The final 90 seconds of the NRL grand final was sporting theatre at its finest

3 hours ago 2

Opinion

October 11, 2025 — 5.30am

The most staggering thing about “rugba league” in the modern age is its capacity to generate tension, and often high drama, in the final throes of a match.

Time and again in recent seasons, and never more than in 2025 and in these very finals, as the clock ticks down to the final whistle, the whole match is up in the air.

More often than not, it sees a winger with ball in hand hurling his body at the hurtling defence swarming him. The mob leans forward, barely daring to breathe, as he attempts to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Can he, indeed, contort his whole body to become a cross between a circus acrobat and a human cannonball so that – despite his torso and legs being somewhere above the first row of the grandstand as the defence hits him – his right index finger is still plonked on the ball, a hair’s breadth inside the corner post.

Try! Try! TRY! A try for your life, I’ll tell a man it is!

Time and again we see a version of this exact scenario in the last seconds, in a manner all other football codes must envy for the capacity to keep the match absorbing to the very end.

Michael Maguire (right) celebrates the Broncos’ victory.

And there was never a better example than with 90 seconds to go in the grand final between the Storm and Broncos last Sunday night. As you know, after an amazing match, the Broncos were holding on to a 26-22 lead, even as the Storm mounted attack after attack, thrusting for the win. On this occasion, however, the Broncos defence not only gets to the winger in extremis, but pummels him for his trouble. A conflagration breaks out! The teams go at it! Drama! Yells! Commentators roaring! Is someone going to be sent off? Did he score after all?

Drama! Drama! Drama! And great sporting theatre.

But even then, the best was to come, in what I think has been underdone in coverage of the match.

For with seconds on the clock, the Storm started from 95 metres out, to have one last go. Against all odds, Eli Katoa broke through on the right flank with Ryan Papenhuyzen inside him – and only one defender left. Reece Walsh had one chance. He had to tackle one of them. It was a 50/50 choice, and if he was a quarter-second too late, or too early, or he picked the wrong one, the Broncos lose.

Walsh picked it was going to Papenhuyzen and tackled him at the exact instant the ball got to him. Game over. Broncos win.

Of all the extraordinary things Walsh did that night, that tackle was at least the equivalent of his staggering try to bring the Broncos back into it, and Walsh defied the six – count ’em, SIX – Storm defenders who tried to stop him.

Big losses for LIV

But, speaking of timing for the NRL, this one couldn’t have been better. In the very week rugby league, and indeed rugby union, appear to be under siege from the R360 mob purloining players for their own rebel competition to be launched late next year, they could legitimately point to what happened to the last such upstart competition that upended a sport.

I refer, of course, to LIV golf, and the figures just released about what a complete financial train-crash it has been.

As reported by the New York Times, “LIV Golf Ltd, the United Kingdom-based entity that manages LIV Golf’s activities outside the United States, has reported losses of $US461.8 million last year. That’s three straight years of accelerating losses: $US244 million in 2022, $US396 million in 2023, and $US462 million in 2024. And if you add in the money that has been invested in LIV Golf’s US business, Saudi Arabia has now committed over $US5 billion to the league ... While everyone seems to think that Saudi Arabia will keep funding the league no matter what, LIV Golf’s 2024 financials tell a different story. LIV Golf is burning cash, tightening expenses, and still generating little to no revenue from media rights, sponsorships and ticket sales.”

Australian golfer Cameron Smith was a high-profile recruit to LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed breakaway from the PGA which has been blamed for reduced interest in the sport.Credit: Getty

Get it? All that nonsense, all that carry-on, all those plucked players, and the damn thing has been precisely the debacle this columnist, for one, always said it was going to be. No one cares. No one watches. And those players who have departed might as well be playing on planet Zonk, for all the attention they garner.

R360 will be the same, but worse, as rugby more than any other sport relies on tribal allegiance to be alluring, and these rugby rebs quite simply don’t got any. Thus, all those thinking of signing should be careful to get their money up front and in their accounts before heading off. For the money won’t be enduring and the comp will collapse soon enough.

See yers, and you needn’t write.

