like Bob Bugden and Pop Clay filling the roles I might fill. So Wests got the nod. They had recently lost their international five-eighth Darcy Henry, and the long-term Test halfback Keith Holman was on the edge of retirement, leaving better prospects for me.
That first year was hard going. I had left a spirited scene at Gordon and joined a different culture altogether, so there was a personal adjustment. Then I had to change a lot of habits to fit into the new game. But I also had to get over some pretty negative vibes from team-mates who seemed to consider me a bit of a blow-in and insisted that I earn any respect I was to get. I played a lot of reserve grade that year and enjoyed it, since we were all in the same boat. But some of the big names in the club were much less welcoming, especially at the start. I remember one of the club’s rusted-on supporters saying to me when I was put in the top side for a trial against Parramatta that I would be OK because I had champions like Keith Holman at halfback, and Harry Wells outside me at centre. On the field it wasn’t quite like that.
It was the last trial before the season proper started, and I indeed felt honoured to be playing with the likes of Holman, Wells, Kel O’Shea and the rest. Maybe they were just horsing around, or maybe there was some initiation ritual involved . . . I don’t really know. But I was at five-eighth and the passes from Holman were all over the place. Over my head, at my feet, anywhere but where they should have been from the top halfback of the previous decade. I couldn’t escape the feeling that it was deliberate. Eventually Wells yelled at Holman. ‘Hey, Yappy, give the kid a go,’ he said. The passes improved immediately. But then Wells had his fun. I turned to feed him the ball on one occasion and he had run miles offside, yelling with a certain glee as he did so, ‘Go yourself, son’. I couldn’t do much else. I ran straight into a punishing tackle from their aggressive centre Martin Gallagher, who cleaned me up good and proper, which I think was the idea. Wells and Holman and the rest of them seemed to enjoy it. My introduction to big-time Rugby League was a bit like a kid being chucked out of a boat to teach him to swim.With time we all finished up good mates in a good team, but they were determined to make me earn my spurs.
For all my difficulties in learning the ropes in league in terms of hanging on to the ball and defending, I could still run and step, and that kept me in the frame. In one of the games in which I was given a chance, I managed to step inside John Raper as he flew across the field in cover defence as only he could. I stepped and scored a try, and since not many people got past Johnny Raper in those days, it gave me enough credibility to at least allow me some time to find all the other things that my game needed in that first year. Fitness was another problem. The game was much quicker than it had been in Rugby Union, and I needed to find another level of fitness. That became my mission for the summer of 1960–61, and when the next season came around I was ready, both physically and mentally, for the challenge. In roughing me up a little through those early weeks of 1960,Yappy Holman and Dealer Wells and the rest of them had done me a favour. They toughened me up. They made me a fighter.
Managing life was not easy through the first couple of seasons at Wests. Training and establishing myself in a new game took a lot of work. Then our second child came along in 1961, so there was the pressure of
a young family. On top of that, I had decided that I needed to make some serious change in my working life. Football was never enough to live on in those days . . . not for anybody, even the greats. You had to work, and for those of us who looked down the track a bit you had to make sure you would be OK once football finished.
I had come through Sydney Teachers’ College and was qualified as a physical education teacher, but that was the one discipline in teaching that didn’t allow progress up the ranks. A PE teacher didn’t have the qualifications to be a principal, so I took up an extra course in manual arts, descriptive geometry and tech drawing. It meant there was not a lot of time left for the social elements of life at Wests. The boyish pursuits of a good time at any cost had given way to more mature responsibilities, and this was reflected too in my football. I became a bit more cunning, a bit more structured, and a lot more aware of the various tricks that in those days gave Rugby League much of its character.
I was a fixture in 1961, alternating at half and five-eighth with Keith Holman in his last year, and we had gathered a very good side which made the first of our three successive grand finals against Saints. At the time Wests were building up in all sorts of ways. We could see that we were quickly becoming the most serious challenger to the wonderful St George team of that era, and that built within us not only a fierce ambition but also a wonderful spirit. They were all good, knockabout blokes determined to do well, and we gelled personally in the way that good teams always do.
The Gladiators Page 11
