Thirty-five years ago Wayne Bennett’s Broncos beat Manly 44-10 in their inaugural game at Lang Park, and the master coach had a similarly historic victory on Sunday afternoon, when the Dolphins made their debut with a stunning 28-18 upset over the Roosters. Isaiya Katoa was on debut for the Phins over Anthony Milford and there were a few shakeups on the Sydney side, with Joey Manu out with a facial fracture, JWH off with a back issue, and Angus Crichton absent for personal reasons, clearing up space for Egan Butcher to start on the edge.

Nevertheless, the lineup wasn’t enough to explain the Chooks’ choke here, especially since Luke Keary was good to go after his recent jaw injury and Brandon Smith was making his Tricoloured debut. Cheese turned out to be totally outmatched by Jeremy Marshall-King’s best ever game, with the ex-Bulldog setting up both tries in the first stanza, which ended with a 12-12 deadlock. The tipping-point came with a trio of tackles from Felise Kaufusi on Teddy, Cheese and Egan Butcher, all midway through the count, paving the way for a Nicholls try.

Yet the Dolphins were even more dominant in the second stanza, where they survived a Daniel Tupou putdown (on his third attempt in the corner) to cruise to a Jamayne Isaako double that made their right wing feel all but undefended. The shock and awe of their escalating attack roused Suncorp into a red and white frenzy, and turned an already historic match into a mythology-maker, from JMK’s opening assist for Hammer to plant it down right beneath the posts to the heroic defence that prevented the Roosters ever really hitting back.

The Dolphins had first touch of the footy with Jarrod Wallace taking the first ever charge for the red and while. Kaufusi was next, careening towards the twenty, before Jesse Bromwich carted it out of the red zone, brother Kenny cleared the thirty and Tom Gilbert hit the forty, all off the first of many instances of deft dummy half service from JMK. It had been a strong opening statement from the Redcliffe forwards, building decent position for Katoa to make his debut NRL kick, in the face of some serious pressure from Lindsay Collins.

Tedesco took the kick and broke the red zone, but with Tupou slipping on the turf, and Sean O’Sullivan contributing two staunch tackles, it looked like the Chooks might not make much headway here – until Matt Lodge drove it hard and fast up the middle, and Teddy followed in his wake with a mercurial dummy that almost sent him straight through the line. Sam Walker put up his hand for first kicking duties, launching the footy to the right edge, where Tesi Niu came to ground at the twenty, as the Dolphins began their second ever set.

This time the big men were a little more frustrated, as Lodge made solid contact on Brenko Lee four plays in and Jesse found himself unable to get the offload away from Collins and Nat Butcher on the penultimate play. O’Sullivan now had his first kick in Dolphins colours but it was no threat for Jaxson Paulo, who collected it at the apex of a curving run and became the next returner to break the red zone. The hosts were holding their own well here, even if Tupou made up for his slip now with a couple tough post-contacts through Jesse and Kaufusi.

Victor Radley was the next Rooster to take on the line, burrowing himself into three defenders to wrestle position for Walker to hoist another one to the right edge, where Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow came up a superb take in a sea of Tricoloured chasers. Victor the Inflictor wasn’t as successful in defence though, smashing Kaufusi hard enough to force the footy free but without avoiding a touch himself, meaning that the Phins had six again and the first significant position today, especially once a quick play-the-ball from Gilbert nabbed JMK sixteen metres.

Driving it deep into Roosters territory, the ex-Bulldog was finally brought down by Lodge and Radley, ushering in the most dynamic period of play so far for the new Suncorp locals. O’Sullivan started by attempting to break through Lodge, before offloading out to the Hammer, who in the midst of the chaos still managed to get a boot to it at the opposition thirty. His chase was just as courageous, and would have resulted in a try if not for a superhuman effort from Collins, who grabbed it on the ground, and shot it back for Walker.

This was a dramatic turnaround for the Chooks and yet they lost some of their momentum when play paused for the independent doctor to order Brandon Smith off the park for a HIA thanks to some friendly fire with Egan Butcher. Jake Turpin trotted on earlier than expected, Collins summoned the troops with a tough charge into Gilbert and Jesse, and Radley required three Dolphins to contain him on the right edge, but it all ended with a Walker floating bomb to the right edge that Hammer collected with more ease than virtually any high ball thus far.