What They Said

Reece Walsh after the grand final: “Oh my God, what a bloody ride. Broncs nation, you’re the best. Look at this love. Our game’s never been stronger. A lot of people wrote us off this year, the only people who believed was us. It hasn’t sunk in yet. I’m just so bloody happy for our boys. The culture from sitting in those bushes in an army camp, to riding the wave. Oh baby!”

Signing off his Clive Churchill Medal speech: “Everybody that turned out tonight . . . Love you all, plumber out.” I know. I gather “plumber out” was some reference to the drinking from the toilet bowl thing.

Brisbane Bronco Tamika Upton after they won the NRLW: “F--k, the girls really put in all season for that.”

Craig Bellamy on his plan to take down Reece Walsh: “It didn’t work. I think there’s some things you can do, you could tackle him. I think there’s a couple of things we thought we’d learned from last year, but obviously we didn’t.”

Bellamy on his nine-year-old granddaughter: “She’s a big fan, all the grandkids are, but Billie’s probably the biggest. She talks a fair bit about footy, especially after games, and especially if we lose. She’ll give me a few tips.”

A punter as police officers escorted Mark Latham out Royal Randwick’s Grandview Restaurant and off the premises in dramatic scenes at Epsom Day last Saturday afternoon: “Can I have his dessert?” Despite putting another man on, trying to keep track, I can’t follow what Latham’s latest alleged atrocity is. But whatever it was, he says he didn’t do it.

Harjas Singh on his 314 from 141 for Western Suburbs: “That’s the cleanest ball striking I’ve ever witnessed from myself, for sure . . . After 100 you start upping the ante and I just wanted to hit everything for six.”

Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus on taking on the Pumas: “Argentina are massive fighters, they take you to the gutter and you have to swim there in the gutter.” Charmed, they’re sure.

Moises Caicedo on his goal for Chelsea: “I don’t know - everything is for God. I had the opportunity and I did it.” Again, can God stop watching and sorting out Chelsea for just a moment, and try and protect the kids, particularly, of Gaza?

Still winless at Nottingham Forest Ange Postecoglou: “It is a struggle, it is a fight there is nothing wrong with that. I could have been sat on the couch watching you guys but I prefer to be here right in the middle of it, where I can have an effect and I believe I will.”

Nottingham Forest coach Ange Postecoglou.

James Slipper after playing his 151st and last Test: “I’m a proud Aussie and very patriotic when playing for my country. I bleed gold. I really enjoyed playing for my country.”

Statement from major rugby unions on R360: “As a group of national rugby unions, we are urging extreme caution for players and support staff considering joining the proposed R360 competition … Each of the national unions will therefore be advising men’s and women’s players that participation in R360 would make them ineligible for international selection.”

AC Milan star Adrien Rabiot: “I was surprised when I learnt that AC Milan will be playing a Serie A match against Como in Australia. It’s totally crazy. But these are economic agreements to give the league more visibility, things that are beyond us. There’s a lot of talk about schedules and player health, and this all seems truly absurd.”

Serie A chief executive Luigi De Siervo returns serve: “Rabiot is right, we decide for him. He forgets that he is paid millions of euros to do a job – play football. He should respect the money he earns, and accept the wishes of his employer, Milan, who pushed to play this match abroad.” So there.

Team of the Week

The Walsh quintuplets. Led by Reece, all five of them played the game of their lives to guide the Broncos to a terrific Grand Final win over the Storm, 26-24.

Brisbane. Kings and Queens of the football jungle.

Harjas Singh. The Western Suburbs batter smashed a remarkable 314 from 141 balls in grade cricket with 35 sixes and 14 fours. His score is the third highest in Sydney first-grade history, behind the legendary Victor Trumper’s 335 in 1903 and Phil Jaques’ 321 in 2007.

Socceroos. Play Canada on Saturday and USA next week

Springboks. Back-to-back Rugby Championship titles for the first time as they prevailed by points difference.

Oscar Piastri. Still leads the Formula 1 drivers’ championship, but hasn’t won since August.

Twitter: @Peter_Fitz