From this level on, each sport Jared Waerea-Hargreaves may very well be his final within the NRL however the Roosters veteran is already the final of his sort.
At 35, he is the oldest participant within the league and he performs prefer it, not as a result of he is decrepit or ineffective however as a result of he was introduced up in a rugby league world that does not exist anymore.
For 15 years and 314 video games, Waerea-Hargreaves has been one of many NRL’s hardest males, a participant who understands that for front-rowers this can be a sport of intimidation and concern, of predators and prey, of blood and bones.
It’s nonetheless doable to play that manner, in a vogue. Penrith did so simply final week as they steamrolled the Roosters within the first qualifying closing, however the Waerea-Hargreaves’ manner is the outdated manner.
He is aware of the place the road is and he has by no means been afraid of crossing it. It has not endeared him to many opposition followers over time however the Roosters wouldn’t have been as profitable over the previous 15 years with out him.
Rugby league generally is a sport the place ends justify the means and if it’s a must to select between successful video games and recognition contests, decide the previous each time.
On Saturday night time, the Tricolours face Manly with their season on the road. Waerea-Hargreaves has performed solely as soon as up to now 10 weeks because of a sequence of suspensions.
The partitions are closing in and his sort can’t survive on this trendy world. However his facet nonetheless wants him as a result of there may be no one else like him left. He’s the final of the tribe, and his sort won’t ever be seen once more.
The start
Waerea-Hargreaves has been doing this so lengthy his origins nearly really feel misplaced to time. It’s as if he has at all times been right here, like he was born a grizzled veteran.
However there was a time when Waerea-Hargreaves was fresh-faced with a younger fella’s haircut. It is tough to think about a time earlier than he bought into the damage enterprise with the Roosters, however there was one.
He was a nationwide champion golfer as a youth, at the same time as he stored breaking golf equipment. Ultimately he gave it as much as play rugby union, signed with the Waratahs Academy and, in his personal phrases, ‘I used to bag league and say I might by no means play it.’
When he signed with the Sea Eagles for season 2008 he’d by no means performed a sport of league.
Waerea-Hargreaves initially appeared set for rugby union stardom. (Getty Pictures: Robert Grey )
He took to it instantly, making his NRL debut inside 18 months and his Check debut for New Zealand after simply six first grade video games.
Daly Cherry-Evans, who will lead Manly out towards the Roosters on Thursday, was an Beneath 20s teammate of Waerea-Hargreaves again then and remembers the ferocity properly.
“He was studying the sport then however he was properly and really made for it. The shoulder cost was authorized again then and I watched him nearly kill folks, geez he’d put some hits on,” stated Cherry-Evans.
“That is one of many causes I cherished enjoying with him. He was a incredible teammate.”
However there are many offended younger males who raise weights and get imply after they hit the soccer area.
Waerea-Hargreaves first attracted consideration as a hard-hitting teen with Manly. (Getty Pictures: Mark Dadswell )
Waerea-Hargreaves was not but what he would turn out to be – as Cherry-Evans factors out, that may’t occur in a single day.
“That aura comes over time, it comes with expertise, it comes together with your performances and the respect you earn from the opposition,” Cherry-Evans stated.
“He is constructed that over time. As a lot as we respect him, he is one in every of 17 gamers we have to look out for on Saturday however we’ll give him the respect he deserves as a result of he deserves it.”
That journey started in earnest on the Roosters, who landed Waerea-Hargreaves for the 2010 season and it was a type of shoulder prices Cherry-Evans talked about that finest describes the all however vanished rugby league world that raised Waerea-Hargreaves
A dying breed
The 2010 semi-final between the Roosters and Wests Tigers is, by any measure, one of many best video games ever performed.
The seconds have been ticking down and the Tricolours trailed by a degree when Waerea-Hargreaves trucked it up gamely and bumped into Simon Dwyer, who bought him with the type of hit that is so arduous Waerea-Hargreaves may nonetheless really feel it on chilly winter mornings.
Waerea-Hargreaves dropped the ball, the Roosters by some means received the scrum and Braith Anasta kicked a area aim that despatched the match into each further time and rugby league folklore.
Within the context of its time, the Dwyer shot attained on the spot legendary standing. It makes for various viewing 14 years later, when schooling round head knocks and concussions is way more refined.
In right this moment’s sport, Dwyer can be immediately penalised and sin-binned, possibly even despatched off.
Waerea-Hargreaves would have been taken from the sector instantly and would not have performed one other minute that night time or the next week.
In 2024, defenders can’t usually launch themselves with the identical abandon as Dwyer did on that night time or as Waerea-Hargreaves, who has copped as a lot punishment as he is dished out, has so many instances within the years since.
That is the important thing – Waerea-Hargreaves throws himself round like he would not care what occurs subsequent, to himself or anyone else.
It makes him completely fearless and a participant of iron will, nevertheless it’s simply not how this hardest of video games is performed anymore.
There are nonetheless loads of arduous males – the day rugby league not has want of toughness is the day it turns into a distinct sport solely – and loads of them nonetheless earn the ire of referees, the match-review committee or opposition followers.
However they’re totally different as a result of they’ve been raised in a distinct sport. Their instincts will not be the identical. They’ve been skilled in different methods as golf equipment adapt to the fashionable world.
Shoulder prices have been outlawed for over a decade and now any contact with the top, intentional or not, is punished severely.
