The one shining light in a terrible year for me personally was Balmain making the Grand Final, so many what 'if's' that day, Michael Neil being ankle tapped in desperation by Mal, Benny's field goal attempt just failing to go over, Wayne Pearce having a player on his 'blind side', the terrible tackling efforts on John Ferguson in the final minutes.
Then there's the Wok's weird decision to bench Sirro and Blocker but fair dinkum there should have been a Royal Commission into Hollywood giving the Raider the penalty for the McGuire incident, Harrigan's explanation/justification many years later for giving the penalty to the Raiders that it wasn't in the spirit of the game when every other time in that era the penalty went to the attacking side.
Even in this current era when the dummy half goes for a scoot they are trying to catch the markers offside, sometimes it's a penalty situation sometimes the ref's let if go but in 1989 I digress......