It felt like only a matter of time before JMK fully elasticised at dummy half and he warmed up even further with another great dart on this set, managing to send a quick play-the-ball to the Hammer despite some punishing contact from Radley. The Dolphins had their first attack in the twenty and their second really dynamic passage of play, as O’Sullivan opted to run it on the last, and offloaded out to Euan Aitken, who reined it in with one hand, bounced off Walker, tucked it under the right arm, made his way into the ten, and tumbled to the ground.

A milisecond before he landed he managed to offload back to JMK, who dummied with Collins around his ankles and popped it out for Katoa to reach up, collect AFL-style in both hands, and come down within a blade of grass with Walker on his back. Between the gymnastic dexterity of his leap and the precision with which he had landed lay the first great showpiece of the Dolphins era, and while it was agonisingly denied due to a forward ball from JMK, it felt like a promise that the red and white might be stunning today once they really got underway.

Gilbert channelled some of that promise into the biggest hit of the game so far, on Joseph Suaalii, galvanising a swathe of his team mates to hand Paulo the same treatment. Collins might have glimpsed some space up the middle but it closed pretty quickly, while Walker became the next Rooster to slip on the Suncorp turf. The visitors’ last bid was a swift left edge play, and a pivotal moment for Keary, who offloaded back inside for Suaalii to ensure he was almost at halfway by the time he caught it again for the kick, with ten gone on the clock.

Redcliffe made good headway on the following set to get O’Sullivan in place for a boot from the opposition forty and the Chooks responded in kind, with one of their most methodical passages of play so far. Teddy took the high ball just outside the ten, and turned to face his own try line to take the brunt of a tough chase from Aitken, before Hutchison ferried it to the twenty, Tupou to the thirty, and Teddy himself to the forty, where he delivered a searching run that ended with Turpin digging into the line and offloading out for some Walker metres.

The young five-eighth made it third phase with another offload for Nat Butcher to break through the line and crack the red zone, and while he might have been brought down by a mammoth Hammer tackle, the Roosters had the rhythm now, and condensed it all into their final play – a Keary bomb to the left corner that ended with Suaalii scoring the first Tricoloured try of the season. For a moment, it looked like there might have been two errors here, each of which could be attributed to Dolphins interference, raising the question of a penalty try.

First, there was a question of whether the future Rugby prospect had knocked on when he first gathered contact following the contest between the two number 2s in the air, but the replay showed that Isaako had actually fumbled the footy, leaving it clean for Suaalii to scoop up and carry over the line. Then, there was concern that he might not have secured a clean grounding, although even this would have been annulled due to some Brenko Lee action at the last minute, which meant that the Roosters centre had only made the slightest putdown.

In fact, this crystallised the threshold for what constitutes a try in 2023, proving that if the footy rolls down from fingertips to forearm but hits the grass without separation then it garners the four points. That was exactly what happened here, culminating a remarkably dexterous sequence for Suaalii, especially since the replay showed he had actually pulled back from the Tupou-Isaako contest to ensure that the Steeden came off his right knee. What initially looked like two possible mistakes from Joseph turned out to be pitch perfect football.

The home crowd were frustrated with the result but they didn’t do too badly out of it either, since without the try being ratified Lee would have been off to the bin for ten minutes. Walker added the extras from the left touchline to put the Chooks at six, in one of the most dazzling strikes of his career – as high as the top of the posts and precisely bisecting them – while Tupou forced Wallace and Gilbert to work hard in a standing tackle at the start of the restart, before some strong Dolphins defence ensured Walker only made it to halfway for the boot.

It was now time for the red and white to step up, and Isaako got them rolling with a big charge into Collins, while Lee started making amends for his error with a similarly sterling effort. A quick pickup from JMK laid the platform for Hammer to almost break through up the left, and while Teddy was able to make a little headway off an O’Sullivan high ball, he was still downed by the Dolphins halfback and JMK before he could crack the ten. Once again, the Phins had almost brought it all together, as if they were now finally waking up as a first grade affair.

Accordingly, everything came together on the next set, which started with a deft take from the Hammer beneath a Hutchison bomb to the right corner. Aitken may have been repelled by a brutal Radley-led pack, but Isaako defied a Lodge ankle tap to almost break up the middle and then finally, on tackle four, JMK’s moment arrived. He’d been raring to break free all afternoon, so there was a real vision now as he showed it and tucked it into his chest to get by Lodge and Egan Butcher, as Keary surged up on his outside.

