They don’t make ’em like they used to. Not the Roseville Cinemas, in need of a lick of paint but still exuding 1930s art-deco charm, nor the subject on the big screen, Mark Graham.
I’d learned about the film – Sharko, a documentary about the first New Zealander inducted into the NRL’s Hall of Fame – through Allan Bell.
You might not have heard of Bell, but for the past 50 years he has been providing some of the sharpest minds in rugby league with tactical expertise.
When Warren Ryan launched a coaching career at Newtown that would revolutionise the game, Bell was his behind-the-scenes advisor.
He was a coaching director at Newcastle during the Knights’ foundation seasons, and later a trusted confidant for Tim Sheens at Canberra, North Queensland and Wests Tigers. Andrew and Matthew Johns both still rave about the role he played in their footballing education.
“Belly” knows his footy. So when he told me “Mark Graham is probably the best second-rower I’ve ever seen”, it grabbed my attention.
Mark Graham in his ball-playing prime.Credit: Pearce/Fairfax Media
It’s a big call, not least because Bell is now in his 80s, and has run his eye over more second-rowers than most.
I was lucky enough to catch glimpses of Graham’s career for both North Sydney and New Zealand, but as a kid growing up in the country, televised games were few and far between.
There was a live match on the ABC every Saturday, and then a delayed broadcast on one of the commercial networks on Sundays.
Other than those two fixtures and highlights on the nightly news bulletin, there was not a lot of football to watch. Forget about pay-TV or streaming services. VHS (or Beta) video machines were only just becoming household items.
So I didn’t have much opportunity to assess Graham. But I remember he always seemed to feature prominently in the pages of Rugby League Week, if that is any gauge.
And after watching the outstanding biopic directed by Graham’s son, Luke, I can certainly see where Bell was coming from.
He was a big, rangy back-rower – a genuine footballer with sublime skills, an athlete’s physique and an iron will. Imagine a leaner, more agile version of Sonny Bill Williams terrorising edge defenders, combined with the ball-playing nous of Isaah Yeo in the middle of the pitch.
Now 69, Graham admits “most people don’t even know who I am” – understandable, given he last played for North Sydney in 1988.
The old footage – which showcases Graham’s freakish ability to mix it up and challenge the defensive line, either by distributing the ball as first receiver, standing and off-loading in tackles, or making breaks and scoring tries with speed and footwork – is spellbinding.
The two-time Dally M second-rower of the year was an old-school magician. And he was tough. For every career highlight shown in the doco, there’s a cheap shot that leaves Graham bloodied, dazed and confused. So it was in the 1980s, when the law of the jungle prevailed.
Most champions are measured by the premierships, State of Origin series and Test matches they helped win.
Graham, though, spent his entire first-grade career – 146 games between 1981-88 – playing for the hapless Bears, never once tasting victory in the (five-team) finals.
And in his 29 Tests, he was clearly the outstanding player in a Kiwi team who were invariably rank underdogs. Only once in 14 attempts was he able to beat the Kangaroos.
Mark Graham after copping a Trevor Gillmeister high shot.Credit: Robert Pearce/Fairfax Media
At both club and international level, he was a class above his teammates. The Kangaroos legends who played against him, including Wally Lewis, Paul Vautin and Steve Roach, all spoke in reverential tones of their former foe, who in 2007 was voted as New Zealand’s player of the century and is one of only four Kiwis in the NRL Hall of Fame.
And as the credits roll, you wonder what would he have been worth today.
I put it to Graham that, had his career kicked off in the 2020s rather than the 1980s, he would now be earning at least $1 million a season.
How much was he paid in his prime? Graham says he was on about $40,000, which was pretty close to top dollar at the time.
Mark Graham in 1982 with his son Luke, now a successful film director.Credit: Peter Morris/Fairfax Media
He could have earned even more by joining Manly, but rather brusquely knocked them back – a decision that cost him a premiership when the Sea Eagles lifted the trophy in 1987.
Graham has no regrets, though, and insists he doesn’t envy his latter-day counterparts for the financial rewards they enjoy.
He’s happy with his lot in life up in Gladstone, Queensland, where he works as a union delegate in the port, having at one point earned a crust driving the biggest bulldozers in the world.
“Good luck to the guys these days,” he said. “They’re well paid, and I reckon that’s great. Hopefully, one day it gets to the point where players don’t have to work after they finish playing footy.”
More than a quarter of a century after his beloved Bears were exiled from the top-grade competition, Graham is delighted that they will soon be resurrected as the brand of the incoming Perth franchise.
“I’ve got one red eye, and one black one,” he said.
I suggest to Graham that he would have thrived in the modern game.
Remember that he played in the pre-interchange era when rugby league was a war of attrition. The five-metre defensive rule, fields reduced to quagmires by mid-winter rain and leather footballs that became heavy and slippery would often conspire together, resulting in trench warfare.
But Graham clearly preferred that to the modern brand of football.
“We’ve got blokes who are full-time professionals, and they’ve never been fitter, or faster or stronger, but they’ve got no skill,” Graham said. “I’m not saying they’re not tough, but they don’t know how to play the game.
“They don’t know how to draw and pass. I just feel sorry for the blokes playing because they probably don’t even realise.”
While he played in a bygone era, Graham also coached more recently, spending two seasons at the helm of the Warriors, in 1999-2000 – five years after the Super League war that kicked off full-time professionalism. He is disappointed by how the 13-man code has evolved over the ensuing quarter of a century.
“They’ve just dumbed it down,” he said. “Each team has four blokes who are allowed to play, and the rest just run into each other. I don’t know how you could be an edge forward today, because they all just do the same thing.
“I used to pass the ball to the halfback, not the other way around. I’d get the ball and take the line on, and I’d slip him a ball and away he’d go.
Mark Graham stands in a tackle by Balmain skipper Wayne Pearce in 1987.Credit: Kenneth Stevens/Fairfax Media
“Nowadays he’s going to give it to you short, or he’s going to give it to the bloke out the back, and either way you’re going to get cracked, because the halfback takes up all the time and space before he gives you the ball.
“And that’s what the coaches want. They’ve taken most of the skill out of the game. I want to turn the footy on and be excited and thrilled by what they do and just go, ‘Wow’, rather than just watching blokes crash into each other.”
“Wow” was exactly what I was thinking during Sharko, as Graham’s remarkable career, and life story, unfolded before my eyes.
What a player. Whether he is indeed the greatest rugby league second-rower of all time, worthy of Immortal status but sadly overlooked because he never jogged a lap of honour on grand final day, is a matter of opinion.
He’s had a feature film made in his honour, so he’s been immortalised on the big screen.
There aren’t many rugby league players who can say that.
Sharko will soon be available on streaming services after screening in cinemas in New Zealand and Australia over the past six months.
