Jamie Lyon should only be remembered as one of the best centres of the NRL era
JAMIE Lyon goes with an unfair and baseless stain on his career. A second emerged this week.
Lyon will always remain the reluctant star, the Wee Waa boy with a talent so undeniable he had no choice but to leave the bush and make it in Sydney, even if he was forever uncomfortable.
As a young man it occasionally got the better of him, no more than when he had enough of Brian Smith’s high-intensity training techniques and simply packed up and moved back to Wee Waa.
There he pulled beers at the bowling club and played for the Wee Waa Panthers.
Then St Helens convinced him to go to England. The Saints chased hard and when they finally made Lyon see that the attention in northern England would be far reduced from what chased him out of Sydney he agreed to go, but only if he could take a friend with him.
“You got the paperwork?” Cleal asked several times on the trip over. “Yep,” Lyon said.
Cleal looked nervously at the sheet of paper Lyon seemed to be clutching.
When they got to Manchester, Lyon informed the Customs men he was moving to England and when they asked for documentation he pulled out his sheet of paper and smoothed it on the counter.
Both were detained soon after and put in a holding cell. A panicked Lyon rang St Helens chairman Eamonn McManus.
Soon, Lyon was out but Cleal was put in handcuffs and put on a plane. When he transited in Dubai he was removed from the plane in handcuffs until he was put on a plane to Sydney. Lyon never cared much for the finer details.
England convinced Lyon to return to the NRL. He was so good he was picked for Australia before returning to the NRL, playing in the Tri-Nations.
Rep football was not for him, though, and in 2010 Lyon had had enough. He told selectors he no longer wanted to play rep football. His refusal to play for the Blues is commonly used in the annual sparring between the states.
Lyon is one of the best centres of the last decade.
Such is the attitude of Queensland players, goes the brief, they would never give up a maroon jersey the way Jamie Lyon did for NSW.
It is tremendously unfair. One man’s ambitions should not be another’s. Lyon never felt comfortable in the rep environment. He made the same sacrifice for an Australian jersey that he did for NSW. How it gets turned into a case of lessening the value of the NSW jersey is nothing but Queensland lunacy. Lyon cares so little he has never responded. Hopefully, he never does.
Now this week there is the claim that Manly’s 2011 premiership team was secretly spiked with performance-enhancers. Lyon was captain.
It is claimed someone laced their drinks without their knowledge with a drug called inositol. It boosts oxygen in the blood and so is illegal in sport.
Manly should not laugh off the accusation. The NRL should insist they don’t.
The difficulty will be finding corroborating evidence to persist with a case, which in itself raises its own questions.
Former Manly coach Geoff Toovey was an assistant in 2011 and told NRL360 on Thursday that there is no substance to the claims
Every time an athlete tests positive nowadays, one of the immediate responses is to claim their drink was spiked.
Here is a drink-spiker claiming he did it, forever staining the Manly premiership unless a proper investigation is carried out, even though no positive was recorded.
Lyon won’t have the premiership taken from him and it shouldn’t be. He deserves to keep it, unstained.
He will retire this season as one of the best there was.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...a/news-story/1acd4a612ba6e31b482b5954cb7cd7e3
JAMIE Lyon goes with an unfair and baseless stain on his career. A second emerged this week.
Lyon will always remain the reluctant star, the Wee Waa boy with a talent so undeniable he had no choice but to leave the bush and make it in Sydney, even if he was forever uncomfortable.
As a young man it occasionally got the better of him, no more than when he had enough of Brian Smith’s high-intensity training techniques and simply packed up and moved back to Wee Waa.
There he pulled beers at the bowling club and played for the Wee Waa Panthers.
Then St Helens convinced him to go to England. The Saints chased hard and when they finally made Lyon see that the attention in northern England would be far reduced from what chased him out of Sydney he agreed to go, but only if he could take a friend with him.
“You got the paperwork?” Cleal asked several times on the trip over. “Yep,” Lyon said.
Cleal looked nervously at the sheet of paper Lyon seemed to be clutching.
When they got to Manchester, Lyon informed the Customs men he was moving to England and when they asked for documentation he pulled out his sheet of paper and smoothed it on the counter.
Both were detained soon after and put in a holding cell. A panicked Lyon rang St Helens chairman Eamonn McManus.
Soon, Lyon was out but Cleal was put in handcuffs and put on a plane. When he transited in Dubai he was removed from the plane in handcuffs until he was put on a plane to Sydney. Lyon never cared much for the finer details.
England convinced Lyon to return to the NRL. He was so good he was picked for Australia before returning to the NRL, playing in the Tri-Nations.
Rep football was not for him, though, and in 2010 Lyon had had enough. He told selectors he no longer wanted to play rep football. His refusal to play for the Blues is commonly used in the annual sparring between the states.
Lyon is one of the best centres of the last decade.
Such is the attitude of Queensland players, goes the brief, they would never give up a maroon jersey the way Jamie Lyon did for NSW.
It is tremendously unfair. One man’s ambitions should not be another’s. Lyon never felt comfortable in the rep environment. He made the same sacrifice for an Australian jersey that he did for NSW. How it gets turned into a case of lessening the value of the NSW jersey is nothing but Queensland lunacy. Lyon cares so little he has never responded. Hopefully, he never does.
Now this week there is the claim that Manly’s 2011 premiership team was secretly spiked with performance-enhancers. Lyon was captain.
It is claimed someone laced their drinks without their knowledge with a drug called inositol. It boosts oxygen in the blood and so is illegal in sport.
Manly should not laugh off the accusation. The NRL should insist they don’t.
The difficulty will be finding corroborating evidence to persist with a case, which in itself raises its own questions.
Former Manly coach Geoff Toovey was an assistant in 2011 and told NRL360 on Thursday that there is no substance to the claims
Every time an athlete tests positive nowadays, one of the immediate responses is to claim their drink was spiked.
Here is a drink-spiker claiming he did it, forever staining the Manly premiership unless a proper investigation is carried out, even though no positive was recorded.
Lyon won’t have the premiership taken from him and it shouldn’t be. He deserves to keep it, unstained.
He will retire this season as one of the best there was.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...a/news-story/1acd4a612ba6e31b482b5954cb7cd7e3
