Madge’s rise a sad tale from Tiger Town; ‘superhuman’ Haas play saves day — Crawls

From getting sacked at Wests Tigers three years ago with his reputation in tatters.

To standing at the door of one of the most amazing coaching grand slams the game of rugby league has ever known — armed with a baseball bat.

Say what you want about Michael Maguire.

What can no longer be disputed is that Maguire’s spew bucket approach to coaching is the concrete that builds bloody tough football teams.

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That’s providing the players buy into what Maguire attempting to construct.

They clearly didn’t at the Tigers when Maguire and his baseball bat were sent packing midway through 2022.

But looking back now, maybe it’s the Tigers who should be asking themselves what went wrong.

Because while the Tigers are still stuck in a rebuilding phase, everything else Maguire has touched since then has turned to rugby league gold.

In 2023 Maguire masterminded the Kiwis’ thumping 30-0 victory over the Kangaroos in the final of the Pacific Championships.

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Then in 2024 it was the NSW Blues who pumped Queensland when Maguire went to war with Billy Slater.

Now Maguire is one step away from one of the game’s great coaching redemption stories.

I’d go as far as to say if the Maguire can get one over Craig Bellamy next Sunday, this would rate greater than when he led the Bunnies to their famous drought-breaking premiership back in 2014.

Given the questions about the Broncos’ lack of mental resilience when Maguire arrived to take over from Kevin Walters, what he has been able to achieve in a single season has been remarkable.

Yet if not for Maguire driving the Broncos as hard as he did during preseason (when the spew buckets had players at breaking point), would they have had stamina to do what they did to come back from 14-0 down against the Panthers?

Keep in mind the 14-point margin was the same the Broncos trailed the Raiders in week one of the finals down in Canberra.

‘ONE OF GREATEST EFFORT PLAYS YOU’LL EVER SEE FROM A FRONT-ROWER’

Just when you thought we’d seen it all from Payne Haas, the Broncos superman comes up with another superhuman performance.

And it was capped off by one of the greatest effort plays you’ll ever see from a front-rower.

After clocking up a monstrous 165 run metres on top of 39 tackles, the giant prop incredibly still found the energy in the final minute to deny Nathan Cleary his crack at two-point field goal that could have tied the game.

If you missed it during the live coverage, this is well worth going back and having another look at.

Haas was at marker when the Panthers threw a Hail Mary back to Cleary, and the effort from Haas to get to Cleary was just enormous.

It forced Cleary to offload to Dylan Edwards who had no hope of landing the kick.

So much for the big unit getting tired at the backend of the season, as many of us had feared coming out of State of Origin.

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REYNO’S REDEMPTION

The decision to bring back Adam Reynolds after six weeks out injured also proved a masterstroke.

In the end it was Reynolds who calmly nailed the sideline conversion to complete the remarkable comeback win.

It was wonderful to see Reynolds get his own redemption after missing the shot for Souths in 2021 grand final that could have locked the scores late in the game.

WALSH’S CLUTCH PLAY WAS ALL ABOUT COURAGE

Now to Reece Walsh.

Overall, it probably wasn’t Walsh’s finest performance given how well the Panthers limited the superstar fullback’s impact for the majority of the contest.

But when the game was on the line it was still Walsh who defied his glamour boy image with a charge that was all about courage _ when as he blasted through three defenders before lopping the miracle pass over Brian To’o to put Deine Mariner over for the match-levelling try.

It was a special play from a very special player.

We said last week how Walsh’s current form brings back memories of Jarryd Hayne’s mazing run for the Eels in 2009, and Ben Barba in 2012 at the Bulldogs.

Now Walsh has the chance to go one better than Hayne and Barba did if he can lead the Broncos to grand final glory.

PANTHERS WILL COME BACK STRONGER IN 2026

As for the Panthers, the dynasty is on hold — for now.

But I agree with Ivan Cleary’s post-match analysis that this is by no means the end of the Panthers.

They will come back a stronger side again in 2026, and you can bet they won’t be sitting last after 12 rounds next year.

IMAGINE IF IT WAS JAMAL OR NICHO WHO CAME UP WITH THAT CLEARY ‘CLUTCH’ PLAY

That won’t stop Nathan Cleary having a few regrets after a game the Panthers really should have won.

I still can’t believe the Panthers butchered a 14-point lead.

And if Cleary had his time over you can guarantee he would have taken that penalty shot that could have ultimately pushed the game into extra time.

While Cleary was also perfectly set up to take the field goal shot on the fourth tackle of that final set, but instead chose to go for the try that never came off.

It was one of the most unexplainable ‘clutch’ plays of Cleary’s career.

