With most live sport postponed, The Last Dance documentary on Netflix has filled a hole for fans. Even if you don’t like basketball, you can still appreciate Michael Jordan’s drive to make the Chicago Bulls the best NBA team of the nineties.
What if there was a rugby league version?
Here are The Gurgler’s top five suggestions for rugby league’s Last Dance.
Melbourne Storm 2010 to 2012
Melbourne’s salary cap drama was the biggest footy scandal since the Super League war. After being caught in 2010, the Storm were not only stripped of their 2007 and 2009 premierships (and their 2006, 2007, and 2008 minor premierships), they were banned from earning competition points for the rest of the season. Any other team would have played their youngsters and started planning for the future. Not Craig Bellamy: with only pride on the line, he drove the Storm to a 14-10 record, good enough to make the finals. They won the minor premiership in 2011 and made the preliminary final, only to lose to the fairytale Warriors. They completed their comeback in 2012, beating Canterbury-Bankstown in the grand final, with every AFL-obsessed Victorian hopping on the Storm bandwagon. The inside story of Melbourne’s quick turnaround from a scandal that would ruin most other clubs would be fascinating viewing. Though it may need an MA rating if Bellyache lets loose.
Canberra, Brisbane, and Manly-Warringah Dominate the Nineties
The Raiders, Broncos and Sea Eagles were the glamour clubs of the nineties, winning six premierships (from 10 grand finals) in the decade. While Canberra and Brisbane expanded the game’s appeal interstate, the hated Sea Eagles were the most consistent Sydney team. The laundry list of superstars interviewed (players and coaches) would be ridiculous. The series would unfold chronologically: starting with Canberra and Brisbane dominating the first five years (1990 to 1994), then switching to Manly’s three straight grand finals from 1995 to 1997 (and Brisbane’s cruisy Super League premiership), before the Broncos won this trio’s final premiership of the decade in 1998.
The Super League War
The Super League war tore rugby league apart, leaving a lot of residue bitterness for administrators, players, and fans. Spanning from the first rumbles in 1994, the split into Super League and ARL, to the reunification in late 1997 and the creation of the NRL (ensuring a happy ending), this documentary would be full of fire, anger, controversy, and probably a few tears. It may bring up some painful memories, but it’d be captivating.
Amalgamation: St George-Illawarra, the Wests Tigers, and the Northern Eagles
‘Amalgamation’ was the buzzword of the late nineties as the NRL tried to trim the fat. The St George-Illawarra Dragons and the Wests Tigers have won one premiership each, while the Northern Eagles – the doomed partnership between Sydney rivals Manly and the North Sydney Bears – lasted three seasons. This could be painful viewing for fans of the St George Dragons, Illawarra Steelers, Balmain Tigers, Western Suburbs Magpies, Manly and Norths, but it’d reveal the process to get these new teams running and how Manly recovered after the Northern Eagles fell apart.
Back-to-Back: the Sydney Roosters 2018 to 2019
Winning back-to-back premierships was the NRL’s mission impossible until the Roosters did it in 2019. While they have a lot of critics because of their alleged ‘brown paper’ method to recruiting, for those who don’t hate the Roosters, it’d be fascinating to watch the workings of a championship team, especially how Storm veteran Cooper Cronk came back from injury to orchestrate the 2018 grand final win over his former club. Canberra fans may need a stiff drink after watching the episode on the 2019 grand final though.
