By STEVE MASCORD
BALMAIN rugby league fullback Garry Jack was fined $500 yesterday for being 45 minutes late to the Tigers’ first training session in grand final week.
Jack rushed into the Leichhardt Oval dressing rooms during a team talk, having already missed the warm-up and a meet-the-press session.
“Garry was immediately fined $500 — his reasons for being late are between Garry and the club,” Tigers chief executive Keith Barnes said.
It is believed Jack was unaware of the 3pm starting time — many players thought yesterday’s session was scheduled for 5pm.
Two lengthy team talks, ball work and light endurance workouts kept the grand finalists at Leichhardt Oval for three hours.
As expected, coach Warren Ryan named a line-up unchanged from the side which downed South Sydney two weeks ago but added youngsters Grant Muscat and Michael Moss to the 11-man reserves bench.
Ryan called for a big improvement on the 20-10 win over the Rabbitohs in the major semi-final, predicting his backs would have to “sweat” on a Raiders’ backline.
“Yes, the backs will have to work harder,” Ryan said. “Defence is where you do your work. They know they’ll have to do more work. We need an overall percentage improvement on the last performance against Souths.”
Prop Steve Roach, playing in his first premiership decider after missing last year’s because of suspension, said he felt “not much pressure at all”.
Roach said the Tigers had been planning their tactics around Canberra for a week. “We knew it would be Canberra, really,” he said.
Roach said Balmain’s backs were hugely underrated and would show their worth against perhaps the bestset of club backs on Sunday.
“Blokes like Meninga and Belcher are great on their feet, but with the players we’ve got in our backline I think it’s about time they started to worry how good we are on our feet,” he said.
Skipper Wayne Pearce said there would need to be an improvement in concentration if Balmain was to lift the crown 20 years after its last title.
“We let Souths back into the game a bit last time and that deficiency in our game may be a problem,” he said.
“They [Canberra] have only beaten us once since they joined the competition and hopefully we will be in a positive position if we get off to a good start.”
This story was issued by AAP on September 19, 1989
