The Grand and Simple Redemption of Chris Anderson
It was late August 1995 and the sun shone over Belmore with a heavenly glint. The wind bit like a terrier and the trains clunked by every fifteen minutes, as they did every Sunday afternoon. Belmore, donned in the blue and the white, sang joyously one last time for their favourite son.
Terry Lamb.
It was his last game at Belmore. The Baa was saying farewell. And 25,000 people jammed into the Belmore Sports Ground to reciprocate. Every single one stood looking back over time and clapped and laughed and cried, to and for the Baa, for the Bulldogs, for rugby league.
Squeezed and upright, I looked on from the Terry Lamb Family Hill as Canterbury defeated the Cowboys from North Queensland by 66-4. Everything was going to be okay…
As I looked dreamily across to the far sideline, with only a few minutes to play and another score to the boys from Bankstown, I knew everything was going to be okay. The look was in Ando’s eye.
As Chris Anderson stood, curled lip and contentment in the eyes, every Bulldog knew that all had been fixed. Ando had fixed it. Ando had repaired a team divided by disloyalty and greed.
In the preceding months, four Canterbury players had defected en masse to Parramatta, betraying all Blue and White-the fans, the players, the administration, the coach.
But on Baa’s Day, the King Judas-Jarrod McCracken-was nowhere to be seen. Ando had taken care of him like he always does. He knew it and now we knew it. He weeded out the trouble and reconstructed the heart of the Bulldogs.
A month after that perfect August Sunday and Terry Lamb stood upon the dais on Grand Final Day- the last Winfield Cup held firmly above his head- as Blue and White covered the Sydney Football Stadium. Chris Anderson had taken a team broken by treachery and re-built it into Premiership Glory.
That is the kind of man Chris Anderson is. That is the kind of coach Chris Anderson is.
Four years on, he took an expansion team-the Melbourne Storm- to a premiership in only their second year. A sensational effort, by any reasoning or logic. He led Australia to international glory, establishing a stellar record as an international coach through ensuring Australia’s supremacy over international rugby league was maintained. And at Cronulla, he did as well as any coach ever has at the club renowned for mediocrity and failure.
He is, without doubt, one of the finest rugby league coaches of his era, if not of all time. Success, victory, loyalty, discipline, winning….they’re all hallmarks of Opes.
Yet in recent times, he has been slandered and vilified by many in rugby league circles. He was driven out of Australia and out of the greatest game of all, forced out by jealous fools and vindictive brutes who get their kicks from taking down A Big One, so to speak.
He was shunned, turned into a leper, all for a few completely justifiable decisions. His decision to leave Canterbury was treacherous. Playing his son Ben at Melbourne was nothing but nepotism. Standing up to the fools who ran Cronulla was divisive. Giving Darren Smith the call-up for a Kangaroo jumper ahead of squad member Luke Lewis was the final sign he had gone mad.
Well, what a load of brown bollocks.
He left Canterbury because it was time to leave. He played Ben in the Melbourne first grade side (and Jarrod at Cronulla) because he was one of the best seventeen players at the club at the time. He stood up to the old drunks who ran the Sharks because he didn’t want to lose like Cronulla had done for the better part of 3 ½ decades. And he played Darren Smith ahead of Luke Lewis because Smith is reliable and talented. Anybody who saw Luke Lewis play last year could come to no other conclusion that an aged Darren Smith is a far superior footballer to the prissy winger-cum-centre from Penrith.
And, of course, they won the Test and swept the series…something rarely mentioned in dispatches about Ando.
Well, with the pre-season game of coaching dominoes opening up a few of the old head mentoring positions, it looks like Ando will be back in the game, so to speak.
And about bloody time.
He is a chance of ending up at Newcastle but if you can find you somebody to set you even money on him coaching the Raiders in 2007, have a nice little sum on for yourself and throw a little on for your favourite weekly columnist, if possible. Of course, Bill Simmons probably doesn’t know too much about Ando, so maybe just have a little on for this writer instead…
But that’s by the by.
Ando will in all likelihood bar Newcastle now. They believed the lies propelled by critics and Cronullaphiles and started firing out terms like “divisive” and “out-of-touch” and refused to even offer one of the finest rugby league coaches of all time an interview. But that’s all changed now, never mind that. Matt Elliott and Tim Sheens have both told the Knights what they think of the job and the club and all of a sudden David Fairleigh, Jason Taylor and Peter Sharp are the contenders. Well, good luck with that list of wise heads. Ho ho.
But the Raiders, to their credit, contacted Anderson soon after the unexpected departure of Matt Elliott to see if the big man would be interested in getting back in the game. That, Newcastle, is how you do business.
He’s no mortal lock to coach Canberra next year, but he is where my money is. There’s always a sports writer or twenty seven who’ll give you a price on just about any proposition you throw out there. And any of them who have given me over even money (and that poor fool who gave me 9-2 who won’t return phone calls and has not been seen at any pre-season function) should be inquiring into my bank details and how I would like all monies paid…
Ando would be the perfect coach for Canberra at the moment. He would attract big name players to a town that has traditionally struggled to draw marquee names. He would bring new ideas and a wealth of experience to the youngest team in the NRL. He would be the perfect coach to ensure the club doesn’t wallow in mediocrity when Smith, Croker and Woolford retire soon. He is liked and respected and working with a good administration, is a very real chance of leading the Raiders into another glory period. He gets all the ticks.
And when he returns to the game, he won’t be waving a wand of fire and screaming of vengeance and slaughter. He will move down to Canberra in the dark of night and he will get on with the job. That is the Ando style. He won’t want headlines or scalps…he’ll want victory and if his past record is anything to go by, the old Richard Nixon “V for Victory” sign will come to mind soon enough for Raiders fans.
The time for redemption is upon us.
And dear punter, don’t forget that you read it here first that Ando will lead the Raiders to years of success. You can, and should, bet on that. When he gets the gig, the Raiders will turn into very real contenders. They will be a wonderful team to bet on next year. Improved, always over the odds…I’m salivating now.
Ando is back. Almost.
And that, footy lovers, is that.
