The Final Winter

Review by Kris Ashton

A crapload of marketing dollars has brought back and even inflated the crowds, but thousands of rugby league fans still carry painful wounds from the Super League debacle that ripped the guts out of the ‘greatest game of all’ during the mid-’90s.

Yet this was not the first loyalty-versus-money crisis to besiege rugby league. It occurred on a much smaller but no less painful scale during the 1980s. Young fans might be surprised to learn that only 25 years ago, many footballers also held full-time jobs – they would finish a day’s work as a labourer or a garbo and then head down the oval to put in a couple of hours training. Often the people who came to watch their favourite winger or prop play would also see them during the week at the pub or the local shopping centre. If you played for Newtown, you came from Newtown. But commercialisation of rugby league changed all that, and The Final Winter taps into this emotional powder keg.

Mick ‘Grub’ Henderson (Nable) is one of a dying breed – he loves the game of rugby league, and the more brutal, the better. But he finds himself at loggerheads with both the ARL, which wants to clean up the game, and the Newtown Jets’ new CEO, Murray ‘Colgate’ Perry (John Jarratt), who wants to turn the club into a thriving business. To do this, Colgate needs to turn around the dwindling crowd numbers and he believes the solution is to buy star players and get the team winning again.

The meat in this sandwich is Jets coach Jack Cooper (Matthew Johns), who can see Mick represents the end of an epoch but still feels he needs to stand by him.

This volatile brew of tempers and politics reaches boiling point when Mick purposely elbows a St George Dragons halfback – his brother! – and is sent off, costing Newtown a place in the semi-finals. Over the week that follows, Mick must come to terms with the end of his life as a player – but how to do that when it’s rugby league that defines who he is?

Unlike the utterly abysmal Footy Legends (2006), The Final Winter does our great game justice. It tackles a touchy subject that the rugby league fraternity – along with its media partners – has tried to sweep under the rug. The resentment has never stopped simmering in those old enough (30+) to remember a bygone era when people played for passion. The subject remains potent and completely relevant given the current state of the NRL, where loyalty too often goes to the highest bidder.

You might be surprised to learn (I was) that former footballer Matthew Nable had never acted a day in his life before this project, because his performance – while sometimes overacted – puts many so-called professionals to shame. He also co-wrote the script, which is quite good (streets ahead of Footy Legends, that’s for sure), although its overuse of the F-word, which appears to be an attempt at naturalistic dialogue ala Dust Off the Wings (1997), comes across as forced and juvenile.

The costume and set designers have done a commendable job of recreating the early ’80s, keeping it subdued rather than going overboard on ludicrous fashions. The only exception is Andrew Johns’ ridiculous prosthetic beer belly, which upstages his otherwise adequate performance.

While it doesn’t have the class of The Club (1980) and its multiple cameos are a bit painful, The Final Winter comes as close as any movie ever has to capturing the spirit of rugby league in its glory days … days which some believe also marked its death throes.

3.5 out of 5

The Final Winter
Australian release: 6th September, 2007
Cast: Matt Nable, Matthew Johns, Nathaniel Dean, John Jarratt, Raelee Hill, Michelle Langstone, Conrad Coleby and Kate Mulvaney.
Director: Jane Forrest & Brian Andrews
Website: Click here.