Last Day of School

1978: Rugby League’s Greatest Finals Series
Last Day of School
August 2025
$25 inc postage

The Blurb
The 1978 finals series was one we’d never seen before – and will likely never seen again. Seven-tackle sets. Not one but two matches needing to be replayed. One of which was the grand final. And the other one saw a team wanting the league to erase the result and stage a replay. Yes, a replay of a replay. As for that grand final replay, well that was played on a Tuesday afternoon – the only week-day premiership decider in history.

If all that wasn’t enough, one of the finalists was a perennial also-ran that ended up minor premiers. Another had two of their star players rubbed out due to suspension. And two of the other finalists were on the cusp of dominating the 1980s.

Yes, the 1978 finals series was amazing.

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Read an excerpt
The 1978 season was the start of a new era of rugby league, and saw the sun setting on another. The sport had just begun to be televised, though in a manner unrecognisable to modern eyes used to seeing every match live every weekend. The ABC screened a Saturday match live while Channel 7 had the exclusive rights to screen a match on Sunday, but forget about seeing it live – you’d have to wait until 6.30pm for an hour of highlights. And pray that the sports reporter on the 6pm news doesn’t ruin it by saying who won.

That growth in TV coverage began the slow decline of the era of the biff. Once upon a time the powers that be deemed it quite alright for players to punch each other in the head. That started to change following the televised Wests-Manly clash in Round 7 in 1978. Plenty of punches were thrown and it was all delivered into people’s lounge rooms in full colour. The league didn’t think that was a good look and so took its first baby steps towards banning the biff; it would take the body until 2019 to finally get there.

The game was still played under the five-metre rule, which allowed the defending team to get into the opponents’ backline almost before the dummy half had passed. Looking at it with modern eyes, it’s hard to understand how anyone managed to score at all. Scrums were still a contest and likely to result in half of the forwards ending up on the ground while play continued around them. If you wanted to clip someone around the ears with a swinging arm at any stage in the game, there was a good chance you’d get away with it.

The corners of the field were marked with black and white striped cardboard tubes that were sought after by the kids running onto the field after full-time (yes, spectators could actually run onto the field). The goalpost padding looked useless; like someone had wrapped a towel around the base.  Injured players were treated by squeezing a wet sponge over the back of their neck. Some would even drink the water from it, leading to illness from the contaminated liquid.

Night football was still a relatively new thing, and players swore by a smear of black goo under each eye. What it actually did was unclear, but every player on the field under floodlights wore the stuff. That we play heaps of night footy these days but you never see that black goo any more is testament to its ineffectiveness.

Beards and moustaches were common with players, as were full-time jobs. That last point necessitated training sessions at night – usually Tuesday and Wednesday evenings – where the nightly news sports report would include a live cross to one team’s session (guaranteed one player would be running around in Speedos and a t-shirt. Why? Beats me).

The finals were still played at the Sydney Cricket Ground even though it was incredibly unsuited to rugby league. The playing surface was in the middle, putting the crowd 15 to 20 metres away from the action. All that empty space made it nigh-on impossible to work out where the sidelines were; it’s actually surprising more kickers didn’t put the ball out on the full. Cigarette advertising was allowed and the idea of jersey sponsors was new; so new that finalists Cronulla and Canterbury still didn’t have one, and Wests had only picked up Victa mid-season.

After the 1977 grand final ended in a draw, prompting extra time, the league changed things up – the next time points were level at full-time in the decider, everyone would be back next weekend for a replay.

No doubt they thought it was unlikely another grand final would end in a draw. And it certainly couldn’t possibly happen the very next year. As we will soon see, the big bosses in head office were very wrong on that score. Though it did see the 1978 finals series end on a note of high drama.