\u2018Didn\u2019t come down to money\u2019: Why Test star ended four-club bidding war in $2.4m call<\/a><\/p>\nTen years ago, Dylan Napa put this kind of hurt on Slammin\u2019 Sam Burgess.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
Napa whacked George Burgess on the opening kickoff with a borderline shoulder charge, three years after they were outlawed. Sam\u2019s first treatment came seven minutes later.<\/p>\n
Napa\u2019s hit left iconic coach Phil Gould stunned.<\/p>\n
\u201cSam Burgess is the biggest, strongest ball-runner in the game. You watch Dylan Napa here take him one-on-one \u2026 BANG! And then drove him sideways,\u201d Gould said in commentary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is a massive hit. Burgess doesn\u2019t just get tackled one-on-one, but young Dylan Napa lined him up, shouldered him up and drove him sideways. That\u2019s a great hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dylan Napa puts his first brutal shot on Sam Burgess…Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
He was far from done.<\/p>\n
Chris Grevsmuhl off a scrum \u2026 BANG! Peter Sterling audibly groaned. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019ll be a few NSW players thankful that Dylan Napa won\u2019t be in the Queensland Origin series this year,\u201d Sterlo said.<\/p>\n
Sam Burgess copped it again before half-time. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s lined him up all night,\u201d Gould said, right as Napa tried to clean up Jason Clark on the next tackle. He missed, which he took as a personal affront and brutally clocked Clark shortly after.<\/p>\n
And the second shot. BANG.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
Poor little Luke Keary wore on in the same set. It was some mismatch. Gus named Napa man of the match before the half-time siren sounded.<\/p>\n
And just six minutes after the break, he pounced on a deft Jackson Hastings kick to score. The great Greg Inglis could only watch in horror. <\/p>\n
\u201cInglis missed it! It\u2019s Dylan Napa\u2019s night!\u201d FOX League caller Warren Smith declared.<\/p>\n
Dylan Napa celebrates his try early in the second half against South Sydney.Source: AAP<\/p>\n
Roosters 17, Rabbitohs 10.<\/p>\n
Napa\u2019s try why his only one all season, in the game that mattered most, while he racked up 152 run metres and 44 tackles. <\/p>\n
He was just 23, and debuted in Origin for Queensland the following season. <\/p>\n
Why he wasn\u2019t playing in 2016? He was one of eight players banned from representing that year after breaking curfew during boozy night out in an Emerging Maroons camp, for which he branded himself an \u201cidiot\u201d and vowed to make amends.<\/p>\n
Dylan Napa cuts an elated figure after beating the Rabbitohs in an all-time performance for the Roosters.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
His dominance of Burgess was extraordinary, and intentional. Napa had the audacity to target him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI respect Sam Burgess and the way he plays so much,\u201d Napa said in the Roosters dressing room, with Burgess back in the NRL after a one-year detour into English rugby for the 2015 World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so disappointed when he left for rugby union. I think he left as one of the best forwards in the game, so I thought it was a bit of respect to go at him tonight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am just trying to get a bit of respect off him and do what is best for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roosters coach Trent Robinson said: \u201cNot many players can do what he did tonight. It was just a credit to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe decided that he was going to have a game tonight and he did. A lot of people decide but can\u2019t always follow through. He decided and he delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dylan Napa celebrates his mighty outing against Souths with Roosters teammates Sam Moa and Latrell Mitchell.Source: AAP<\/p>\n
Waerea-Hargreaves butted heads with Burgess many times and had immense respect for him. Napa claimed an elite scalp when he took down the mighty Pom.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolute competitor. The will to win \u2013 he just kept turning up in the toughest times,\u201d JWH said of the man who won the 2014 Clive Churchill Medal with a busted face.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe obviously had the skill, but he also had that competitive nature that he didn\u2019t want to lose. We had a few good battles over the years and you knew when you were playing against the Bunnies, it was going to be a good day when he was in there. Every time you went up against them it was always going to be a big contest.\u201d<\/p>\n
That one came in unusual circumstances. <\/p>\n
The Rabbitohs smashed the Roosters 42-10 at Allianz Stadium in Round 1 of that season and the Tricolours were winless by Round 6 despite having won three consecutive minor premierships. There were injuries … and a certain video-related eight-game ban for halfback Mitchell Pearce before the season even began.<\/p>\n
But then, there was Napa\u2019s unforgettable performance.<\/p>\n
Roosters coach Trent Robinson celebrates with Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Dylan Napa after winning the 2018 NRL grand final over Melbourne Storm.Source: AAP<\/p>\n
Waerea-Hargreaves will be in the stands on Friday night, jersey on and family in tow, as the latest edition of Roosters-Rabbitohs unfolds at Allianz Stadium. He played 15 years of the century-long rivalry, every game massive, and scored a famous try in an all-time Round 1 thriller back in 2012, where he carried four Bunnies across the line to score with two minutes remaining. Anthony Minichiello scored the match-winner on the last play of the game to end it 24-20.<\/p>\n
When JWH first came to the club, Roosters supremo Nick Politis addressed the group and personally explained why playing South Sydney meant more. It was deep, rich and fiery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith what type of man he is and the influence he has on the club, when a guy like Nick speaks about how much pride he has in the club and what it means to play on a day like that, it does mean a lot,\u201d Waerea-Hargreaves said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still clearly remember going down to a caf\u00e9 in Coogee before one game and there was a few Bunnies players at the caf\u00e9 that we were going to \u2013 and we ended up going to another caf\u00e9 because the rivalry was so real. \u2018Nah, that\u2019s not for us\u2019, and we went down the road. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was intense, and that\u2019s what we loved about it. You knew every single time you were playing that it was gonna be on, and you could physically get it on back in those days.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rivalry now is still there and you can definitely feel it. Round 2, it\u2019s still early in the season, and to get that game at Allianz on Friday night \u2026 it\u2019s gonna be a cracker.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jared Waerea-Hargreaves wasn\u2019t playing the night he saw perhaps the greatest front-row demolition job ever in Roosters v…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[266063,263944,64,63,689,266067,229995,266069,266072,33217,266066,266064,266074,266075,42141,266071,763,266061,266062,219492,11288,13495,266073,4416,96069,250269,1082,33215,56527,4466,52537,761,762,673,48267,158,677,266068,266070,60069,2633,7623,10144,4439,85,670,1080,104568,4737,78348,266065,34148],"class_list":["post-536421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-absolute-competitor","tag-anthony-minichiello","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-borderline-shoulder-charge","tag-career-night","tag-chris-grevsmuhl","tag-consecutive-minor-premierships","tag-dressing-room","tag-dylan-napa","tag-elite-scalp","tag-english-rugby","tag-epic-front-row-performance","tag-expert-analyst","tag-famous-try","tag-fox-league","tag-front-row-demolition-job","tag-front-row-performances","tag-george-burgess","tag-grand-final","tag-greg-inglis","tag-immense-respect","tag-jackson-hastings","tag-jared-waerea-hargreaves","tag-jason-clark","tag-latrell-mitchell","tag-lord-gould-of-brookwood","tag-luke-keary","tag-melbourne-storm","tag-mitchell-pearce","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-new-south-wales","tag-nick-politis","tag-nrl","tag-oceania","tag-one-man-wrecking-crew","tag-one-year-detour","tag-roosters-coach","tag-rugby-union","tag-run-metres","tag-single-time","tag-south-sydney-rabbitohs","tag-sports","tag-sydney","tag-sydney-roosters","tag-tim-elbra","tag-trent-robinson","tag-video-highlights","tag-video-related-eight-game-ban","tag-warren-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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