When Eels bulldozer became the God of Thunder

Billy Slater has played in some of the biggest games of the past 20 years – State of Origins, grand finals, World Cups, you name it.

But nothing prepared him for the wall of noise he encountered on October 4, 2009.

“I could nearly say that’s the loudest environment on a rugby league field, that I’ve been involved in,” he told Wide World of Sports. 

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It was the dying minutes of Melbourne’s grand final against Parramatta. Joel Reddy had carved Melbourne’s grand final lead down from 16 to 10 a couple of minutes’ prior, when Fuifui Moimoi got the ball just outside the Storm 20-metre line, with not a lot going on.

Now 42, Moimoi is remarkably still trampling over defenders in England’s second tier with Rochdale – but on that day he may as well have been Thor himself, such was the thunder he summoned from the crowd as he carried three defenders over the line to score.

“I was in the tackle when he scored – and I was actually talking to Cameron Smith last night about this – we just looked around and went ‘oh my God, we’re 90 per cent in enemy territory here, this whole stadium is going for Parramatta’,” Slater said.

“We had our little pocket of purple, but it was an incredible noise, and surge. It’s no different to Origin or playing home and away, but it was magnified to a level that it was at its most extreme.”

The atmosphere at grand finals can be fickle – it’s often a mixture of neutral fans who don’t know who to cheer for, or two teams with similarly-sized fanbases creating relatively equal shares of noise.

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But with the Eels’ going on a magical run from eighth place to reach the grand final, and the Storm playing in their fourth-consecutive decider, almost every footy fan not of a purple persuasion was behind the underdogs.

“The week before against the Bulldogs, the crowd was going the whole time,” Reddy told Wide World of Sports, recalling an electric atmosphere.

“In the grand final it took them a little while to get into it – but when Fui scored, the whole place erupted and you could feel that momentum building.”

Unfortunately for Reddy and the rest of the Eels, it wasn’t to be. Six points was as close as they’d get.

“Looking back now, we weren’t good enough on the day but there’s a couple of moments – even that late penalty that led to the field goal was only a 50/50,” he said.

“But at the same time, you’ve got to be good enough despite any decisions that might come.”

Reddy cuts the lead late on

Many teams would be rattled by such an almighty crowd noise – but not the battle-hardened Storm, chock-full of superstars and seemingly immune to the hang-ups held by mere mortals.

“That environment that we felt when Fui scored – whether it was for us or against us, that was an incredible sort of moment,” Slater said, as to how they regrouped.

“It was about ‘What’s important now? What can I control?’ We can’t do anything about the noise, but we can control our actions and maybe quiet that noise a little bit.

“We just had to fall into what we were reliant on – that was our defence. And then Greg Inglis kicked that field goal, although it was a wobbly one.” 

Inglis’ one-pointer made it 23-16, which is where the score stayed.

Crowd well and truly hushed.

“We were beaten by a pretty good team, with some very good players – and then we found out they were obviously over the cap too, so it made a lot of sense how good they were,” Reddy laughed.

It’s a difficult subject to broach – and while multiple Storm players have said in the past that they still consider those premierships to be theirs, how does someone on the other end feel?

“It was a little bit frustrating, but there’s not much you can do about it,” Reddy said.

“You want to feel the joy of winning on grand final day, that’s what really matters. Even if we’d got a ring later, that’s what you play for – and Melbourne got that.” 

G.I seals game with field goal

Regardless of what happened, it’s still Parramatta’s finest hour since they last tasted premiership glory back in 1986.

It wasn’t the late capitulation of 1998, nor was it earning the unwanted tag of ‘best team to not win the comp’ in 2001, or the abject failure of the 2005 preliminary final.

On this day, they held their heads up high.

”It’s the best time of the year. When you’re playing in September and the sun’s out a little bit more and other teams are dropping out, it’s a good feeling,” Reddy said.

“This is why we do it – to be there at the end of the year with a chance of taking it out. It’s what every kid dreams of, and it’s why I was there. Not for the individual stuff, but to do something as a team.”

It’s an unsavoury topic now, but you cannot tell the story of the 2009 Eels without Jarryd Hayne. Regardless of his off-field incidents since, his form in the back half of this season ranks as one of the best purple patches of any player, in any year.

It started awfully, with new coach Daniel Anderson’s team stumbling out of the blocks and winning just five from their first 16 games – but even in the back half of that barren run, something was building.

”About a quarter of the way though the season, we all got together – we’d kind of been struggling a little bit,” Reddy recalls.

“I just remember him [Anderson] sitting us all down and figuring out a game plan and how we were going to play. The plan at the start of the year was different, so it took us a while to get going but I think that showed at the end of the year.

“We played a style that suited us as players, rather than us trying to fit into his ideas, he tried to coach us in a way that would fit us – and if you look back on how it went, it worked because we were playing to the strengths that we had.”

After some teething issues, the Eels went on an absolute tear – starting with a narrow win over the Storm at Parramatta Stadium in July with the team sitting second-last.

After that, they won another six consecutive games to clinch a finals berth with one round left in the regular season.

They were thrashed by the minor premiers St George Illawarra in that relatively meaningless game, but bounced back a week later to stun Wayne Bennett’s team, with Hayne the star of the show. 

“We knew if we went out and executed to our best, we could win, regardless of what the other team did,” Reddy said.

They blitzed the Titans in week two and overcame the Bulldogs in an incredible preliminary final the following week – riding on the wave of multiple players in career-best form, especially their fullback.

But the Storm were ready for Hayne, who had a quiet game by his standards.

“He’d had an incredible back end of the year that year, and we, not dissimilar to Penrith at the moment, had a really good defensive system, structure, and work ethic within that,” Slater said.

“That’s the type of footy that stands up in grand finals – and that’s what we had. Individuals rarely broke that system, and where they were so reliant was on that one individual – so we were pretty confident that our system would stand up to that.”

Slater was not only the better of the two fullbacks on the day, he was judged the best player on the field – taking home the Clive Churchill Medal. 

“I was little bit shocked actually, I thought Cooper Cronk had an incredible game – so you’re always looking towards your teammates and what they do, but it was a great honour,” he said.

“It’s hard enough getting to a grand final and winning a premiership, but then on top of that, individually, to perform under a whole heap of pressure – I took a lot of pride in that. I felt an obligation to my team to really prioritise my preparation and be at my best.”

Slater grabs grand final try for Storm

He said immediately after the game that he thought Cronk deserved it – not that he had any desire to give the medal away to his star halfback.

“He’s got one as well,” Slater chuckled.

“I know what sort of contribution he made to our team on that night – which is why I said that.” 

Reddy was part of grand final glory five years’ later with another long-suffering club, an unused squad member of the Rabbitohs that broke a 43-year drought.

“To win a premiership for a team that hadn’t won one for so long would be great – and fortunately I was a part of that squad at Souths, which was a great feeling, but I definitely think it would be even bigger for those Parra fans because they’ve come so close so many times without getting there,” Reddy said.

It’s a fair point. While Souths’ drought from 1971 to 2014 was longer than the Eels’ current one, most of that time passed without any hopes of grand final glory.

But for Parramatta fans, you just have to mention 1998, 2001, 2005, or 2009 to trigger a disappointed shake of the head, and conjecture around what might have been.

“We’ve always sort of been around the mark, it’s just trying to get over that last hurdle,” Reddy said.

“They should be pretty confident this week – and at the end of this game you’re either going to have a Parramatta team that definitely deserve it, or a Penrith side that’s among the most-dominant sides ever over a three year period.”

Reddy and his son will be in the stands watching, and hoping that this time, perhaps it will be different.

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