Balmain Tigers 9–2 Cronulla-Sutherland — Preliminary Final, 1988 NRL Finals Series
4 Sep 1988 · Sydney Football Stadium, Sydney, NSW · Attendance: 34,848
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
Preliminary Final, 1988 NRL finals series: Balmain Tigers 9–2 Cronulla-Sutherland, at Sydney Football Stadium, Sydney, NSW on 4 Sep 1988.
Sourcing caveat: Balmain's Ben Elias field goal only surfaced on a third, fully enumerated re-read of the raw table (two earlier passes reported the field-goal row as empty), but it is needed to reconcile Balmain's score and was consistently returned once the table was read row-by-row in full — reported as confirmed rather than treated as a suspicious-pattern case.
Scorers
| Balmain Tigers | Tries: Ellery Hanley Goals: Ross Conlon (2/2) Drop goals: Ben Elias |
| Cronulla-Sutherland | Goals: Alan Wilson (1/3) |
Team sheets
| Balmain Tigers | Cronulla-Sutherland | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Garry Jack | Fullback | Jonathan Docking | 1 |
| 2 | Russel Gartner | Wing | Alan Wilson | 9 |
| 3 | Ellery Hanley | Centre | Andrew Ettingshausen | 3 |
| 4 | Michael Pobjie | Centre | Mark McGaw | 4 |
| 5 | Ross Conlon | Wing | Sean Watson | 5 |
| 6 | Michael Neil | Five-Eighth | Michael Speechley | 6 |
| 7 | Gary Freeman | Halfback | Barry Russell | 7 |
| 8 | Wayne Pearce (c) | Lock | David Hatch (c) | 8 |
| 9 | Paul Sironen | Prop | Gavin Miller | 10 |
| 10 | David Brooks | Prop | Dan Stains | 11 |
| 11 | Bruce McGuire | Second Row | Dane Sorensen | 24 |
| 12 | Ben Elias | Hooker | Michael Porter | 12 |
| 13 | Kerry Hemsley | Second Row | Danny Lee | 28 |
| Substitutes | ||||
| 19 | Steve Edmed | John O'Connor | 17 | |
| 18 | Kevin Hardwick | Malcolm Wheeler | 26 | |
| 14 | Scott Gale | Glenn Coleman | 2 | |
| Warren Ryan | Coach | Allan Fitzgibbon | ||
Match officials
| Referee | Mick Stone |