News of the sudden and sad passing of Arthur Beetson on December 1 has prompted new appraisals of this ground-breaking footballer who was one of rugby league’s true characters. Arthur Henry Beetson, OAM, was the Polly Farmer of Rugby League. Like Polly, he was a big man, he added previously unseen dimensions to the role a big man played, and he changed expectations forever. Like Polly, he was an indigenous pioneer of the game. And like Polly, he was the most effective and destructive user of a football the game had seen.

Artie was the man who elevated the artisan prop forward to the realms of artist. The front-rower had, for decades, been a battering ram. There were some smart ones among them, make no mistake. John Sattler and John O’Neill were tough blokes, but no numpties. Kevin Ryan was just as rough, and a smart ball-player who led a team of leaders from the front. They were all artists, in their own way.

But Artie was the first of the “soft” hard men. In order to dispose of the ball in his usual destructive ways, Artie would do things like spin into his opposition backside-first. His range of skills allowed him to pull unprecedented moves. He was a dangerous and attacking front rower who saw beyond the claustrophobic, brutal world of the traditional prop forward. He did what he had to. If he needed to boot a field goal, which he did to sink Canterbury in 1971, then that’s what he would do.

Artie got in his share of scraps, but he wasn’t a rampaging ox. What made him dangerous was the unprecedented versatility of his assaults. He could break the lines with a surprising turn of speed, which he possessed even as an overweight front rower for Balmain in the 1960s, when he was dubbed “half-game Artie” and “Meat pie Artie”. And of course there was that impossible passing from any position, any angle. Freeing up his arms and getting a view of his team mates was always his preoccupation in battle.

When he transformed himself and moved to Eastern Suburbs in 1971, his work rate became second-to-none – and a busy Beetson spelt danger. His strength often allowed him to hold off opponents and dispense one-handed passes to running second-rowers or backs on the burst, and he was the first of the big men to constantly bestow long cut-out passes to grateful backs. In the Eastern Suburbs teams, these men were voracious and quick colossi like Harris, Mullins and Schubert. Beetson led them all the way and captained one of the most formidable sides the game had ever seen to two Premierships in 1974-75.

A few absolute gems defined Artie’s career, but, brutal and cruel though it was, a punch Artie laid on NSW centre Mick Cronin in the very first State of Origin match was a stroke of genius. Artie wasn’t really known as a “bluer”. Cronin certainly wasn’t. Furthermore, Cronin was Artie’s Parramatta team mate and friend.

Whether Artie actually wanted to send a strong message that real State of Origin was an end to decades of humiliation for Queensland in interstate matches, is debatable. But we all came to the conclusion that, for Artie Beetson to lash out at anyone unprovoked, particularly Cronin, it could only be the result of years of pent-up anger and resentment. Nothing Artie ever said afterward really disabused us of that notion. We do know that the opinions of high-profile commentators that State of Origin would never work because it pitted “mate against mate” galled big Artie. He picked out a mate, and he belted him!

The act set the high-pitched tone for one of the world’s greatest annual sporting rivalries, and immediately told Queenslanders how they should feel about the Origin series.

In that match, Wally Lewis, Artie’s successor as pass master, who’d only just met Artie earlier that day, had one ambition: to run off one Beetson pass. He got plenty of leather courtesy of Artie that night.

In 1973, Artie was the first Aboriginal to captain Australia at any sport. In 1976, he captained Easts to a world club challenge match against St Helens. In his eleven years of representative football for Australia, his brilliance up front won the Kangaroos many games, especially against the shrewd and punishing Poms of that era. He has been named one of Australian Rugby League’s 100 Greatest Players, and picked in the Team of the Century.

In these days of non-competitive scrums and 80-minutes-a-game effort, we’ll never see the likes of Artie again. They’re athletic, but they’re not Artie. He actually pioneered the Herculean work-rate for the big men, but when he had to, he could grind out the hard yards faced with vicious hard cases intent using legal or illegal means to lay him low – and there were plenty in those days. The role of the prop will never be the same. Neither will the world without Artie.

Published in Inside Sport, January 2012