BREAKING NEWS: The Parra’s Eels Army Next Match Is Been Suspended Due To The Death Of Their Star Player.
Rugby league Immortal and 1975 Parramatta Eels coach Norm Provan has died.
Provan passed away on Monday evening after a long battle with illness.
Provan was a giant of the game in every respect. Apart from his imposing stature (he stood 193cm), Provan was a towering figure for St George in their record run of premiership wins and for Australia in 18 Test and World Cup appearances.
At Test level, he formed one of Australia’s most revered back-row partnerships with Queensland and later Western Suburbs second-rower Kel O’Shea.
The miracle comeback of 1975
It was the start of the Parramatta club’s golden era. Yet the feats of 1975, the preliminary to the successive grand final appearances of ’76 and ’77 and the record of seven grand final seasons out of 11, is unfairly overshadowed in the Eels’ annals.
The fact is the Eels emergence from the club’s depths in ’75 was the stepping stone of what became something special – and to achieve it the players had to endure playing seven matches in 16 days!
After making the finals just once in the previous nine seasons, and being last or second last for four seasons straight, the Eels had snared St George’s ten-times premiership winning player Norm Provan as coach. His only previous non-playing coaching role was with Illawarra in the Country Divisional Championships.
His deputy was also a newcomer, a man who would play a prominent role at the club, Terry Fearnley, who – after missing out on the vacant Balmain first grade job when he wanted to progress from being an assistant to Jack Gibson at Easts – took on the reserve grade role.
The club also brought in new blood in the playing ranks, the most significant being Queensland’s tough Test second-rower Ray Higgs, winger Jim Porter who had played in the Roosters’ premiership side of ’74, and another winger in Owen Stephens, who had represented New Zealand and Australia in rugby union.
In those days there was a formal pre-season competition and the Eels surprised the critics by making it to the final, on March 21 at the Sydney Sports Ground, against a star-studded Manly side that included internationals Bob Fulton, Ray Branighan, Graham Eadie, Terry Randall and others.