It is turn out to be more durable for Waerea-Hargreaves to remain on the sector in current instances. (Getty Pictures: Cameron Spencer)
Launching your self into contact with no regard to your personal security or anyone else’s is not the best way anymore and even probably the most ferocious hits have to be managed.
As time has gone on, Waerea-Hargreaves has struggled to seek out his place in that trendy world — not with the standard of his play (he is damaged extra tackles this 12 months than any season since 2017 and nonetheless holds the center collectively defensively for the Roosters) however in a extra existential vogue.
Simply staying on the market has turn out to be more durable for him. By way of the primary 11 years of his NRL profession, Waerea-Hargreaves was despatched off as soon as and sin-binned as soon as.
Prior to now 4 seasons alone he is been sin-binned 9 instances, together with 3 times in simply 16 video games this 12 months.
Gamers like Waerea-Hargreaves can’t change. It’s their blessing and their curse.
It isn’t like he hasn’t tried both — final 12 months he conceded simply eight penalties in 18 video games, his lowest whole since his first 12 months as a Rooster again in 2010.
However the edge he performs with and the best way he performs with it, that willingness to actually do no matter it takes to determine dominance, is one thing gamers are born with and it can’t be merely turned on and off.
Having that edge, within the trendy manner or in Waerea-Hargreaves’ arcane fashion, is a crucial ingredient in any grand closing cost which is exactly why the Roosters nonetheless want him and nonetheless depend on him so closely in any case this time.
They have been dominated in the course of the sector towards the Panthers final week and can want Waerea-Hargreaves at his finest in the event that they’re to beat Manly.
No workforce has ever received a grand closing with out a few enforcers and even with the likes of Lindsay Collins, Spencer Leniu and Tyrell Could on the roster, Waerea-Hargreaves nonetheless does that job for the Tricolours, even when it is in an arcane manner.
They won’t be capable of win the premiership with him, however they definitely can’t win it with out him.
The final of his sort
Waerea-Hargreaves has been round lengthy sufficient that almost all opinions of him are set in stone.
Just like the participant himself, the best way you’re feeling about him is just too outdated to vary.
There are few gamers as reviled by opposition followers, however even fewer have as a lot respect amongst their opponents.
Different groups need what he offers and different forwards wish to do as he does.
“He is relentless, he by no means shies away, he retains going. He exhibits what forwards need, what groups need – the phrase is ruthless, regardless of how the workforce goes,” stated Manly prop Taniela Paseka.
“He is top-of-the-line props within the sport and the actual fact he is nonetheless enjoying is insane. I am solely 26 and I am beginning to really feel sore.
“He is been within the sport for therefore lengthy and he is such knowledgeable however he is a goal we now have to try to get to.
“He creates a number of their vitality, so we now have to provide it to him, be aggressive with him. Whichever ahead pack is extra bodily will win the sport.”
It is tough to think about two gamers as totally different as Cherry-Evans and Waerea-Hargreaves – on the floor, all they share is a hyphenated surname and people years within the 20s at Manly.
However the veteran halfback does see one thing of himself within the outdated warhorse, even when they go about it otherwise.
“We’ve large respect for one another, we play totally different positions however what he is been doing in the course of the sector for therefore lengthy is incredible,” Cherry-Evans stated.
“I’ve a number of time for him, however on sport day – as a lot as we respect one another, we do no matter it takes. We try this otherwise, however there’s the identical mindset there.”
On the Roosters, Waerea-Hargreaves is beloved and revered like few others. He is the final man standing from the engine room of their 2013 premiership and the 2018 and 2019 grand finals have been two of the very best video games of his profession.
As soon as he strikes on to Hull KR subsequent season, there will probably be a void on the Roosters that will probably be arduous to fill and never simply within the entrance row.
They know the reality that many followers by no means see, which is that Waerea-Hargreaves has at all times been a distinct particular person off the sector, which has at all times been clear to each pals and foes. Cherry-Evans would not hesitate to name him a gentleman.
Earlier this 12 months, when Waerea-Hargreaves broke the membership’s all-time appearances document, the membership produced a video asking a number of gamers to sum him up in a single phrase.
There have been all those you count on – powerful, ferocious, and all that – however multiple of them stated “caring.”
He has been elder statesman and a frontrunner for such a very long time and gamers younger and outdated nonetheless take inspiration from him, even a participant as achieved as Leniu, who performs with a lot of the identical spirit however in a extra trendy manner.
“He makes everybody really feel ten toes tall when he is enjoying and he is itching to get again on the market and repay us for what he did, it’s going to be good to have him again,” Leniu stated.
“It will not be his final (sport).”
You may assure that on Saturday night time, and in no matter matches could also be to return, Waerea-Hargreaves will maintain nothing again even when it dangers having his NRL profession ended early by suspension.
He’s not too outdated to maintain combating however he’s too outdated to lose.
His teammates will observe him and a few will carry an analogous hearth.
The issues that dwell in Waerea-Hargreaves additionally dwell in Leniu, who’s a comparable fashion of enforcer simply in a extra trendy manner.
There are others throughout the league like Leniu, corresponding to his ex-Penrith teammates James Fisher-Harris and Liam Martin, or Canberra’s Joseph Tapine and Newcastle’s Leo Thompson.
However even when they inherit the identical arduous man legacy, they do not do it like Waerea-Hargreaves. There may be no one left like him.
He was cast by a sport that does not exist anymore and by no means will once more.
