Mark Graham Doco

[Big Marn]

Documentary on legendary Graham coming to cinemas soon

Documentary on rugby league legend Mark Graham to be released in cinemas in November.

www.warriors.kiwi

A highly-anticipated documentary on rugby league legend Mark Graham will be released in cinemas in New Zealand and Australia in November.

Named the New Zealand Rugby League’s player of the century in 2007, the now 68-year-old former Kiwi captain was the first New Zealander inducted into the NRL Hall of Fame in 2018.


Now Graham, who coached the One New Zealand Warriors in 1999 and 2000, is centre stage in ‘Sharko’, a feature documentary written, directed and produced by his son Luke who also produced ‘Broke’ in 2016.

‘Sharko’ is described as “a feature documentary about enigmatic New Zealand rugby league legend Mark ‘Sharko’ Graham, and his filmmaker son, Luke. In his prime, Mark was the best rugby league player in the world. Known for his size, speed, skill and toughness, he was a predator in a sea of sharks. Mark changed the sport and carried his teams and country to the doorstep of greatness, while remaining a mystery to his biggest fan, his son.

“Luke tells the story through the in-depth lens and skewed perspective revealing a shared personal history scarred by pain and loss. As he learns more about his father’s past, both the hardships and the glory, he comes to a realisation about the man he idolised above all else.”

'Very honoured to be the first New Zealander ' - Graham

'Very honoured to be the first New Zealander ' - Graham
The documentary includes interviews with Graham Lowe, Wally Lewis, Steve Roach, Hugh McGahan and Paul Vautin.

‘Sharko’ recently had its world premiere at New Zealand’s Doc Edge film festival to sold out audiences and festival acclaim.

“The documentary has been a labour of love for many years and I am excited it’s finally inching closer to showing my celebration of dad’s life and career… but to be honest, I’m also a little nervous,“ said Luke Graham.

‘Sharko will have red carpet premieres before its cinema release in both Australia and New Zealand in November with dates to be announced soon.

• Graham's outstanding playing career included 29 Tests for the Kiwis from 1977-1988 - an at-the-time record 18 as captain - plus almost 150 appearances for the North Sydney. Named the Dally M second rower of the year in 1981 and 1982, he also represented Auckland including the historic grand slam of wins against Australia, Great Britain and France in the space of 21 days in 1977.

 

[Blair]

Every career has regrets. It's sad he got injured in the first test at Carlaw Park in '83 and missed the belter at Lang Park a week later. We ended a five-year Kangaroos streak in memorable style.

It was enormous for rugby league in NZ. Kids were at school talking about it for weeks afterwards.

Have no doubt this gave us the momentum needed to get the Warriors up and running.

Graham should've been there.

 

[bad boy bubby]

He was one of my favourite players. I have him as the best Kiwi player ever.
I'll be watching this for sure

 

[sup42]

Mark Graham represents a group-the hearty working class white male that is almost extinct in New Zealand Rugby league, at one time his ilk were the majority in the sport in New Zealand.

White fellahs who played League in New Zealand were non conventional archetypes, the great unwashed, the rebels who did not play the National sport Union. Many were dock workers, freezing workers, Coal miners, and their children. In game of thrones Parlance these are are men from Bear Island.

As for Graham himself, he was ahead of his time as all great footballers are, the best are always the best because they have something no one else has seen before, whether that is Andrew Johns with the banana kick or Bradley Clyde a forward that runs like a back, or Steve Walters, the first Hooker with speed and out and out attack from the dummy half.

In Grahams case he was the best because he was the toughest. He was a tall ranging figure that was pure lean muscle, many will be surprised to learn his playing weight was around the 87-90kg mark, and so at six foot three that is a light weight, he did not look like a light weight he played like a monster.

Graham was a ball playing back row forward before ball playing back rowers were a thing in New Zealand and he had pace and a foot work. He inspired a generation of ball playing forwards from here in the fashion that Benji Marshal showed Rugby league how to use speed, foot work and slight of hand in a way no one had ever seen.

When you combine that with the toughness you have the ultimate forward. And the thing that really set him apart as our greatest ever player is his Mana. Men followed him because of the many tough and mighty men who played along side him recognized that he was a leader of men.

When I went to Australia in the 80s to play league, one of the advantages of being a player in Juniors was free access to all the games across the Winfield cup. I used to catch the busses and trains to go watch the North Sydney Bears, the original bad news Warriors team of the comp, but the reason I watched all of the Bears games was Mark Graham, and seeing Clayton Friend and Olsen Filipaina was a bonus.

Dunno if this will be in the Docco but there was an incident in a game Where Wally Lewis got flattened and swallowed his tongue. He was lying at the bottom of the ruck turning blue and quietly dying. Mark Graham stopped and started CPR which saved Wallys life.

Dunno if this will be in the Docco but one time when Wally was trying to start shit MG hit him and broke his jaw.....

There are a lot of MG stories but those two are my favorites because Wally was the player to hate as a Kiwi in the 1980's most overrated Australian of the era. He was good but Olsen used to give him a hiding too and he never acknowledged Olsen which is a stain in my estimation and diminishes Lewis as a typical all blow Aussie overrated media hyped fake Aussie media circle jerk legend.