Not only did he outpace the little halfback, but he flicked it back in to the Hammer, across the chests of Kaufusi and Radley, a millisecond before he collided with Teddy as last line of Sydney City defence. From there the rest was history – literally, as the Hammer cruised beneath the crossbars to plant down the first ever try for the NRL Dolphins, rose immediately to greet the delighted crowd, copped an enormous hug from Kaufusi, and then went head to head with O’Sullivan, in a wild war cry that formed the first great mythology moment for the new team.

Isaako was always going to land the kick from right in front, booting the first conversion for Redcliffe directly towards his own magnified image on the screen, and ushering in a new sense of enterprise for the hosts – excessive enterprise, as it turned out, since Katoa experimented with toeing the kickoff forward only for it to be scooped up by Collins, who would have scored then and there if not for a last-ditch tackle round the legs from Wallace, at just the right angle to also stop him offloading out to Egan Butcher, who had open space all the way to the line.

The Chooks had gone from defending a restart to enjoying a full set in the opposition ten and for the moment they had absorbed all of Redcliffe’s energy. A very wide ball from Walker opened up the right edge, where Paulo took it on the bounce sixteen out and still managed to crash down within a metre of the corner chalk. With Kenny offside, and a fresh set on the line, the visitors swept it back inside for Radley to take a steadier, as Brandon Smith trotted back onto the park after passing his HIA, reading to inject his footy genius back into the fray.

Lodge now took a crack at the left edge but the most dynamic attack on this set had been out on the other side of the park, and so the Roosters sent it back in that direction, where Nat Butcher mirrored Lodge’s hard run, Cheese made a darting dummy half dash to come down right on the line, and Teddy showcased all his magnificence as both leader and player with the best footwork of the game – off the right boot, poising on the left, and curving back inside ever so slightly to dance around Aitken and Gilbert to put Hutchinson over the line for four.

This brilliant footy choreography ushered in a real tipping-point at the end of the first quarter, especially once Walker, who had provided the beautiful dummy half ball to his fullback, added the extras here to make it twelve apiece. The Chooks had responded perfectly to the Katoa blunder, and yet the sheer extravagance of that play spoke to a surfeit of Dolphins spirit that could still unleash great things if they managed to find their groove. Even then, though, few pundits would have predicted that the remainder of the game would be basically all Redcliffe.

Lodge put his hand up for the first carry of the restart, Tupou dragged it beyond the twenty on the second, and Collins carved up the middle in the face of some solid contact from Gilbert and Wallace. A short ball from Keary put Suaalii into the opposition forty on the penultimate play before Walker booted it end over end for Tupou, who got hands to it first, but found it wrested from his grasp by a tough Isaako contest. Nevertheless, the Chooks were 13/13 and defended well here, keeping Katoa pretty close to his red zone by the time he made the kick.

Luckily he sailed it beyond the Roosters thirty, although a stellar run from Teddy got the visitors to the brink of halfway, despite a slip as he was preparing to dodge past another suite of defenders. Play paused midway through the set when Wallace came in low on Walker, and copped some friendly fire to the neck from Jesse, although the Roosters didn’t take long to regather with a beautiful left sweep on the fourth. Cheese got it rolling, flicking the footy out for Walker to dig deep into the line until it was virtually a 90 degree pass back to Keary.

Keary repeated the formula, driving hard into the red and white wall before sending it perpendicular to Teddy, who lofted arguably the best ball of the game out to Suaalii – a one-handed tap-on, right to left, across the chest, and deft enough to allow the young backliner to crash down fifteen out from the line. Teddy was in full footy flow now, toeing it at the ten towards the crossbar at such a dangerous angle that Hammer had no choice but to bump it dead all the way from the try line. Twenty-three minutes in the Chooks had the first dropout.

Walker collected the ball, Collins dragged Gilbert and JMK inside the thirty, Lodge bumped off Katoa to muscle his way over the twenty and Smith nabbed a nice pickup from dummy half to put Butcher five out from the line. Yet a Dolphins trio read Keary well when he showed it on the next play, while Isaako got the better of Tupou a second time, coming in with a hard low tackle to force his knee on the touchline before he could plant one down off a wide ball from Walker. This was gutsy defence from the Dolphins and won them a scrum from the ten.

