1987 NSWRL Grand Final

Result

Attendance: 50,201

NRL 1987 — full season ladder & finals series

Qualified for the finals series — top 5 (“final five”) that season.

Finals series

Minor Preliminary Semi-Final

Major Preliminary Semi-Final

Minor Semi-Final

Major Semi-Final

Preliminary Final

Grand Final

Permalink to this season's ladder page →

Match officials

Scorers

Teams

Clive Churchill Medal

Cliff Lyons (Manly-Warringah).

Match context

The 1987 decider was a Grand Final of lasts and firsts: the last premiership decider ever staged at the Sydney Cricket Ground, the game's spiritual home, and the first to feature a club from outside Sydney, with the Canberra Raiders reaching the big day in just their sixth season after entering the competition in 1982. A crowd of 50,201 packed the old ground on a scorching afternoon, with the temperature peaking above 31 degrees, testing both sides' conditioning to the limit. Canberra had charged into the decider from third place, but their talisman Mal Meninga was badly compromised, playing with a heavily padded left arm after breaking it twice during the season; English international Kevin Ward, meanwhile, flew in from Britain to pack down for Manly-Warringah. Five-eighth Cliff Lyons, a country recruit playing his way into folklore, was the game's dominant creative force. He scored the opening try in the 27th minute to establish a 6-0 half-time lead, then spent the afternoon carving holes in the Raiders' defensive line. Canberra struck back early in the second half when a penalty resulting from a high tackle got them on the board, and a Chris O'Sullivan try, with a goal apiece from Gary Belcher and Meninga, kept the Green Machine within reach. But Michael O'Connor, the dual-international centre, was ruthless: he landed all five of his goal attempts and finished with 14 points, and his second-half try, set up when Dale Shearer's kick turned the Raiders around with 11 minutes remaining, sealed the 18-8 result, though Canberra felt aggrieved at the awarding of the decisive touchdown. Lyons was awarded the Clive Churchill Medal in only the award's second year, capping a fairytale rise. For Manly-Warringah and coach Bob Fulton it was a fifth premiership and the club's first since 1978, achieved after a season of near-total dominance; for Canberra, defeat planted the seed of something greater, with much of the beaten side returning to win the club's breakthrough title two years later. When the full-time siren sounded, an era ended with the match: from 1988 the Grand Final would move across Moore Park to the purpose-built Sydney Football Stadium, closing an SCG premiership history stretching back to the competition's earliest decades.

Sources

• Wikipedia - 1987 NSWRL season
• Rugby League Project - 1987 NSWRL Grand Final
• NRL.com - 1987 grand final rewind