A vid for the old maggie fans

[Gary_Bakerloo]

However that was a very good Wests team that year, in fact probably the best I was ever to see and it was ripped apart a year or so later, primarily by Arthurson. I bear a greater grudge against that guy than anyone else involved.

Manly did decimate Wests with its cheque book, but what always gets forgotten in this whole story is that Masters approached Wests Ashfield to match the offers Boyd, Dorahy and Brown had received. Wests Ashfield had more than enough capacity to match the offers, but declined to match the offers.

Winning a competition with a cheque book did not work in the early 60's and not paying up for those players was probably the first time, either by purpose or chance, a leagues club saw the disconnect between paying exorbitant wages for players and business success.

 

[Gary_Bakerloo]

there were others in the NRL hierarchy who brought him out of reserve grade with the express instruction to **nobble the magpies**.

There was violence across the entire competition, not just centric to Wests.

The focus on Wests during this period stems from the 60 Minutes report in 1979.

 

[fibrodreaming]

I agree Gary. The game was very violent in those days, but, for whatever reason, the media and the League hierarchy focused on us. I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of the injustice of it all. We were no angels, but everyone was at it.

I would argue, however, that the focus on Wests happened well before that famous (infamous) report on 60 minutes of the face slapping before the match at Brookvale in May 1979\. (I was at that match by the way - it lives in the memory; we won the fight and the match). They (ie the officials) were gunning for us the year before, in 1978.

 

[AmericanHistoryX]

we were robbed bottom line - so were Wests Tigers because it would of written 78 on the Wests Tigers heritage jersey.

 

[AmericanHistoryX]

An excerpt from the Wests bible "Clouds of dust, Buckets of blood"

In a stirring plea, Roy Masters once told his players as they prepared for a major match in 1978 - Give me 5 yards, a cloud of dust & a bucket of blood." It was emotional & expressive. The players knew what was wanted.

The original quote belonged to Ohio State University coach Woody Hayes, whose philosophy was to power down the middle. He didn't have strong wide recievers & therefore did not believe in the long passes….... just crunch them......run over the top of them.

Masters had the read quote in James Mitchener's book on sport the previous summer, & it had impressed him. It typified Wests...... not just in 1978, but forever!

End excerpt.