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Teddy Goodwin finished off his spectacular chip and chase try in the 1977 grand final by knocking himself out with a face plant.
Had Kaeo Weekes managed the same dénouement to his breathtaking run against the Storm in Magic Round, he would not only have invited the obvious puns, but he would have looked even more like Teddy in action than he already does.
There’s the same wow factor to his acceleration, and there’s that uncanny balance when moving at speed.
But Teddy’s signature characteristic was his unpredictability. It was part of his genius, and of his fallibility. His destiny that day wasn’t just to pull off the spectacular. He added the improbable.
Except, because it was Teddy, people shook their heads, and accepted that it was, after all, typical. Always the two-bob lair.
The two-bob lair? Is that still a thing? There aren’t any more two bobs. But are there lairs today? And what was a lair back then?
Memories going back 50 years get opaque. Add rose-coloured glasses and you might be seeing things that weren’t there. But Teddy was definitely regarded as a lair. Particularly when he first appeared. He was a flamboyant mover and he liked to celebrate his success after he put the ball down.
Things had changed by the time his career finished but at the beginning of the 1970s that sort of behaviour was a departure from orthodoxy in the Australian rugby league world.
Rex Mossop and the Controversy Corner panel had a dim view of it. He was talented but he was a lair. You could belt opponents as much as you liked but you had to show modesty and temperance if you were good at it. That was orthodoxy.
Rex Mossop and Frank Hyde in 2000. (Photo via Getty Images)
It didn’t take much to be labelled a lair in those days. In the 1960s, Bob McCarthy was testing orthodoxy by being a second rower who ran in the backline. It didn’t matter to some that his size and speed made the tactic a very good one.
He was a forward so he should uppercutting the opposing hooker in scrums and taking the ball up into the defensive wall on the thirty-first tackle. For those who weren’t red and green, it didn’t matter that it was an irrational non sequitur.
There was just one word to describe that sort of ‘look at me’ behaviour. Bobby was just a lair.
Bob Fulton was also a lair. It was inevitable that he would acquire the tag. His speed and prolific try scoring were as flashy as his blonde hair. Oh, and he played for Manly. And he drove a big car. And, didn’t you know? He was born in England! Lair.
And when Langlands, team mate of Raper and Gasnier, no less, put on a pair of white boots in the 1975 grand final, well then, no bigger lair ever took to a football field. According to the apocrypha, the boots turned on him, became hostile accessories, and affected his play so much that his game that day would live on in infamy. Serves him right. For being a lair.
In America, by the seventies, the noisy exhibitionist Cassius Clay had become the charismatic Muhammad Ali. And the young people loved him in a way the old timers couldn’t stomach.
The same sort of cultural shift was happening in Australia, and extroverted sporting personalities like Teddy rode that shift. Orthodoxy was boring and being challenged everywhere. By the time Teddy finished playing he was as popular as anyone who was lacing on a boot at the SCG.
And by the time Wendell Sailor was enjoying his larger than life portrayal in the media, modesty was no longer anything to boast about. You could be good at the game, personable in public and put a bit of personality on show without being muttered about.
Wendell Sailor. (Photo by Pete Dovgan/Speed Media/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Add a bit of charm and irony and it was okay. But you had to know how to do it. Anthony Mundine, for one, never managed it.
Is there an equivalent to a lair today? Is there even an orthodoxy to offend against?
Jarome Luai seemed to have aroused a bit of lair disapproval. For no fair reason. Perhaps it was something to do with being good, playing in a good team, and trying his hand at being a little cheeky. But he was young and whatever the problem was then now seems to be forgotten and forgiven.
Flamboyance is no longer a sin. Josh Addo-Carr has it in spades. Reece Walsh isn’t disapproved of on account of his flashiness in appearance and in his play.
Latrell Mitchell has had his detractors for reasons which seem akin to the old paradigms. He stands out. He shows confidence and not a lot of self deprecation. This however isn’t a sin in others.
You wonder whether, like the reaction to a young Cassius Clay, and to Mundine, there’s something latently odious at the bottom of the dislike from the few that persist in indulging it.
There’s not much to be missed in the monochrome expectations of those earlier days. Sociologists would probably point to working class tribalism and egalitarianism as a factor in the simplistic labelling of the ostentatiously different player as a lair. And frankly, to those with a limited vocabulary, the term had a sort of catch all utility to describe outrageous talent in someone from another tribe.
But for an old guy a bit of nostalgia is fun. You can see the how the zeitgeist has changed.
And you can approve the shift but still enjoy the memories of having seen in action those special enough to have been tagged as lairs. And here’s an idea. Why not honour them?
How about a Two-Bob Lair hall of fame? Nominations open.
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