Even better Aitken garnered a penalty on play two, thanks to a hand in the ruck from Walker, as Nicholls took his first charge in the Dolphins jersey, before Gilbert knocked it back only to scoop it up and drag Keary, Cheese and Egan Butcher into the forty for good measure. JMK and Kaufusi glimpsed some space up the right, where Tupou took out part of the frustration of his last few sets with a clinical shutdown on Katoa, forcing the play back in field, where Nicholls got hands to the footy a second time, and Katoa ended by toeing it out to the right.

For a moment this looked like it might be a sequel to the superb footwork that allowed Teddy to set up the Hutchison try, as the custodian collected the Steeden just over the try line, turned around to face his own end of the park, shaped right, shaped left, and would have squeezed back down the short side if not for another mammoth save from Isaako. Yet the dropout was delayed as Radley headed to the bench after copping a poke in the eye from Egan Butcher as they converged on Ray Stone, who had trotted off the pine just after Nicholls.

Terrell May joined the fray as Walker sent it short, while Isaako was stellar in the air again, collecting the footy just outside the ten. Kaufusi popped it back inside and Gilbert lost the ball backwards again, although he couldn’t scoop it up again this time, despite a valiant dive that simply saw it slide back into Collins’ grasp. May took his first run of the match a beat later, into Kenny, Stone and Nicholls, with Ray especially seeming to relish his first NRL appearance since his match-winning golden point try for Parra against Melbourne in March last year.

Now it was the Chooks’ turn to receive a penalty, with Kaufusi caught out for lying in the ruck, as Collins continued his workhorse performance with more metres on tackle one, and May put up his hand to combat another Dolphins’ trio on tackle two. Yet with a Keary ball ricocheting forward off Nat Butcher, and a poorly-judged Captain’s Challenge to show the footy indeed making contact with the upper arm, the momentum turned back Redcliffe’s way, as the Phins packed another scrum in their own end and moved methodically up the middle.

They were inside Roosters territory with two tackles to play with and started to elasticized with a O’Sullivan-Katoa ball that took a low shot from Cheese paired with Lodge and Keary on top to fully contain. Paulo did well to collect an O’Sullivan kick on the full with the sun in his face, the illuminated part of the stadium visibly shrinking now, but good defence from the Dolphins meant that Walker was only forty out from his line by the time he put boot to ball, Once again, too, they made their way methodically up the park, searching for an opportunity.

In the end, it culminated with a shallow Katoa kick that Isaako collected and then knocked on. Yet over the next three Roosters sets the Phins discovered the vision they had been glimpsing all game, thanks to a mammoth trio of tackles from Kaufusi, who downed Teddy, Cheese and Egan Butcher on three successive third plays. The first change in possession came now, as Turpin fed a short ball out to his skipper, who coughed it up into a pummelling low shot from Kaufusi. Lee took it on the bounce just outside his own forty, accelerating off the right boot.

Walker, Tupou and Suaalii were all converging on him by the time he arrived at the Sydney thirty and yet he was five out by the time a desperate Suaalii ankle-tap brought him to ground. Redcliffe had a full set in the Roosters’ ten, and a good dummy half ball from Lee allowed Connelly Lemuelu to arrive within half a metre of the chalk on the very next play. A sequence of enormous passes from Lee, Katoa and O’Sullivan parlayed all that volatility back to the other wing, where Aitken spilled a short ball from Kenny, but with Nat Butcher caught offside.

With another full set right on the line, they drifted back inside, where Lemuelu came down half a metre short once again. For now, however, they couldn’t quite bring it together, as a pair of clutch efforts – JMK turning around to face his goal at dummy half, and a quick tap-on from O’Sullivan – ended with Katoa unable to rein it in. For the second time today the Dolphins had made an error in the opposition ten, and yet like clockwork Kaufusi changed the rhythm, this time when Turpin bypassed Teddy altogether by sending the cut-out for Cheese.

Just as Smith was shaping left, Kaufusi delivered another superb shot, ricocheting the Steeden a good ten metres back, where Isaako toed it to the ten, and converged on it with Walker, who circled around it just before the crossbar, and actually landed on it, but was unable to prevent it tumbling in goal. Continuing the flow of his Teddy-assisted putdown, Hutchison scooped it up, eluded a Stone ankle tap on the inside and somehow managed to get past Kaufusi on the wing to burrow to ground a metre back in the field of play – a mammoth effort.

