The Last Balmain Tigers

Book excerpt: In 1999 the Super League war was supposedly over, yet the peace treaty and unification of rugby league was far from complete, as the seventeen-club National Rugby League (NRL) competition still had to be reduced to fourteen clubs by the year 2000. The 1908 foundation club Balmain Tigers had been potent over many decades, yet the 1990s was perhaps one of their most challenging periods. Some might have seen them as easy prey to be culled to make way for the fourteen-club competition, but Balmain was a proud club, and while they were not the most winning of teams, they were still one of the most determined. Balmain would decide its own future in 1999, and the direction they chose was different from the past. The players that took the field for them in 1999 would be the last to do so at the NRL level. They were a unique group of characters with varying experience, and it was they who took the last steps as NRL Balmain Tigers. Their story comprises the final year of Balmain's ninety-two seasons. With exclusive insights from the coach, players, and the club's chief executive officer, Balmain's last season is explored with details from those who were there, and author Nicholas Henning assesses and pays tribute to the final season of one of rugby league's most admired clubs.