Nine times out of 10 you would have backed Cleary to nail that shot.

And can you imagine if that was Jamal Fogarty or Nicho Hynes who came up with that play what the fallout would be?

Lucky for Cleary he has four premiership rings as collateral.

Yet it still made no sense, and it probably never will.

WHY DIDN’T SHARKS TARGET HUGHES?

Craig Bellamy’s decision to back Jahrome Hughes to play against the Sharks was another brave decision that came up trumps.

Hughes was superb, and never once looked in any danger of letting the Storm down in his first game back after breaking his arm against the Broncos in the final round of the regular season.

Although why the Sharks didn’t target Hughes more than they did remains another mystery.

Hughes finished with just nine tackles while running eight times for 85 metres including a try, a linebreak and eight tackle busts.

Meanwhile, halves partner Cameron Munster had a staggering 15 runs for 144m to once again show what a wonderful big match performer he is.

You get the feeling this has the makings of a great grand final when the Storm’s all-star spine goes head-to-head with the Broncos’ attacking juggernaut led by Walsh.

HUMBLE STEFANO SUMS UP STORM

As enormous as Haas was for the Broncos, big Stefano Utoikamanu played the best game of his career to get the better of Sharks enforcer Addin Fonua-Blake.

It was a tremendous response from Utoikamanu who had huge pressure on him to stand up in the absence of the suspended Nelson Asofa-Solomona.

To think this time last year the 25-year-old was coming off a wooden spoon with the Tigers.

I loved Utoikamanu’s humility amid the post match praise labelling him the missing piece in the Storm’s redemption:

“I don’t know about the missing piece, but my job when I first came here was just to get the best out of myself and constantly improve.”

Stefano has certainly passed that test with flying colours.

And it was also an attitude that summed up the Storm’s team-first mentality perfectly.

SHARKS STILL NEED TO CONFRONT ELEPHANT IN ROOM

As brave as the Sharks were to get through to another prelim final after knocking out the Roosters and the Raiders, at some point Craig Fitzgibbon still needs to confront the elephant in the room.

Because what happened in Melbourne on Friday night was just further confirmation that the lack of established rep stars (especially in their spine) remains the biggest question mark hanging over the Sharks rising to the next level.

A week after Braydon Trindall and Nicho Hynes combined superbly in the win over the Raiders, Trindall was still better than solid, but Hynes was well short of what he delivered in Canberra.

As Cooper Cronk said of Hynes’ game: “I thought he was okay, okay is not bad, but when you play in a final against Melbourne you need to be better than okay.”

FATHER TIME CATCHES UP WITH KLEIN

How old is too old to referee an NRL grand final?

Ashley Klein turned 46 this month.

I was blown away when I Googled Klein’s age in the wake of Friday night’s penalty-athon in Melbourne.

Can you imagine a modern-day player trying to keep pace with the game at 46?

It’s not physically possible.

Yet for some reason age doesn’t seem to be relevant when it comes to discussing if a referee is still up to the job.

For the record, the other contender to referee this year’s grand final, Grant Atkins, is 41.

I’m certainly not saying Klein is past it completely, and referees have never been fitter than they are today.

But just as we discuss the age of veteran players coming towards the backend of their careers, referees should not be exempt from the same discussion.

And there is no way in the world Klein deserves to be put in charge of another grand final after what he has dished up so far this finals series.

What happened in Melbourne came on the back of the Broncos-Raiders debacle in week one of the finals — where the NRL conceded Klein got it wrong awarding the penalty to the Broncos after the Reece Walsh headbutt.

Klein was also embroiled in controversy in week two for the decision not to sin bin Dylan Edwards. While the NRL backed Klein on that call, plenty didn’t _ adamant it ticked every box as to what constitutes a professional foul.

Then on Friday night Klein blew up another storm with 18 penalties that had Craig Fitzgibbon fuming post match.

Maybe they all were legitimate.

But I don’t know of a single fan who ever goes to the footy to watch a referee blow the pea out of his whistle.

Unfortunately for Klein, he hasn’t been able to stay out of the spotlight throughout this entire finals series.

Nor was he far away from drama during this year’s Origin series for that matter.

Atkins certainly wasn’t perfect in the Broncos/Panthers game after a few of contentious calls that angered fans from both teams at different stages.

But the way Atkins still allowed the game to flow was damn sight better than what Klein gave us on Friday night.

Even the man rated the greatest referee of all-time, Bill Harrigan, was only 43 when he refereed his final grand final in 2003, before conceding father time had caught up.

Maybe Klein might soon have that discussion with himself too.

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