All in all the Chooks were lucky to have another set here, as Tupou put up his hand for another opening carry and May flicked the offload out to Naufahu Whyte on tackle two. Still, the third tackle curse struck again, as Kaufusi made it a trio of brutal shots by launching his right shoulder into Egan Butcher, directly under the footy, and so capping off one of the great second-rower stints of the early season. With that belief behind them, the Phins had to score on this scrum from the thirty, especially once a deft O’Sullivan dummy caught Walker offside.

They had a full set in the twenty and began with another strong statement from O’Sullivan, who reached out his full wingspan to take a Stone ball in the left palm, while some quick dummy half vision from JMK meant that the ex-Eel was able to add to his metre tally on the next play too, as he charged into the left padding. These two Stone runs became the platform for another big bopper to stamp his signature on this historical match – the Goat himself, Mark Nicholls, who received a sharp JMK ball and slammed down four beside the left padding.

It was a beautiful try, one part JMK’s mercurial vision from dummy half, which saw him hesitate for the briefest of moments as to whether to shape for the right, and one part Nicholls’ strength and commitment, which left Nat Butcher unable to make a dent on his trajectory. Isaako added the extras to make it 12 apiece, Teddy sent the kickoff out on the full with two and a half minutes on the clock, Nicholls took the first hitup of the restart, and Stone not only weathered Turpin’s efforts to strip the footy but won his men six again in the process.

The last big play for the Dolphins was JMK taking a crack at the left padding, where he was downed by a Cheese ankle tap as Teddy and Nat Butcher tumbled in top. Despite being in good range for the field goal, O’Sullivan opted to run it on the last, and with Katoa contained by Suaalii, the Chooks had thirty seconds for their final set, which ended with Nat Butcher unable to break the red and white wall. It had been a staunch opening stanza for the new team, and the achievement of a deadlock foreshadowed great things to come after the sheds.

Isaako had the kickoff when they returned and May the opening run and yet once again the Chooks only made it halfway through the set, although this time an unforced error was to blame, in the form of a messy play-the-ball from Whyte. The Dolphins had the scrum thirty out as Hammer fended off Walker and drew in Hutchison to hold him up on the brink of the red zone, with Turpin needed in support, before Kenny barged it up the middle, and Nicholls brought it to the ten, where he considered a dummy out to Stone but ended up going it alone.

From there O’Sullivan, Katoa and the Hammer shifted it out to the right, where Hutchison came up with another big save, this time on Aitken, and Tesi Niu tried to make it to the chalk in the face of a three-man Roosters pack. Another suite of wide balls followed, and ended with O’Sullivan launching a shallow bomb to the right, where Suaalii collected it easily in the face of Nicholls. For a brief moment it looked like the Roosters might not finish another set, as a Paulo offload was only just cleaned up by Hutchison, who really scrambled to scoop it up. 

As it was, the visitors were desperate for position now, as Whyte only broke the twenty on the fourth, and Walker put boot to ball just inside his own thirty. By contrast, Hammer was at his own forty on the return and Niu at halfway a tackle later, before Kaufusi made big contact with May and Turpin to supercharge the back end of the set, laying a platform for Lemuelu and O’Sullivan to extend the attack up the left. Katoa bombed back to the right, and for a second time Suaalii collected it, but now Isaako, Lee and Nicholls barraged him deep in goal.

This was the next turning-point for the Phins, who shifted left early in the count for Lemuelu to hit the ten and offload back in for O’Sullivan, who took it on the bounce and flicked a wide one out to Katoa, who in turn changed direction for Nicholls to carry it thirteen metre out from the line. Redcliffe were elasticising from play to play now, as a short ball from O’Sullivan sent Kaufusi into Keary, who only just prevented him reach out a hand to plant the footy down. Katoa dummied and was contained by Egan Butcher and O’Sullivan had his next kick.

Last time he’d had to put it off the left boot over to the right edge but now he was bombing to his strengths, and while Walker might have taken it beneath the crossbar, he was slammed in goal by Stone for back-to-back dropouts. The hosts were galvanised by the same energy that had flowed over the field in the wake of Kaufusi’s three tackles, so they had to deliver now, and started with a flashback to their last glorious try, as Nicholls took the first charge to arrive at the thirty, and Stone paired up with the Goat to break his way into the Chooks’ red.

