To this day, the Super League war remains the most dramatic era in the history of rugby league in Australia.
Players all over the game were being offered eye-watering money to jump ship as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp looked to wrestle control of the national competition away from the ARL.
One player at the centre of it, former Newcastle favourite Matthew Johns has revealed the lengths Super League went to in order to sign him and his future Immortal brother, Andrew.
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The elder Johns brother said he and Andrew had signed contracts worth $15,000 and $12,500 respectively in 1994.
As news of the rival league began to break in 1995, the Knights were on the bus to Sydney to play a game at Parramatta Stadium and Johns realised he and his brother were set for a serious pay rise.
“By the time that we reached the Rydges at North Parramatta, there were already a stack of managers at the hotel waiting for us,” Johns recalled on the Off The Record with Buzz and Webby podcast.
“Among the Newcastle players, only Chief [Paul Harragon] had a manager, his brother, everyone else was basically open for business.
“Me and Andrew check into our room and the phone just starts ringing, player manager after player manager.
“‘I represent Super League,’” a voice said at the end of the phone.
“‘If you don’t sign with the Super League, there’s a chance you and your brother’s careers could be over.’
“He said, ‘Come down, sign a Super League contract now, there’s $200,000 waiting for you right now. We go, ‘Where are you?’”
While the pair didn’t make a decision then, that was just the start, as when they returned to the club after the game, Super League representatives were there to pitch the new competition, before later making individual offers to the players.
“Whatever we offer you, it has to remain completely confidential. First guy that goes in is Darren Tracey, he’s probably on about $10,000,” Johns said.
“He walks out of the glass office and he looks at us and goes, ‘I’ve just been offered f**kin’ $250,000’... and straight away, everyone just went ‘Wow.’
“Andrew and I go in and they offer us $350,000 a year for five years and I think about $100,000 grand up front.”
And that was just the start.
The Johns brothers eventually told Harragon they were going to sign with Super League but “Chief” wanted to give the ARL one last chance to hang on to the rising halves.
A now infamous story, Harragon drove a bus full of Knights to meet with ARL bosses John Quayle and Ken Arthurson at their HQ on Phillip Street in Sydney.
“Super League start making phone calls to people on the bus," he said.
"Phones are getting passed around. There were players on there that had been offered $150,000, suddenly they’re being offered $250,000.
“Players were literally hopping off the bus as it was going down, because the Super League said, if you go into Phillip Street, basically, no contract.
“The phone keeps getting passed to me. So Andrew and I, our offer went from $350,000 to, as we’re about to walk into Phillip Street, $550,000, to as we’re driving back home to Newcastle, $700,000 a year, for five years.”
Later, while training, the offers kept coming.
“Someone at the club who wanted to go to Super League put his hand on my shoulder and said the offer’s $750,000 a year, $700,000 up front for seven years,” he added.
“I went up to Joey and whispered, ‘We’re signing with Super League.’”
After telling Harragon once again, the big guns were called in and Phil Gould drove up to Newcastle to make one last pitch for the ARL.
“‘Gus’ gets up and does this Churchillian speech,” Johns continued.
“He understands that we’re just young blokes from the Hunter Valley, from coalfields, all we ever want to be is footballers and all we want to do is play for the Knights.
“He goes, ‘It breaks my heart the fact that a few of my favourite players, Ricky Stuart, Bradley Clyde, Laurie Daley, they will never play rugby league ever again. Can you believe that?’
“‘Who wants to sign for the ARL?’ And everyone put their hand up except Andrew and I.
“We go in there and [Gould] goes, ‘Let’s be straight up here, what they’ve offered you, we can’t match that. The Packers would skin me alive. I’m going to offer you $350,000 a year, $250,000 up front, five years.’
“We want to keep the Knights together, we said. ‘Sold.’
Gould, knowing how much the brothers were leaving on the table, gave them a 24-hour cooling off period should they wish to change their minds.
“Within 20 minutes of leaving the room, it’s out that we’ve got a clause, so the offer goes up to $800,000 and just keeps climbing,” Johns said.
“It was getting crazy and we just made a decision to not take any calls and just avoid everyone because we wanted to stay as a team and we don’t want to know that they’re going to offer us.”
Finally, with 90 minutes until the clause expired, the manager at a restaurant they were dining at informed Johns they had a call from News Corp CEO Ken Cowley in the kitchen.
“‘You don’t realise that that money we’re offering you has got nothing to do with your football ability,’” Cowley told Johns.
“‘It’s the fact that we need a Newcastle team and if you blokes come with us, we can build a team around you two blokes and we believe it’ll exert enough pressure that Super League will win the war.’
“So, Matthew, just name a price, any price, because it’s got nothing to do with football, your decision now could win us the war.’”
In the end, Johns said he didn’t want to leave his mates, who had signed with the ARL and didn’t have get-out clauses, high and dry.
The Knights, with the Johns brothers in the halves, would go on to win the ARL premiership in 1997, the first in the club’s history.