Arthur Beetson Vs Andrew Fifita

[Dragon Slayer]

People have come out and said Fifita's performance was "Beetson like".

Firstly I'm not saying Fifita is better than Beetson.

Only to bring up discussion for those that watched Beetson play and how much they think this too.

Arthur Beetson's playing record below;

Height 6ft 2in

Weight 105 kg

221 First Grade games - 24 tries and a field goal

18 games NSW - 3 tries

3 games QLD - 0 tries

29 games Australia -1 try.

Andrew Fifita's current playing record below;

Height 6ft 4in

Weight 126 kg

152 First Grade games - 32 tries

Tonga 1 game - 0 tries

Indigenous All Stars 3 games - 0 tries

City - 3 games - 3 tries

NSW - 9 games - 2 tries

Australlia - 7 games - 2 tries

It will be very interesting to see where Fifita's stats finish up.

What a shame he was excluded from the last tour to England.

 

[Wozza]

I agree it was Beetson like. They are different players though. Beetson was a master of the offload and was difficult to tackle, Fifita has a turn of speed and a better step than Beetson ever had with an offload as well. Both great players in different era's.

 

[coolumsharkie]

Great players get compared to former great players. What a compliment for Fifi, to be compared with a legend. Just like Sludge was compared to Reg Gasnier back when i was a kid.

 

[Big Bloke]

Even though I don't rate him as a footballer, I think Woods is closer to being like Beetson than Fifita.
Don't get me wrong, Woods is a very, very, very poor man's Beetson but he does stand in the tackle like Artie did and offload like that. Artie would draw them in and then slip the pass away.

I think there is a lot more strength in Fifita's play - he is a brute and his tackle busts show that.

I think I can talk confidently on this because at 53 I can say I saw Beetson play.

 

[carcharias]

Dare I say it ... Beetson had more brains.

 

[txta2]

You will always get people saying Artie was better. Different era with different style of football. In saying that Fifita would of totally dominated in the day and will match Artie by the end of his career

 

[Mr Angry]

I once shared a beer with Arthur.....in the pub he owned (James St, Fortitude Valley), poored it for me, we spoke about Brett Kenny, he liked Brett.

Great man.

Fifta has not finished. But yeah, Forwards win games, wingers tag along.

 

[Defer to the coifed]

In a game of 80 minute players, Beetson didnt play many that long. Sometime I wonder about the hype around big Arty to be honest. Good player, but there were many good props.I thought our own Ghengis was actually a better ball playing Prop.

 

[spirit of league]

An appropriate comparison. That in itself is a massive compliment to Fifita. In my opinion if he continues on this trajectory he will/should be thought of in the same way as Beetson. Same level of dominance as Thurston, Smith.

Still f**ks me right off the Aus selectors refuse to award him MOTM for 2016 GF. Should make winning the 2017 Clive Churchill medal all the sweeter!

 

[myrrh ken]

My favourite part of Artie's Wiki page: He was known and immortalised by his performance of eating 11 hot dogs before a gala dinner for the Australian team in 1973.

Always liked Artie for developing Peach, Healey and Barnett

 

[Eion]

Fifita is a better coach.

 

[Quigs]

Get Fifi to play like he did last night for another three seasons straight and then you can start to compare him with Artie.

A lot of the old Pom forwards from Arties days rate him (Artie) up there with the best.

Big Jim Mills rates him as his No1. I think our very own Cliffy rates him up near the top too.

Artie did it week in week out - and in the days before you could just put your hand up and go off and have a breather and then come back on.

NOTE: I have manlove for "our" Fif too.

 

[jc155776]

Beetson is better until Fifita scores a field goal.

 

[Quigs]

Crikey even Dallas kicked a few field goals.

 

[BatteredFlake]

In a game of 80 minute players, Beetson didnt play many that long. Sometime I wonder about the hype around big Arty to be honest. Good player, but there were many good props.I thought our own Ghengis was actually a better ball playing Prop.

Good to see "Ghengis" get a mention. I have always thought he was underrated even when rating Sharks props. I wouldnt rate him as good or better than Beetson ", but I can remember some offloads of his that were as good as any of Beetsons.

 

[Defer to the coifed]

Ghengis threw & perfected the first one armed pass around the back of the defender. Every kid was doing it the next day at training.

 

[Quigs]

Ghengis DID NOT throw the first one armed pass around the back of a defender. He was good at it for sure but he was definately not the first.

You were probably too young to watch the others.

Old Poppa can shed more light on this then me but from my memory youse are way off with that one.

The old Poms, McTigue, Prescott, Dougie Laughton, and co were known in their day as ball playing forwards. That is one of the reasons why they dominated us Aussies. I remember them slipping the ball around the back of the Roo Forwards and off loading to the likes of Murphy and Co.

Harry Bath returned from a lengthy successful stint in the UK and was signed by the stains to share his experience to others.

Artie spent time in 1968 with Hull KR - he would of learnt a lot over there - you must remember it was still during the time that the Poms used to flog us.

Beetson was our first recognised ball playing forward and he often threw around the back of the player passes well before Khan was playing in Brissie.

Incidently Khan spent an offseason with Castleford in 76-77. (checked it on wiki)

But yes Khan was very good at it and done it often. I believe Pauls biggest problem was he was a tad lazy in himself and IMO he didn't realise how good he could of been.

 

[MilkShark]

I have heard alot of people question Beetson as an immortal saying he was a very inconsistent good player, quite lazy even.

 

[Quigs]

He was early on his career Milk, but he certainly turned all that around.

When Gibbo was coaching East he introduced a player survey / questionare thingy to all his top players to assess their possibilities as potential captains and team leader.

This was a thing introduced in the Yank Gridiron and Jack had brought it back with him from a US factfinding trip.

Anyhow Jack gathered all the player data and sent it back to the Yanks for their analysis. Long Story short Arties results / potential were one of the highest they had ever seen. They told Gibbo of this result and it went a long way into Gibbo appointing Artie as Captain. It was in either Gibbos or Arties book.

Artie was a talented lazy slob. Half game Artie was his fame early on. He just ran out of puff or didn't / couldn't put in anymore. It was Don Furner @ Easts that finally got Artie to get very serious with his conditioning and realise his potential. Gibson came later.

 

[Amin Yashed]

Bit of an insult to the late great Artie. Pioneer of the game forward wise.