Kenny may have only made five more metres on the third thanks to an ankle tap from Cheese, but the next play more than made up for the position. JMK got rolling with a quick ball to O’Sullivan, who received it fifteen out, dug deep into the line, covered ten metres and then flicked it back inside for Lemuleu, who now delivered the toughest charge of the game. Meeting both Walker and Nat Butcher five metres out, he forced both men to their knees as he reached out, hung horizontal, and slammed the footy down before Teddy could block it.

Cheese was also powerless to deflect his trajectory from behind and so with Isaako adding another conversion the Dolphins were sitting at an impressive 18-12 lead. JMK took a crack at the line midway through the restart, Hammer bent it more on the fourth, and the hosts were at the forty by the time Katoa hoisted his next bomb, which Tupou took a metre above the turf. With Suaalii comprehensively contained by JMK early in the count, the Sydneysiders were kept in their own end, culminating with a tough-as-nails tackles from Kaufusi on May.

Right when Terrell was about to hit halfway, Felise came in hard to repel him from Redcliffe territory, and this flashback to his hits on Teddy, Smith and Butcher was enough to galvanise the Dolphins into their next try. They started with some of their best ruck speed of the night, as Lemuelu offloaded back to O’Sullivan, Stone sent the second phase back to JMK and Katoa popped it out the side to Nicholls as well. Like Kaufusi’s trio of tackles, this trio of offloads suffused the NRL debutants with a fresh elasticity that they parlayed wingwards on the last.

Katoa was the mastermind here, shaping as if to kick on the brink of the thirty, only to run it all the way to the twenty, showing it from side to side all the while, before flicking it out to Kaufusi as Egan Butcher came in for the hit. Felise followed with a beautiful wide ball to Lee, who in turn opened up the ten for Isaako to pivot off the right boot to elude Keary, and barely register Teddy as he curved around to pop the Steeden down beneath the right padding. Well might he rise clapping in ebullience, since this ushered in a golden era in his latter day career.

With Isaako booting through another two the Phins were double Sydney at 24-12 as Nicholls took the first run of the restart and Kenny followed in his wake. Stone seemed primed for another clinical charge on tackle three, pivoting from boot to boot as he sized up the defence, but ended up losing the footy as Whyte and Egan Butcher converged on him. The Chooks had rare position this second stanza, with a scrum from the forty, and Keary marked it by planting a big fend into O’Sullivan, both in flight and on the ground, losing his head gear in the process.

Nat Butcher built on Keary’s effort with a barnstorming run up the left, Whyte ferried it into the twenty and yet Lee cleaned up Teddy with a sharp tackle as he received a Walker ball out on the left edge, forcing the Roosters to shift to the right, where Hutchison was unable to break through either. As a result, Keary booted it back to the left, perhaps hoping to recover the magic of the opening Suaalii try, and seemed to have struck gold once again when Tupou caught it in the air and reached out his enormous wingspan to put it down behind his head.

The on-field ruling was try but upon closer inspection it could be seen that the Giraffe had initially come to ground with the footy in his right hand, and shifted it to his left hand as he reached his arms back over the try line, where he eventually lost control just enough for this to be deemed a tap forward rather than a putdown. Lee played a critical role here, drawing upon Lachie Ilias’ spectacular save on Ronaldo Mulitalo the previous evening to apply just enough pressure to force the Tupou mistake, even if he didn’t actually knock it over the side.

The call of try had felt like the start of a Sydney City comeback but instead turned into one of their most deflating moments so far, while re-empowering a Phins outfit who started marching it down field again as the late afternoon light started to turn golden over Suncorp. Collins couldn’t have returned a moment too soon, especially since Cheese had failed an HIA and Radley now left after staggering to his feet off a tough tackle on Kenny Bromwich. Lodge therefore returned to the contest, as the Dolphins settled into their best defensive set so far.

