He never managed to lift a premiership trophy for his beloved Cronulla Sharks but one of the club’s all-time greatest players believes history will be made tomorrow.
Club legend Andrew Ettingshausen says Cronulla have the team to win Sunday’s NRL grand final against minor premiers Melbourne and break their famous 50-year premiership drought.
Ettingshausen retired in 2000 having played 324 games for Cronulla, including the 1997 Super League grand final defeat against Brisbane.
He was twice the Dally M centre of the year and made his first grade debut while still at De La Salle High School in 1983.
The man affectionately known as ‘ET’ became the first play to surpass 300 first grade games with the one club and also made 27 State of Origin appearances for NSW and played 25 times for Australia.
Speaking on radio earlier in the week, Ettingshausen said
‘‘It’s a great feeling. They’ve had their ups and downs over the years and for us in the Sutherland Shire it’s been a difficult one to win a premiership or even be in a grand final,” he said.
‘‘The fact that the boys are in there, they have a really well balance team. A team that looks like they can take it out.
‘‘It’s very exciting. Everyone has got the blue, white and black banners everywhere and it’s just great to see.
‘‘I think that win against the Raiders a couple of weeks back really just gave them that spark. It brought them to life again and the guys who were down a bit especially on form, all just picked it up a bit and turned it around in a hurry.
‘‘And you could just see from after that game the spirit of the club was right there.”
Ettingshausen, who has a grandstand at Southern Cross Group Stadium named after him, saw his career finish towards the end of the 2000 season when a back injury caused him to miss Cronulla’s run to the semi-finals.
But his 18 seasons in the top grade and 165 tries – fourth on the all-time try-scoring list – mean Ettingshausen is well qualified to speak about the chances of his former club.
‘‘I had a team dinner with the boys last Thursday night and you could just see they were relaxed and ready to go,” he said.
“They were all laughing and enjoying themselves and I could just tell from that evening they were going to go well against the Cowboys.
‘‘I think this week these guys have got – I wouldn’t call it arrogance but they’ve actually got a real belief in themselves. These young guys like Holmes and Birdy and Barba, they’ve got this belief. It means they feel they’re warranted out on the field, they feel this is where they deserve to be and I think that is going to put them in really good stead.
“You won’t get any of those jitters you often find from young guys going into a big match like this.
“We had some great sides over the years but it is very hard to win a competition.
‘‘I look at the Melbourne Storm they’ve got a quality team, they certainly don’t have the team they used to have when they had Folau and Inglis and Slater in the team. So they’ve got a good team the Storm but they’re certainly a team the Sharks can get over with the squad they’ve got.”
Ettingshausen said Cronulla’s young stars would give the Sharks an advantage against Melbourne – as would their boost in confidence since back to back finals victories over in-form Canberra and the reigning premiers North Queensland.
‘‘They were looking a bit rusty a few weeks back when they were up against it. They lost a few games and all that confidence went out of the system,” he said.
‘‘I think for any player, it doesn’t matter who you are, if you’re confidence is down you are really going to struggle to perform at the highest level.
‘‘So it is great to see we’ve got plenty of weapons out wide now with Barba and Bird and Holmes and the like and a couple of great quality halves in Maloney and Townsend.
‘‘It’s been really good being able to see this team develop, especially the last couple of years and these young guys coming in.
‘‘You know it wasn’t that long ago that Andrew Fifita the front rower was the leading try scorer for the Sharks.”
Cronulla have come a long way in recent years and Ettingshausen paid tribute to club chairman Damien Keogh for the resurgence.
Since the former Australian Boomer joined Cronulla four years ago, the Sharks have gone from strength to strength after the ASADA investigation.
And according to Ettingshausen, Keogh’s contribution had been invaluable.
‘‘It’s always disappointing when things don’t go as planned,” he said.
‘‘Unfortunately they had all the ASADA problems but just being able to climb out of that is a great testament to the club and there has been enormous amounts of hard work over the past two years – from the board of directors all the way down. And the great thing is they have been able to put a really good team together, keep that squad together and have a strong belief.
‘‘It was a difficult couple of years but they have turned things around in a hurry. They’re looking good.
‘‘[Keogh has] stepped in right when he was needed for us. We had the opportunity to do the big development there and obviously secure the club’s future and I think he’s brought a good bunch on to the board and they’ve worked incredibly hard to be able to pull off all the necessary deals that had to be done around a huge development like what’s getting put down there at the moment.
‘‘It is going to see the Sharkies in good stead in the coming years which is great and the other good thing is that it is not only off the field it’s on the field that we’re having great success.”
