Mick Cronin (rugby league)

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Michael "Mick" William Cronin OAM (born Gerringong, New South Wales) is an Australian former rugby league player. He was a centre three-quarter for the Australian national team and a stalwart for the Parramatta Eels club. He played in 22 Tests and 11 World Cup matches between 1973 and 1982. At the Dally M Awards in 2007 Mick Cronin was inducted into the Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame.

[edit] Country and early representative career

Cronin played for Christian Brothers (now Edmund Rice) in the Illawarra competition as an under 12. He was so good that when his team made the semi-finals the opposition appealed against Cronin's inclusion on residence grounds, claiming he was from Gerringong.

Cronin's first grade career began in 1969 for Gerringong. He was selected to play for Country in 1973 where he impressed enough to make the that year's Kangaroo tour. He played in two Tests and ten minor tour matches and finished as the tour's highest point scorer with seven tries and twenty eight goals.

He played in all three Tests of the 1974 domestic Ashes series against Great Britain and the following he Cronin played in NSW Country's historic 1975 win over Sydney City. He was selected in Australia's 1975 World Cup and played in five matches in the tournament in the centres alongside Bob Fulton.

By this time Cronin was one of eminent rugby league centres in the world, yet he continually rejected the big money offers to come to Sydney and played for his home town of Gerringong on the NSW south coast.

[edit] Parramatta career

In 1977 he joined the Parramatta Eels but for many years continued to commute to training and matches from Gerringong where he owned and ran the local hotel. He was a member of Parramatta's star studded backlines of the early 1980s playing alongside Brett Kenny, Steve Ella, Peter Sterling and Eric Grothe. In combination with all of these greats he played in four winning Grand Finals for Parramatta (1981, 1982, 1983 and 1986). Alongside team-mate Ray Price, Cronin enjoyed a fairy tale last match end to his career in the 1986 Grand Final where he kicked both goals in the Eels' 4-2 victory over Canterbury.

Cronin played 216 games in ten years with Parramatta placing him equal fourth with Bob O'Reilly on the list of most first grade appearances. His club point scoring tally of 1971 points (75 tries, 865 goals and 2 field goals) is the standing Parramatta record and is over 1000 points clear of the next contender Luke Burt. He kicked 11 goals in a round 14 match of 1982 against the Illawarra Steelers, and 10 goals in the round 22 clash of 1978 against the Newtown Jets. He twice scored 27 points in a match for Parramatta.

[edit] Later representative career

Cronin made his second Kangaroo Tour in 1978 and played in all five Tests plus 12 minor matches again returning home as the tour's highest point scorer with 142 points. He played in all Tests of the 1979 domestic Ashes series against Great Britain kicking 24 goals in the course of the three games. He played in seven Tests over three series against New Zealand in 1978, 1980 amd 1982 before he retired from international representative football.

In 22 Tests for Australia between 1973 and 1982 he scored 5 tries and 93 goals for 201 points. Aside from Cronin's first 5 Tests in 1973 and 1974 when Graeme Langlands was captain and goal kicker, Mick Cronin was Australia's first choice kicker in his next seventeen Test appearances.

[edit] State of origin folklore

Cronin made 21 appearances for New South Wales Blues up till 1981 under the old place of residence rules. He played in the inaugural State of Origin match in 1980 and made five further appearances for the Blues under the origin criteria up till the game III in 1983, despite having retired from international representative availability in 1982.

Mick Cronin's name was etched into Origin folklore that first night in July 1980 when fifteen minutes from the end of the game his Parramatta club teammate Arthur Beetson tore in from the right side while Cronin was held up in a tackle by Queensland half Greg Oliphant and threw a loose left-arm around Cronin's chin. To this day that incident is cited in evidence that from the outset State of Origin football was "the real deal" where deeply rooted State passion would take priority over club friendships and loyalties. State of Origin rugby league has ever since been promoted as "state against state, mate against mate". This arch rivalry was typified by the Cronin/Beetson altercation notwithstanding that it was quickly forgotten and that they sat next to each other on the return plane trip to Sydney and didn't mention the incident.^[1].

Altogether Cronin represented New South Wales 27 times from 1973 to 1983, scoring 7 tries, 87 goals for 195 points.

[edit] Point scoring feats

When he retired in 1986 he was the greatest point-scorer in the history of the NSWRL premiership with 1,971 points and other point-scoring honours include:
• Country record of 316 pts in 20 Group 7 matches in 1971
• Most points in a club season (282 in 1978) - the standing Parramatta club record.
• Most points in a calendar year (547 from 542 games in 1978)
• Most points by a player from any country in World Cup clashes (108)
• Most points in the world in Tests (199)
• Most points in a Test series (54 against Great Britain 1979)
• Most successive successful kicks for goal in top-grade rugby league (26 in 1978).
• Leading try-scorer in the 1982 season.

[edit] Accolades

Cronin was named "Country Player of the Year" in 1974. He won unprecedented back-to-back Rothmans Medals in 1977-78. In 1985 he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia "in recognition of service to the sport of Rugby League Football". Cronin received the Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and was honoured further in 2001 by being awarded the Centenary Medal "for service to Australian society through the sport of Rugby League".

In February 2008, Cronin was named in the list of Australia's 100 Greatest Players (1908-2007) which was commissioned by the NRL and ARL to celebrate the code's centenary year in Australia. ^[2]

[edit] Coaching

In 1990 he took on the coaching responsibility at Parramatta in a period when their playing roster was at its weakest for years. He coached the Eels until the end of the 1993 season. In 1992 he coached a Country origin side to victory over City origin

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

• Andrews, Malcolm (2006) The ABC of Rugby League Austn Broadcasting Corpn, Sydney
• Big League, (2005) State of Origin 25 Years Collectors' Edition, News Magazines Sydney.

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] External links

• Mick Cronin (rugby league) at the State of Origin official website.
• Mick Cronin at eraofthebiff.com
• Mick Cronin at concreteboots.com.au