It felt like one single Redcliffe swarm pummelled the Roosters into nothing now, as Paulo lost the high ball backwards under pressure and Teddy only just cleaned it up. Hutchison was driven back into the ten by one of the biggest Dolphins packs so far, Collins copped the same treatment and was also unable to break the ten, and Lodge only made a couple of metres before losing the footy altogether. This was the moment when the spirit of the NRL’s newest team reached its apex, the home crowd going wild in the stands for the sixteen-metre scrum.

It was poetic, then, that the hosts scored on the very next play, off another right sweep, although they didn’t need to be anywhere near as supple or subtle this time around. Katoa had first touch, shifting it out to the Hammer, who drew in Tupou and Suaalii, leaving a mountain of empty space for Isaako to stroll over untouched for a double on the wing. The Redcliffe fans were raucous as Wayne Bennett looked on impassively, while the celebrations amongst the players felt like they’d won the match, so exuberantly did they show their joy. 

In other words, this was another one of the great mythological moments for the Phins, bookending their superb performance with the Hammer’s opening try, and while Isaako might have missed his last conversion attempt of the afternoon, he’d still notched up two tries, four tackle busts and 107 metres. Nicholls commenced the restart, Kenny took the second run, and Stone charged into some brutal contact with Lodge on the third, although it was the ex-Bronco who rose clutching his cheek, as if slightly stunned by the entire Dolphins’ attitude.

Meanwhile, Lemuelu not only absorbed big contact from Whyte but popped the offload back for the Hammer to arrive at halfway, where a bit of fancy footwork from JMK before he elected to take the tackle cleared up space for O’Sullivan to roll a low one along the ground. It turned out to be too long but the extra tackle didn’t make a dent in the Redcliffe momentum, since Lodge coughed it up on play one, ushering in yet another Dolphins stint in the opposition end, as Kaufusi brought it to the red zone, and Lemuelu approached the ten.

This was to be the first of a series of aborted Redcliffe cascades as Gilbert put it down at the ten, in one of the biggest let-offs so far for the Tricolours. Nicholls headed to the bench as Gilbert collided with Lodge on tackle two, and this time the Roosters forward held onto the footy, paving the way for Teddy to deliver his first great run since the break. Tucking it under his arm he broke the line to carve his way into the Dolphins forty and yet true to the frustrated Sydney spirit of this second stanza, he put down a low ball from Walker a mere tackle later.

Even worse, Lodge, the man who had set up the whole sequence, was taken off for an HIA sustained during a hit on Stone a few sets ago. The hosts were at 9/11 to 2/7 completed sets as they started moving it up the middle again and received a further boost three plays in when Egan Butcher was sent to the bin for dangerous contact around Gilbert’s knees while Whyte and Walker were piling on top. Again, the Phins had another glimpse at greatness, as Jesse hit the twenty, Gilbert hit the ten, and Jesse almost rolled through Walker right on the chalk.

Hutchison then executed a terrific shot to halt O’Sullivan at the ten before he spread it out to the left before JMK tried to compensate with a pass out to Lemuelu, as the Roosters regathered their defensive line. The last play was agonising, at least for the Phins, as O’Sullivan’s kick ricocheted off the boots of Whyte and travelled almost parallel to the try line out to the right, where Katoa could have scored if he’d just waited another bounce, but now found the padding in his way, leaving the footy free for Suaalii to knee down and slam dead.

This was two big let-offs for a Chooks outfit who had never won from a deficit greater than sixteen and so they moved it back up the park as quickly as possible now, resorting to a questionable Turpin-Keary ball that cleared space for Teddy to take a crack up the right edge, before Walker bombed back to the left, where Isaako took it on the fly, accelerated past Turpin and only succumbed to a second ankle tap from the stand-in hooker when he was well beyond his own twenty. It was a decent return but the Phins were searching for even more.

Meanwhile, news came down that Radley and Lodge had both failed their HIAs, activating Fletcher Baker as 18^th man, while Kurt Donoghoe also trotted onto the park in Dolphins colours for his NRL debut. Unfortunately he sent his first pass too wide, sailing it over Lemuelu, Niu and into touch. With that chink in the Redcliffe armour, the Roosters needed a big individual play, and Keary provided it. Taking a Turpin ball in his right fingertips he dummied to elude Katoa, caught Lee off his line and broke through Cheese up the left edge.

