On a chilly winter’s evening in Melbourne, a hum of expectation filled ‘The Graveyard’ as thousands of curious Victorians and interstate expats crammed together inside Olympic Park.
A sold-out crowd was set to experience State of Origin rugby league for the very first time.
This was 1990 and a lifetime ago.
A time when Wally Lewis was still king of Queensland and the Brisbane Broncos.
It would be two more years before the Broncos would begin their decade of dominance.
Such a big game being played in Melbourne certainly had its novelty value but if you told anyone at Olympic Park that night 36 years ago that ‘Big Lazo’ would be cartwheeling his way to the premiership trophy in a purple jersey, only nine years later, you’d be laughed at and chucked in to the Yarra River.
As the Blues and Maroons carried out another barbaric struggle in front of the wincing Victorian crowd – NSWRL officials peered over the ancient stadium.
There was something here.
Like the game had already done by creating teams in Canberra, Newcastle and Brisbane – Melbourne was a huge potential market.
So much so that the NSWRL asked Victorian Rugby League to submit a bid for the 1993 season.
Expansion into Melbourne was the next big step.
Ken Arthurston and John Quayle were licking their lips.
Then all hell broke loose.
The Broncos were smack-bang, right in the thick of it.
Broncos CEO John Ribot stepped down to take the top job with Super League.
From the outside, the Winfield Cup had never been stronger.
Truth was that the two sides were crippling each other with every hammer blow.
The ARL announced Perth, Auckland, North Queensland and South Queensland would enter the competition in 1995.
South Queensland’s entry was scoffed at by the Broncos.
By the time 90,000 fans showed up at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1994 for another Origin – the sport was cooked.
A false dawn.
High above the MCG in corporate boxes, ARL officials sheepishly sold local politicians on the prospect of a rugby league club in Melbourne.
Super League was doing the same thing.
During the infamous split competitions of 1997, former Broncos Ribot and Chris Johns, now Super League acolytes, switched “allegiances” again.
“John and I had been with the Broncos from day one and we had learnt first-hand how the club had progressed in 10 years to become a ‘super club’,” Johns said in The History of Rugby League Clubs.
“Melbourne had three times the population of Brisbane and the people down there just love their sport”
They were headed south.
Before the war, they were Broncos.
By the time the NRL came around in 1998, they’d swapped maroon and gold for purple.
And so, it was back to old Olympic Park but this time the rugby league world’s eyes were locked on this strange-looking team – their names in large capital letters on the back of their jerseys.
Their first home game was against the North Sydney Bears.
Refereeing decisions were explained by the ground announcer over the speakers.
It’s safe to say Melbourne has come a fair way.
The Storm was a bastard child of war, but it made them tough.
A half-brother of the Broncos.
Right or wrong, Ribot and Johns are part of history.
“People have asked where our game is going, and you’d like to think that for all the disruptiveness of what was going on, definitely wasn’t good for our game,” Ribot told Nine Radio earlier in the year.
“So, hopefully, the price we paid it was worth the amount of pain we went through at the time.
“Now, it’s just time to get on and keep building our game to be as great as what it is and keep being better and better.”
And when the dust settled on Super League?
The Broncos and Storm won the first three premierships of the new era.
Six years after that they squared off in the 2006 grand final.
They’re back on Sunday.
