Beschrijving
Produced by Ellis Rugby, Cronulla Rugby League shirt is a high-quality polo shirt. The Cronulla Rugby League Shirt Polo Vintage 1976 is inspired by Roger Millward. And an inductee in the Rugby League Hall of Fame.
Millward joined Cronulla Sutherland Sharks. He joined for the New South Wales Rugby Football League Premiership season (now NRL National Rugby League) in 1976. Johnny Raper served as a coach at the beginning of the 1975 Season. Replacing Noel Thornton in the position after the Sharks had finished in lowly 10th position in the Premiership. Raper managed to get them to 8th in the league in 75. And saw the recruitment of Millward who would partner Martin Rafferty at Five-Eight (Stand-Off). He thought this partnership was as an important step to take the club to the top four of the competition.
Cronulla were in the process of rebuilding the team. Following the departure of ageing English imports Tommy Bishop and Cliff Watson. The Great Britain internationals had helped the club get to their first grand final in 1973. It was a bad tempered game against Manly Warringah Sea Eagles. In which the Sharks were defeated by 10 points to 7 points.
Ken Maddison left the club in 75. But the squad still had plenty of talent with Australia Rugby League internationals Greg Pierce and Steve Rogers. Despite there being some good individual performances in the season notably from Rafferty who scored 14 tries. Also, Barry Andrews kicked 27 goals and the star international Centre Steve Rogers contributed 74 points. But Cronulla could only manage 9 wins from 22 games and finished in 8th place for the second season running.
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The following year Ted Glossop replaced Johnny Raper as Coach. And Greg Pierce and Steve Rogers had great seasons. Rogers was particularly impressive scoring 146 points in the season, including 11 tries. The Sharks finished two positions higher in the league in the sixth spot.
1978 saw Norm Provan take the reins at the club. He made Steve Rogers the Club Captain. And managed to get the best out of Second Row forward Steve Kneen and Greg Pierce. They won 15 out of 22 games and reached the grand final where once again they met Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles.
In the final Cronulla went into a 9 points to 4 lead in the second half. But Manly came back to lead 11 points to 9. Steve Rogers then converted a penalty to even the score at 11 all. In the final minutes, Rogers attempted a drop-goal, but this went agonisingly wide of the posts. The game finished a draw and they had to replay the game three days later.
Cronulla seemed to be lacking energy in the replay and Manly’s full-back Graham Eadie burst through the Sharks defence early in the game. Eadie scored a try before setting up Russel Gartner to score in the corner. Gartner soon collected a brace of tries when he outstripped the Cronulla backline for a 65 metre effort. At the half time break, Manly had a 15 point advantage.
Cronulla came out for the second half. But they couldn’t break down the Manly defence. And the only score came from Graham Eadie who kicked a field goal and became Man of the Match in the 16 points to nil victory.