Keary culminated this magnificent run by banana kicking at speed just inside his thirty, and receiving a bounce that utterly defied the first line of chasers, as Hammer clean missed it and even Teddy was unable to take it even after sliding to his knees. Kaufusi got both hands to it and knocked it back, leaving Tupou and Hammer clawing for it on the ground. In the opposite of Tupou’s last experience behind the chalk, it was initially called no try but then reversed when the slo-mo footage showed the Giraffle planting it a good half second before Hammer.

Walker added the extras, marking what would become the last points of the game, and was absolutely skittled by Lemuelu on play four of the restart, causing the Steeden to ricochet out parallel to the forty metre line, as Paulo toed it and Aitken took it on the full, in a concisely poetic image of how effectively Redcliffe had contained Sydney City this afternoon. Hammer took the next offload from Niu, broke away from Collins, and set up a right sweep, but fatigue was growing, and so Kaufusi passed to Lee instead of deploying the hole right in front of him.

Back on the park, Nicholls steadied his men with a ten metre charge to hit the thirty and Katoa won them a restart off a Walker error, while Gilbert dragged Collins and Cheese into the twenty. For a third time, the Dolphins glimpsed an epic consolidation, especially when a well-timed Jesse offload produced a rapid right sweep, but it ended with Lee losing the footy and his team wasting their Captain’s Challenge in an effort to contest it. Brenko came agonisingly close too, reaching out his right arm to rein it in, but in the end it sailed just a little too high.

From here, the game started to devolve into a series of scrums, the Chooks now packing it from the ten, and Suaalii delivering a hard run to bring it over the twenty on tackle two. Kaufusi followed with possibly the hardest shot on Collins all night, smashing him back at the thirty as Gilbert and Nicholls joined the later part of the tackle. Finally, Keary forced the pass to Turpin, who wasn’t even looking for it, gifting the Dolphins another scrum inside Sydney territory, where Turpin made up for the error with a low hit to prevent an Aitken linebreak.

Speaking of hookers, no sooner had Donoghoe stepped out of dummy half a beat later than Cheese targeted him, forcing the footy forward to Kaufusi, and laying the platform for Walker to mirror Keary’s left edge run on the other side of the park. Receiving the ball at the twenty, he dummied a couple of times to reach the forty, and from there pivoted off the right boot, veered back in field, and hit Redcliffe territory by the time the Dolphins downed him, only for all the Chooks’ frustrations to coalesce with Teddy fumbling a play-the-ball inside the twenty.

It was starting to feel like scrum for scrum now, as the Phins lined up at their own twenty, and Egan Butcher and JMK rejoined the fray. Lemuelu was forced to pull back a second play offload in the face of some solid contact from Baker, O’Sullivan was at the Roosters’ thirty by the time he launched a shallow bomb, and yet Paulo hit back with arguably his best take of the night, collecting the Steeden a metre in the air and getting to ground just as quickly to avoid losing any yardage. Yet with Gilbert pummelling Walker, the Roosters lost it once again.

Collins responded with a terrific two-part effort, making an initial tackle on Lemuelu and then, when Connelly flicked out the offload, reaching out an arm to ankle tap recipient Hammer before he could make a play at the line. A tackle later he backed up to combine with Turpin for a tough shot on Kenny Bromwich, but Katoa was still inside the ten on the penultimate play. All the Dolphins needed was a deft grubber in goal for a repeat set, but a fatigued O’Sullivan opted to lob it back, setting the scene for the last epic sequence of the afternoon.

For a moment it looked like the Dolphins might wrest vision from chaos here, as Lee missed the footy, scrambled along the ground, missed it again, and forced Isaako to take it with Keary up in his face, ushering in a frenetic series of passes and offloads that ended with JMK coming to ground fifteen metres out. The Roosters regained possession, Kaufusi destroyed Cheese for a second time, Hammer took Keary’s last bomb on the line, and the remaining possession was all Redcliffe, with Keary making an illegal strip and Suaalii conceding six again a beat later.

The Phins had enjoyed 62% of possession since the break and gained 840 metres to Sydney City’s 533 in the second stanza. They might have decelerated a little in this closing quarter but there was no doubt, when Aitken rose from the final charge, that this was a historic game and every bit as eventful as Brisbane’s win over Manly in their inaugural 1988 meeting. Kaufusi was awarded a well-deserved Artie Legacy Medal and his men will be looking to make it 2/2 against Canberra next week, while the Chooks will be raring for a big one over New Zealand.