King hit
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I was watching the 1966 GF on the NRL site. St George vs Balmain. It's the earliest one they have. They say the rules were changed to stop St George winning every year but didn't the game need them to change. This match, the game's showpiece, got 61,000 and wasn't televised at all, not even on delay. This is what the lucky 61,000 saw.
Kick off. St George knock on. Scrum. St George feed and win scrum. Another knock on. St George knock on, feed and win scrum. Another knock on. Scrum. Balmain penalty. They kick for touch. Scrum. St George win scrum and knock on. Scrum. Balmain penalty. Keith "Golden Boots" Barnes kicks the goal. Balmain lose ball after kick off. St George put about 20 tackles together (unlimited tackles you see, the last match played under that rule and understandably so) and eventually score. It was about 10 minutes in when I fell asleep. It looked more like rugby than rugby league. Every time St George played the ball the Tigers dummy half would try to kick the ball, but it never did them any good. Never did they try to rake it back and win possession. Hard to see how they ran second (of 10 teams) with such adherence to failing tactics.
You can see why the Dragons won the comp 11 years running. You couldn't get the ball off them.
On the contrary to belief limited tackles weren't brought in just to end the St George run. They were brought in to encourage attacking play as there were to many teams at the time obsessed with very dour tactics of holding the ball, going a meter at a time. There was a game in Brisbane in the 60's where one team kicked off and only touched the ball for a minute or so in the first half. St George actually were one of the clubs who voted for the change of rules. Their run was coming to it's end sooner then later by then anyway.