2002 NRL season: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:11, 8 June 2007

Revision as of 21:57, 8 June 2007

Line 216:

For the 2002 Grand Final, [[Billy Idol]] was set to perform before the match, but was prevented from doing so due to an embarrassing power failure. The New Zealand Warriors had reached the Grand Final for the first time and faced the Sydney Roosters in front of 80,130 spectators.

The match, which was refereed by Bill Harrigan, was a close one at the beginning of the game,. with theThe deadlock onlywas beingnot broken inuntil the 23rd minute, afterwhen the Sydney Roosters completed a successful play which had begun in New Zealand's half of the field. An overlap had allowed [[Brett Mullins]] to sprint down much of the left hand side of the field uncontested before offloading to [[Shannon Hegarty]] who ran the remaining 30 metres to score the opening try of the match. [[Craig Fitzgibbon]]'s conversion allowed the Roosters hold a 6–0 lead until New Zealand brought the scoreline back to 6–2 with a successful penalty kick.

Less than two minutes from half-time, New Zealand [[halfback]] and captain [[Stacey Jones]] kicked the ball downfield from just inside his own half early in the tackle count. With only one player behind the defensive line for the Sydney Roosters, [[fullback]] [[Luke Phillips]] had to sprint across field to try and prevent New Zealand winger [[Francis Meli]] getting to the ball first. As it turned out, only a bad last bounce for Meli prevented him from getting to the ball first, with Phillips knocking the ball dead right on his own line and ultimately led to the score being unchanged at half-time.