On Sunday night, before the Roosters beat the Knights 19-18, retired South Sydney forward Jai Arrow and former Wallaby Nathan Charles were taken around the field while Amy Shark opened with ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone ’. No intro. No band behind her at first. Just the song
Both men were diagnosed with motor neurone disease this year. Arrow’s diagnosis ended his career and hung over the back half of the season. July was given over to him. The Arrow, after a try, became the salute you saw every weekend, from juniors up. Charles, 37, played four Tests for the Wallabies. His diagnosis only became public in the days before the grand final, which is why his place on the lap landed as a surprise even to people who had followed the Arrow story all year.
Shark’s song was one played when Arrow ran out for his 100th and last game for the Rabbitohs, and it has sat under the tributes since. She started it alone then apiano came in. She looked emotional as the lap got moving. Dave Gleeson, from the Newcastle band the Screaming Jets, took over with What’s Up. Phil Jamieson of Grinspoon closed the set with Tina Turner’s The Best, the old rugby league campaign song, with Shark and Gleeson still up there.
Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers were on the bill too. Although Peking Duk posted on Sunday morning that the duo wouldn’t be performing because they already had a gig in Cairns. Styles still appeared, on guitar.
Throughout it, the tens of thousands in the crowd put their arms up in an arrow. Wristband lights came on around the ground. In a packaged piece played before the music, Hall of Fame caller Ray Warren said Arrow’s fight had gone well past the football field, and that the way he had met it was “what true bravery really looks like”. He asked the stadium to shoot an arrow for Jai. They did.
None of this was the plan a fortnight ago.
The NRL had been chasing a headline act and not getting one. Tones and I were the names in the frame. Her team later said existing commitments in the US ruled it out, and that nothing had been signed. Other names were floated and fell over. Olivia Dean was talked about and ruled too expensive.
A Silverchair reunion was never realistic on such short notice. Peter V’landys then said there would be no pre-match entertainment at all, and that the $1 million set aside for it would go to underprivileged kids who cannot afford to play. Artists, including Shannon Noll, offered to do the gig for nothing.
The league came back around. The show would happen, V’landys said, and it would be “the highest-rating 11 minutes you will ever see”. Arrow would be at the centre of it.
Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Garry Maddox said the obvious risk was that a segment dreamt up in the last week would look like the game milking a player it already loved. Arrow is a larrikin the rugby league public genuinely warms to. A last-minute fix for a booking failure can curdle that, even with good intentions. Maddox’s verdict after watching was that it didn’t. Simple, short of the wow you got from Kylie Minogue’s AFL grand final set, and not awkward. Not one of the great grand final shows. Not a missed stunt, either.
There was a sideshow around Shark, too. Her old comments about the NRL underpaying musical acts had done the rounds again on Friday. On Saturday she posted a photo from 11 months ago with the line “I love the game … don’t believe the noise”. By Sunday night she was the person holding the opening of the show.
In the end The roosters beat the knights 19-18
and the $1 million pledge is still the other half of the story. V’landys has said the money meant to buy a headliner will go to juniors instead.
