Peter Sterling

Rumours or stories of you almost signing with the Roosters, the Eagles, the Bears.

Then Peter Sterling told us on one of these interviews recently he was positive you were coming to the Eels in 87.

What's the fact and fiction amongst all these Sydney stories?

No, a lot of fact.

Terry Lamb was around the same time.

Peter Sterling was late 70s.

phenomenal group of players, and there was a ton of them.

And then in 86, just rolled a few more along, you know, Greg Alexander, Ben Elias, Paul Cyran, and they just keep coming.

and so and I think a lot of the kind of the disappointment of the Great Britain performance at least initially was overshadowed to some extent by the fact they were so good and the fans were clapping Australian tries in the end weren't they absolutely yeah yeah because they were so brilliant a lot of rugby union reporters came and said these are the best rugby players of any code we've ever seen yeah yeah um the kangaroos got a lot of national publicity for you know outside of rugby league sports coverage um and so each of the games and so they um They just ran away with each of the games.

The other interesting thing, I think, is that it was the Sterling-Kenny halfback combination that really captured people's imaginations.

I mean, I think to some extent, Peter Sterling's career has been overshadowed by his TV commentary career.

But Sterling was just an absolutely fantastic player.

Yeah.

I have done these legend series interviews with a few of my eels in Brett Kenny, Peter Sterling, Mick Crone and Ray Price.

All of them recall Parramatta's first grand final, the 81 grand final.

as their first premiership but the club's first premiership and they realised on that night during the celebrations what rugby league means to the community.

New South Wales born and Toowoomba grandma educated, at least, I think.

Peter Sterling.

We'll be asking him.

Yeah, reverse Sterling.

Australia came over on a tour and annihilated everybody.

They were in the days of Wally Lewis and Peter Sterling and all those big high-profile players.

Mal Meninga.

Yeah, so it was fascinating.

Who was your favourite player from that era then? Or did you have a favourite as a result of dealing with them at the Leagsy?

I'd have to say Peter Sterling.

Yeah.

He was always there with his wife.

Yeah, or I often laugh at commentary as well, like Ray Warren.

I'll grab the commentary clips from Ray Warren's games from back in the day, and I'm just cracking up laughing at Peter Stirling and Phil Gould alongside Ray.

Breda said, I think you're talking to the future All Blacks head coach, Whitney Hansen.

That's a kettle of fish.