‘I was in awe’: How Wally and Geno kickstarted career of heroic Hetherington
Two of Queensland's greatest players - Wally Lewis and Gene Miles - had key roles in kickstarting the State of Origin career of Maroons hero Jason Hetherington.
It was Lewis and Miles who both facilitated Hetherington's move from Gold Coast Seagulls to Canterbury, from where he had a stellar career and represented Queensland in eight Origin matches.
One of the legendary hooker’s greatest moments was when his childhood idol put the Wally Lewis Medal around his neck at the end of the 1999 series.
“I'd watched him as a 12-year-old in 1981 at Lang Park and later playing for Brisbane in the old NSWRL. Then in what seemed like a blink of an eye 'The King' was coaching me at the Seagulls.
"I was in awe of him really.”
Hetherington was a schoolboy rugby union star before Lewis and Miles noted his grit and tenacity while playing for Gold Coast Seagulls in 1993 after he’d got his start in league.
"I'd played with Ipswich Jets, made the Queensland Residents side and had a good tour of Fiji and New Zealand. I got a few headlines in Rugby League Week back home,” Hetherington recalled.
"I was playing five-eighth at the time and could have gone to Souths or Balmain."
Hetherington had a meeting with the Seagulls CEO Greg Bandiera and Lewis.
"I signed up but it was nearly a hard luck story because I had a large transfer fee on my head," he said.
"It was a gamble for the Seagulls to take a punt on me. Wally took a liking to me and said, 'we will have him'."
Lewis debuted Hetherington at No.6 against Canterbury and opposite Terry Lamb.
"Wal moved me to the centres as well and I had a really good game against Penrith marking Steve Carter,” Hetherington said.
“That's when Gene Miles rang Bullfrog (Canterbury supremo Peter Moore). Geno was a commentator on radio back then.
"Geno told Bullfrog that with Baa (Lamb) about to retire he'd found a bloke who was a very similar fit."
Miles was impressed with the character and toughness of Hetherington.
“Geno gave me man of the match in a losing team,” Hetherington said.
“I got a voucher to a music shop and went and bought a stereo system that had a record player on top, a CD player, cassette player and a radio and a couple of big speakers. I'd never won anything in my life. I couldn't believe it.”
The Bulldogs were keen, as were six other sides, but Hetherington sought the advice of his coach before taking up the Canterbury offer.
"I went to Wally and told him I didn't know what I should do," he said.
"Wal invited me to dinner, sat me down and we went through all the options and dynamics. He said, 'the way you play and with your character, I'd be signing with Canterbury if I was you'.
"Wally and Geno played a big role in getting my career going because I was raw. I'd come across from rugby union and Jim Landy was my first league coach at Ipswich, who I am also grateful to."
The door opened for Hetherington at Canterbury to play hooker and he took it in typical enthusiastic fashion. By 1995 he’d played in a winning grand final and when Wayne Bennett returned to coach the Maroons in 1998 he gave the Bulldogs rake his Origin debut.
He had injured his knee in the club game before the Origin side was selected when he collided knee-on-knee with the Warriors’ Matthew Ridge.
He kept it quiet and made his debut under Bennett in a famous 24-23 win in Sydney when Tonie Carroll scored at the death.
The way he found out he’d made the Maroons side seems unusual today, but was typical of those days.
"I was sitting out the back at my home in Sydney when my neighbour Ross Lobb, a mad Bulldogs supporter, came running across and told me I'd made the Queensland side," Hetherington chuckled.
"It had come out on the radio. You never got a phone call in those days."
Bennett had a white board out in Hetherington's first team meeting and the debutant got an initiation to remember.
“Wayne was drawing on the board and he said, 'if this bloke runs here and this bloke runs there, what does the defender do ... Jason?' He looked straight at me. I answered and the next question was directed at me too.
"Next meeting I hid up the back and he singled me out again. He was looking for me around the room and Alfie yelled out, ‘he's hiding down here Wayne'.
"Growing up, it was a dream to play for Queensland. Origin football had an impact on all of us regional kids.
"When it first started we would listen to it on the radio."
As a Queensland under 12 representative, Hetherington had watched Lewis, in his initial game as captain and No.6, lead the Maroons to a 22-15 win. Chris 'Choppy' Close was man of the match for the second Origin in a row.
"Yvonne Sampson interviewed me on Face-to-Face on Fox and she found photos of me and the Queensland under 12s sitting along the fence line in our tracksuits,” Hetherington said.
"Choppy gave Eric Grothe a back-hander that night in 1981. He loved Origin and Queensland so much.
"He was my team manager in 1998 and I saw his passion for Queensland throughout the camps.”
Hetherington lost his spot in game three of the 1998 series to Jamie Goddard. The Maroons prevailed 2-1. He was back for the 1999 series under new coach Mark Murray. It was a personal triumph.
"Muppet was coaching and in the first game it was a Mat Rogers field goal that separated us in a 9-8 win," Hetherington recalled.
"NSW won a tight one (12-8) and then we had a 10-all draw in the final match but we retained the Origin shield because we won the 1998 series."
Hetherington was man of the match in the opening match at Lang Park and won the Wally Lewis Medal for the Maroons best of the series. The medal later became known as the Ron McAuliffe Medal, with the new medal in Lewis's honour changed to recognise the best player on either team.
"Those games in 1999 was based on defence, so it suited me,” Hetherington recalled.
Hetherington was interviewed by Steve 'Blocker' Roach after the first match of the series after winning man of the match.
"I was given a $1000 voucher for Home Hardware," he chuckled
"I said that I might go and buy a cordless drill. I'd done a function a week before up here in Rockhampton and they gave me a cordless drill for doing it. The guy that gave it to me saw the interview and he rang and said, 'have you blown that cordless drill up already. I said, 'no, it was the first thing that came into my mind'.”
When the Maroons selectors picked him they thought Hetherington was a sprightly 23-year-old when he was in fact 27.
His birth date on many statistical sites to this day, including Rugby League Project, lists his birth date as August 23, 1973.
"I was actually born on August 23, 1969. I'm 57 this year," Hetherington grinned.
"When I went to Canterbury I changed my date of birth on an official form because media had started to judge you on how old you were. They called you a veteran and over the hill ... so I stayed 27 for four or five years. It was a big joke at Canterbury with all the players."
Hetherington's last Origin match was the 56-16 thrashing by NSW, famous for the Blues players all mocking the Maroons as Bryan Fletcher pulled the pin out of an imaginary hand grenade and pretended to throw it.
"Every year during the Origin series it comes up. It was a bad night for all of us. We thought we'd prepared well but it was a terrible loss."
Post-playing Hetherington coached the Maroons women’s team in the State of Origin series and was a key member of Mal Meninga’s staff during the men’s Origin dynasty.
He has also coached the CQ Capras and was the mentor that played a huge role in the early career of current Maroons captain Cameron Munster.
A true Central Queensland character, Hetherington was known for his toughness and uncompromising methods.
Few players can tell a story like he can. The injury he suffered at the Seagulls in his debut season is a case in point.
"I got a bad finger injury and they were going to amputate it," Hetherington recalled.
"I wished they had now. I went to pick up the footy and a bloke went to kick it at the same time. He kicked me right on the point of the middle finger on my left hand and the thing just shattered and dangled down towards the ground.
"They weren't sure if they could fix it or just amputate it. A surgeon on the Gold Coast reconstructed it and it kept me out for two months.
"I had 15 surgeries when I was at Canterbury and out of all of them that finger is the worst one that impacts me right now. It is deformed. It has just been a nuisance. I would always hurt it and tape it up with bits of cardboard under it before they made a good splint for me."
