Ray Price
Son of former North Sydney Bears player Kevin Price, and nephew of Peter Diversi, Ray Price began his career playing rugby union for Junior Club Dundas Valley, played senior rugby union for the Parramatta Two Blues and represented the Wallabies in 8 tests, as flanker/breakaway, between 1974 and 1976, scoring 4 tries. One of these was against the New Zealand AllBlacks, when, following a wayward penalty kick, Price wrested the ball from an ingoal defender, and scored. During the 1975 England rugby tour of Australia, Price was so intimidating off the back of the lineout, that English flyhalf Alan Old stood >20 metres from the scrumhalf.
After this, Price moved to play rugby league for the Parramatta Eels and was an instant sensation with his courage and high workrate. Although Parramatta lost the grand final that year, Price played consistently well throughout, and he only improved in the following three seasons, maintaining his form even in the fiery and successful assault of the St. George pack in the 1977 Grand Final Replay (which Parramatta lost 0–22). Despite being controversially sent off in the 1978 minor semi-final, it was no surprise when Price was chosen to tour with the Kangaroos. In July of that year his international rugby league début in the 2nd Test against New Zealand in Brisbane saw him become Australia's 36th dual code rugby international following Geoff Richardson and preceding Michael O'Connor. 1979 proved to be Price's finest year, for he won the Rothmans Medal and the Rugby League Week Player of the Year awards and was established as the premier Loose Forward/Lock in Australia, a place he was to hold until the middle 1980s. Although his form at club level never reached quite the same standard of his first four seasons, his high workrate and chasing of Peter Sterling's kicks made Price an integral part of Parramatta's hat-trick of premierships in 1981-1982-1983. Though he had been superseded by Wayne Pearce of the Balmain Tigers (who had been moved into the second row in test and NSW teams since 1982/83) as Australia's premier Loose Forward/Lock, Price was still at his best in 1985, winning the Dally M Lock of the Year for the fourth successive year and the Rugby League Week Player of the Year award for the second time. That same year, Price became the first rugby league player to win the Order of Australia Medal (OAM). Ray Price retired from representative football following the final test of the 1984 Ashes against the touring Great Britain Lions, played in front of 18,756 at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Australia won the match 20-7 and the series 3-0. Following the game, Price gave his #13 (Lock-forward) jumper to Pearce in a symbol of passing the torch. 1986 was planned to be (and was) his last season with the Eels and he celebrated with an unprecedented fifth straight win of the Dally M Lock of the Year and a premiership win in the grand final. After moving into the media with 2UE for two years, Price made a comeback at age thirty-six with English club Wakefield Trinity. He stayed for one season (1989–90) and played 25 games, scoring 6 tries. However, after one season, he sought and obtained election to the Parramatta board, but his comments about the club's decline in the early 1990s were widely criticised and he lost his place in 1994. |