Tears Mix With Rain As The Green Machine Loses Three Big Wheels

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday July 10, 2000

Roy Masters

Laurie Daley, David Furner and Brett Mullins bid the Canberra faithful farewell yesterday with a 40-12 win over Sydney. Roy Masters reports.

ONE man, one club, one result. It wasn't a football match yesterday at Bruce Stadium; it was Laurie Daley day.

A rainbow appeared as Daley and teammates Brett Mullins and David Furner began their last lap of their home ground after careers which date back to 1987.

Romantics and amateur meteorologists alike said they had never seen such a rainbow, which straddled the field to make a colourful backdrop for Daley, who will retire from football at the end of the season, and Mullins and Furner, who will resume their careers in England.

Daley played like a man willing to die for his emperor in his club's humiliation of the Sydney Roosters.

He said afterwards: ``I felt invincible out there today. I felt I could do nothing wrong."

It was a day for record breaking and quirky combinations of try scorers, almost as if the points, like the weather, had been ordained.

Daley said: ``When I woke up this morning, I hoped it wouldn't rain and it was a fairytale for me the way it ended."

When Furner kicked his 500th goal for the club on half-time to give the Raiders a 14-8 lead, it was dry. Midway through the second half, with black clouds brooding, even the scoring turned surreal.

The score raced to 24-8 after two tries which involved the same three players in the same positions on the same part of the field.

The first came when Daley ignited a movement to his left and passed to Mullins, who had to juggle the difficult ball while held by three players. Yet he released it while falling and Jason Croker scored. Five minutes later, Daley ran with the football in his characteristic way of carrying it in front of his body, passed it on to Mullins, who tapped it to Croker, who carried four players over the line with him.

Daley and Croker are very close, a word which could also be used to describe the conversion attempts by Furner, a man who clearly did not want to be left out of this strange little piece of history.

His conversion attempt of the first try was successful but his second hit the upright.

Further tries to winger Jamaal Lolesi and Mullins followed and, when Sydney winger Anthony Minichiello scored, the sky began weeping rain. Minichiello's try, in the 70th minute, was the first time the Roosters had scored since the 17th minute, when they led 8-0.

Daley said: ``When we were behind 8-0, I didn't worry. I just knew the boys were switched on."

Daley the warrior admitted he turned weeper just before kick-off.

``When I went to speak to the boys before running out, I started crying," he said.

The anticipated clash of Daley and Sydney captain Brad Fittler was a non-event. Although both played five-eighth, they rarely confronted each other, Fittler often defending on the blind and Daley standing wide as a centre in attack.

The Roosters have now conceded 80 points in two games and, although it is tempting to suggest defence is their problem, they lack direction in attack.

With half Adrian Lam out injured, Craig Wing has been forced to play first receiver.

Roosters coach Graham Murray said: ``Craig is not a No7, he's a No6. We tried to change things subtly but it backfired."

With Fittler having no cohesion with Wing and Daley linking so successfully with half Andrew McFadden, the Raiders had more points of attack. A half-time penalty count of 7-1 against the Roosters also had a major impact.

The nucleus of strong teams remains home-grown talent, and all three retiring Raiders were developed in the local area.

Mullins, 28, is too talented and still too young to be lost to English football, although it is understood he is yet to sign with Leeds.

Yesterday he scored tries, set up tries and saved tries.

Daley's father, Lance, an engine driver on the XPT, was at the game, saying he was looking forward to the next seven weeks, in which his son will make a whistlestop conclusion to his career, hopefully ending in a victorious grand final.

The crowd was treated to a montage of video clips of Daley on a big screen, showing him as a youngster, an unblocked phantom who would appear out of nowhere and ruin play after play with shuddering tackles.

As his knee began to ache, he surrendered power and speed but he never lost his fans.

Yesterday, after he made a soaring 40-20 kick, the savvy fans were on the edge of their seats.

A scrum was set 20m out, the Raiders to feed.

With the crowd chanting ``Laurie", he ran from the scrum, almost lost the ball but retrieved it.

But the Roosters gained possession, then lost it on a clearing kick when Mark McLinden set up winger Lesley Vainikolo for a try.

Daley set up the conversion attempt near the sideline.

The crowd of 23,603 began chanting once more.

The kick was high but short.

In Daley's last game at Bruce, he may have lost the opportunity to score points but he found in an adoring public his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.