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Rugby League. It’s a game loved by its aficionados and loathed by the intelligentsia. Its proponents say it’s what makes Australians great – a never-say-die attitude, a love of camaraderie and mateship.
Its opponents believe it is everything that is wrong with us – a throwback to gladiator sports, a game of brutality, thuggery and misogyny.
Who is to be believed? A blood sport once played by milkmen and labourers has morphed into a professionally managed, professionally run industry worth many millions. A game which once limited to the north of England is now arguably the most pluralistic of all Australian sports.
At some point, the game drew a line in the sand and underwent a major reformation.
The Men who Changed the Game is about how this came about, but change needs catalysts and occurs only when a culture or institution risks taking new avenues. During the Whitlam era, two men, Jack Gibson and Terry Fearnley, set out to reform the Sydney Roosters into a powerhouse and by so doing unleashed radical new ideas onto a sport that had long been seen as moribund.
Gibson had always been half way there, on the fringes looking in. He was part player, part gambler, part standover man who had honed his craft in the colourful Sydney nightlife of the 1950s and 1960s. The game was ripe for new, US-style physical and psychological methods which he duly applied to his talented young Roosters side of 1974.
From the outset the 1974 team sported a style and flair which came from another world. Out went the formulaic rhythms, trench warfare and intimidation. In came verve, class, positional play, the mental game and field intelligence.
This film is not a sporting documentary per se. It’s as much about the way men respond to a challenge by taking hitherto unknown directions. It’s also about the watershed moments of a country and how these were reflected back into the game.
This was an era when indigenous people were suddenly accepted into what was previously an all-white, Anglo-centric enclave. It was an era when the white Australia policy was officially rescinded. Aboriginal people were beginning to find their voice. Part of that voice was beginning to be seen on the field of play.
It was also a time when union power was growing, feminism was on the rise, socialist ideals were gaining traction and new immigrants - with new ideas - were streaming in. Even a sport as backwards as rugby league had to respond. When it did, it took the rest of Australian sport with it.
This project will be marketed to all Sydney rugby league clubs and we hope to have an initial media screening at a local cinema. We believe the film is of general sporting interest, and we will be attempting to sell it to the documentary divisions of the major television/streaming networks.
The idea of the big changes in rugby league during this period has already been partly explored in books, but never in film. But time is running out. Many of the people who were instrumental in this period are now dead. This film will have this legacy element, but also intends to have an educational one, based on social history. How better to explain recent Australian history to young people than through the eyes of a game. The Men who changed the Game is where it begins.

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