Go watch Wallys games, he is a good player made great by the invention of Origin and the shouting of Rabs et al. Contrast that with every single game Mark Graham ever played where he had the defensive work of a Simon Mannering and the attacking threat of a Ball playing top NRL forward. There is no Australian in Grahams era that worked as hard both sides of the ball despite all their media bullshit.

 

[Beavers Headgear]

This is hitting NZ cinemas tomorrow

He was on the latest Sportscafe podcast that came out today and they have a preview of it on there. Great episode of that pod with Matty Johns on there as well and Marc Ellis makes him completely lose control

 

[Penrose Warrior]

I don't think I've ever met a league player of Mark Graham's physical presence. And I met him as a Warriors coach, not a player. The guy was a f*cking colossus. The width from shoulder to shoulder, honestly I couldn't even conceive of it.

He obviously used that size, too. I was too young to see his career, but I'm sure the doco will be bloody interesting.

 

[Beavers Headgear]

I have some time off next week so was hoping to fit this in but no sessions have worked so far

Was interesting to hear on Sportscafe what an extensive coaching career he had as assistants with top coaches before getting the Warriors job, and had some other roles since. I’d always thought he came from nowhere to coach the Warriors, surprised his name never came up as in contention for a Kiwis gig at some point

 

[Beavers Headgear]

Dunno if this will be in the Docco but there was an incident in a game Where Wally Lewis got flattened and swallowed his tongue. He was lying at the bottom of the ruck turning blue and quietly dying. Mark Graham stopped and started CPR which saved Wallys life.

They mentioned this to him yesterday, he responded with “the part they leave out is that it was me who elbowed him in the throat” haha

 

[RHYTHM AND STEALTH]

I remember Mark Graham was telling the story of his 1st test for the Kiwis.
It was against the tough Great Britian team, maybe late 70s and he was 18 or 19 years old and it was at Carlaw Park.

He said they knew there was going to be a fight in the first 1 or 2 scrums so be prepared. The scrum blew up and he was squared up with this tough old Pommie back rower who started throwing punches as him, so he grabbed him and got him in a bear hug and they ended up over the sideline and the crowd started laying into the pommie guy to help him out lol

 

[Beavers Headgear]

Currently sitting by myself in a theatre waiting to have a look at this

 

[Wheeled Warrior]

Currently sitting by myself in a theatre waiting to have a look at this

Your thoughts/review? I will check it out soon.

 

[Beavers Headgear]

Your thoughts/review? I will check it out soon.

I enjoyed it, his son has done well. Comes from as much of a family angle (his upbringing, and being away as his kids grew up) as it does the footy angle

Graham Lowe fairly heavily feautured in there as well, and the old footage really showed the brutality of the era, and what he copped every time he ran onto the field

 

[Beavers Headgear]

One thing that sticks with me from it, that should be more well known but I’d never heard of it, was a test against Great Britain. In the first half, they deliberately fractured his eye socket and broke his ankle. Lowe told him at halftime that to have any chance of winning, he needed to lead the team back out for the 2nd half to knock GB back a bit from thinking they had him, and when he finally succumbed in the 2nd half, the away crowd gave him a standing ovation

Grew up knowing the story about Buck Shelfords plum, but can’t recall hearing that one which should be in kiwi sport folklore

 

[Blair]

Did it show Crusher Cleal's high-tackle which decided the first test at Lang Park in '85?

Graham was wobbly, obviously concussed, but stayed on the field well into the second half.

I loved Mark Graham. As I've said it's a bugger he missed the historic '83 Kiwis win in Brisbane, ditto the Brisbane boilover in '87. He led us bravely in a crushing three-nil series loss to the Kangaroos in '86 and ended his international career in our disastrous WC Final loss at Eden Park in '88.

No premiership with North Sydney either. The man deserved so much better.

 

[Beavers Headgear]

Did it show Crusher Cleal's high-tackle which decided the first test at Lang Park in '85?

Graham was wobbly, obviously concussed, but stayed on the field well into the second half.

I loved Mark Graham. As I've said it's a bugger he missed the historic '83 Kiwis win in Brisbane, ditto the Brisbane boilover in '87. He led us bravely in a crushing three-nil series loss to the Kangaroos in '86 and ended his international career in our disastrous WC Final loss at Eden Park in '88.

No premiership with North Sydney either. The man deserved so much better.

Yep they show and talk about that one

 

[JJ]

No premiership with North Sydney either.

hardly the Lone Ranger there, lol

 

[JJ]

Yep they show and talk about that one

The Crusher is not talked about often enough as one of the greatest back rowers to play the game... for all the Slater revolutionised fullback talk, could argue Noel revolutionised 2nd rowers, a big centre converted, could run, offload, etc - Gene Miles followed

 

[Beavers Headgear]

He was just before my time, have seen plenty of replays of his famous dropout though lol

For more Mark Graham content, he sat down and did a podcast with Dom Harvey, good listen. Nice story about how an opponent spat at him pre game one day, that opponent didn’t survive the kick off