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| Full name | Michael William Cronin | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1951-06-28)28 June 1951 (age 74)[1] Kiama, New South Wales, Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Playing information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 178 cm (5 ft 10 in) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 92 kg (14 st 7 lb) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Position | Centre | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Relatives | Ron Quinn (cousin) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Michael William CroninOAM (born 28 June 1951)[2] is an Australian former professionalrugby league footballer and coach. He was a goal-kickingcentre for theAustralian national team and a stalwart for theParramatta Eels club. He played in 22 Tests and 11 World Cup matches between 1973 and 1982. Cronin retired as theNSWRL Premiership's and theAustralian Kangaroos' all-time highest point-scorer[3] and has since been named amongst the nation's finest footballers of the 20th century.[4]
Cronin played for Christian Brothers (now Edmund Rice) in the Illawarra competition as an under 12. He was so good that when his team made the semi-finals the opposition appealed against Cronin's inclusion on residence grounds, claiming he was from Gerringong.[citation needed]
Cronin's first grade career began in 1969 forGerringong. He was selected to play for Country in 1973 where he impressed enough to make that year'sKangaroo tour. He played in two Tests and ten minor tour matches and finished as the tour's highest point scorer with seven tries and twenty eight goals. He andRohan Hancock (Queensland) are the last players to be selected for the Kangaroos fromCountry Rugby League.In 1974 he was named New South Wales' Country Rugby League Player of the Year.[5] He played in all three Tests of the 1974 domesticAshes series against Great Britain and the following year he played in NSW Country's historic 1975 win over Sydney City. He was selected in Australia's1975 World Cup squad and played in five matches in the tournament in the centres alongsideBob Fulton. In a match against Wales in Sydney during the series, he kicked nine goals.
By this time Cronin was one of the most eminent rugby league centres in the world, yet he continually rejected big money offers to go to Sydney[citation needed] and played for his home town ofGerringong on the NSW South Coast, where a field is now named in his honour.
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In 1977 Cronin joined theParramatta Eels but for many years continued to commute to training and matches from Gerringong where he owned and was publican of the local hotel. He played at centre for New South Wales in the inaugural1980 State of Origin game.
Cronin was a member of Parramatta's star studded backlines of the early 1980s playing alongsideBrett Kenny,Steve Ella,Peter Sterling andEric Grothe. In combination with all of these greats he played in four winningGrand Finals for Parramatta (1981, 1982, 1983 and 1986). Alongside teammateRay Price, Cronin enjoyed a fairy tale last match end to his career in the 1986 Grand Final where he kicked both goals in the Eels' 4–2 victory overCanterbury-Bankstown.
Cronin played 216 games in ten years with Parramatta placing him equal fourth withBob O'Reilly on the list of most first grade appearances. His club point scoring tally of 1,971 points (75 tries, 865 goals and 2 field goals) is the standing Parramatta record and is over 150 points clear of the next contenderLuke Burt. He kicked 11 goals in a round 14 match of 1982 against theIllawarra Steelers, and 10 goals in the round 22 clash of 1978 against theNewtown Jets. He twice scored 27 points in a match for Parramatta.
In 1985 he overtookGraham Eadie's record for the most points scored in anNSWRFL career (1,917); Cronin's eventual total of 1,971 stood as the new career record for sixteen seasons until it was bettered byDaryl Halligan in 2000.
| This section of abiography of a living persondoes notinclude anyreferences or sources. Please help by addingreliable sources. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourcedmust be removed immediately. Find sources: "Mick Cronin" rugby league – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(August 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
The1978 Kangaroo tour was Cronin's second, and he played in all five Tests plus 12 minor matches again returning home as the tour's highest point scorer with 142 points. He played in all Tests of the 1979 domesticAshes series against Great Britain kicking 24 goals in the course of the three games. He played in seven Tests over three series againstNew Zealand in 1978, 1980 and 1982 before he retired from international representative football.
In 22 Tests for Australia between 1973 and 1982 he scored 5 tries and 93 goals for 201 points. Aside from Cronin's first 5 Tests in 1973 and 1974 whenGraeme Langlands was captain and goal kicker, Mick Cronin was Australia's first choice kicker in his next seventeen Test appearances.
Cronin made 21 appearances forNew South Wales Blues up till 1981 under the old place of residence rules. He played in the inauguralState of Origin match in 1980 and made five further appearances for the Blues under the origin criteria up till the game III in 1983, despite having retired from international representative availability in 1982.
Mick Cronin's name was etched into Origin folklore that first night in July 1980 when, seventeen minutes into the second-half, his Parramatta club teammateArthur Beetson pirouetted in from the right side while Cronin was held up in a tackle by Queensland halfGreg Oliphant, and threw a loose left-arm around Cronin's chin. To this day that incident is cited in evidence that, from the outset, State of Origin football was "the real deal" where deeply rooted State passion would take priority over club friendships and loyalties. State of Origin rugby league has ever since been promoted as "state against state, mate against mate". This archrivalry was typified by the Cronin/Beetson altercation; notwithstanding that it was quickly forgotten and that they sat next to each other on the return plane trip to Sydney and did not mention the incident.[6]
Altogether Cronin represented New South Wales 27 times from 1973 to 1983, scoring 7 tries, 87 goals for 195 points.
When he retired in 1986 he was the greatest point-scorer in the history of theNSWRL premiership with 1,971 points and other point-scoring honours include:
• Country record of 316 pts in 20 Group 7 matches in 1971
• Most points in a club season (282 in 1978) – the standing Parramatta club record.
• Most points in a calendar year (547 from 52 games in 1978)
• Most points by a player from any country in World Cup clashes (108)
• Most points in the world in Tests (199)
• Most points in a Test series (54 against Great Britain 1979)
• Most successive successful kicks for goal in top-grade rugby league (26 in 1978).
• Leading point-scorer in 1977, 1978, 1979, 1982 & 1985
In 1990 he took on the coaching responsibility at Parramatta in a period when their playing roster was at its weakest for years. In 1992, he coached a Country origin side to victory over City origin. He coached the Parramatta club until the end of the1993 NSWRL season.
In 2009 he coached theGerringong Lions in theGroup 7 Rugby League competition until stepping down from the top job after winning a premiership in 2020. He won 5 premierships as coach with the Lions(2010,2013,2015,2016,2020)
Cronin was named "Country Player of the Year" in 1974. He won unprecedented consecutiveRothmans Medals in 1977–78. In 1985 he was awarded the Medal of theOrder of Australia "in recognition of service to the sport of Rugby League Football".[7] Cronin received theAustralian Sports Medal in 2000 and was honoured further in 2001 by being awarded theCentenary Medal "for service to Australian society through the sport of Rugby League".
At the2007 Dally M Awards Cronin was inducted into theAustralian Rugby League Hall of Fame.[8]
In February 2008, Cronin was named in the list of Australia's100 Greatest Players (1908–2007) which was commissioned by theNRL andARL to celebrate the code's centenary year in Australia.[9]
The eastern grandstand ofWestern Sydney Stadium is named the Mick Cronin Stand in his honour.
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Graham Eadie 1983 | Record-holder Most points in anNSWRFL/NRL career[1] 1985 (1,918) – 2000 (1,971) | Succeeded by Daryl Halligan 2000 |
| Preceded by Eric Simms 1969–1977 | Record-holder Most points in anNRL season 1978–1998 | Succeeded by Ivan Cleary 1998–2004 |