Organizing the favorites of the Premier League in Kagarah Oval during an autumn storm is the type of game of San Jorge Illawarra that is for true believers, and no one in the Dragons believes more than Clint Gutherson.
With Gutherson, the patron saint of the lost causes that end up being found, no fight has no hope and, because he believes it, it can be so. I couldn’t turn it off if I wanted, and never wants.
ABC Sport is live blogging every round of the AFL and NRL Seasons in 2025.
Fullback is one of the great competitors of the modern game and is a quality that is trying to give its new teammates in St George Illawarra, because at this point it is the only way you know how to live. If you killed him, he would wait to receive another opportunity in hell.
It is the attitude that transformed him from a utility to a long-term NRL captain, is what helped direct the dragons to his 14-8 victory over Melbourne over the weekend and is what he will take this Saturday, when he returns to the kingdom that once ruled when he faces Parramatta for the first time since he left the Eels during the summer.
“I’m looking forward to it. It will be fun,” Gutherson said.
“There was never any resentment that came out of Parramatta.” It is the way they wanted to go. It is part of football.
“I am sure that I will receive a reception of the crowd at some point, but I have many colleagues there, many people I call family. Once they start, you forget it. It’s another game for me.”
Do not confuse Gutherson in the V Red V with his paralamatta counterpart, but that is just because the inflatable locks that he had in blue and gold shave.
But he moves the same, bouncing like the album at an air hockey table. It still intervenes in the background in the right place and finds the passes in the right times, as it did for the Valentine Holmes opening score on Saturday.
His support game is still exemplary and, although it is not perfect, he had three errors and gave three penalties against the storm, imperfections can always be excused by the effort.
All this will be exhibited again this weekend and, even if there are no resentments between Gutherson and the eels, there will certainly be feelings. How can there be, after everything that happened together?
Few could have waited in what Gutherson would become one day when he arrived in Parramatta in 2016. He was leaving a knee reconstruction and his first -degree experience was limited to a handful of games for Manly.
To start, he played anywhere. Gutherson did not play a single full game in his first year with the Eels, spending time in Wing, Center and Five-Octavo. The faithful eels, desperate for hope after several winters Lean, loved him almost immediately.
But it was not until 2018, his third year with that club, in which he established himself as his best fullback, surviving and surpassing a large number of competitors. That is also the year he was named co-chapitan of the team after only 49 NRL games.
The movement of coach Brad Arthur raised his eyebrows at that time, but was destined to give the confidence of the EELS after a difficult start of the year. Even then, at 23 and with his own career he still starting, Gutherson apparently had no doubt about what could be.
That is still present now, seven years and 200 games later. With the dragons following 8-6 in the midst of the weekend, the Jaydn Su’a Backrower was in a little funk after a few weeks below his best.
Gutherson got it in the sheds to the half time and said, in unequivocal terms, that the game would win. The prediction came true when Su’a and Young Toby Toby Couchman took Melbourne to the Xavier Coates end to return to the entrance in the dying minutes to force an abandonment and kill any possibility of a draw of a miraculous storm.
Gutherson looked like a prophet, but it was his belief that made the tip a reality, a reward for unwavering faith in the surrounding team, whatever happens. Dragons, young and old, are still learning those forms, but in Gutherson there is no finer teacher, at least when it comes to practical learning.
“(La Victoria) showed that we have a team here. I think we need some players to believe in what we have,” said Gutherson.
“There are some players who needed a little belief and this was the perfect example. Even if things do not come out on our way, we can still win games.
“We only wanted to be. We know the team we can be. We just had to continue appearing.
“They had two or three line breaks where they should probably have scored, but we had two or three people in the image and that is all you can ask.”
Gutherson’s leadership was tested early, the eels ended the last year in that first year that the captaincy shared, but the days of Banner were going. Together, Arthur and Gutherson have put Parramatta in their most consistent and reliable form since the change of the century.
The house of Azul y Oro standing for a while with Gutherson as its guide star. The Western Sydney Stadium could have been an unlikely palace and Gutherson an unlikely ruler, has always said that he did not care about the nickname of the “King Gutho”, but there were no disputes who used the crown of Anguilas. It was not the perfect fullback, but it was the perfect fullback for Parramatta.
In the good and bad times, Gutherson’s effort never hesitated. (Getty Images, Cameron Spencer )
A finalist on the 2020 Dally M lists for a single point was a personal cuister point for Gutherson. A great final appearance in 2022 was a team one, and the peak of the time of the team together.
The ascent was stable, but the fall was fast. Just 18 months after a very good Eels team had the misfortune of meeting a large number of panthers on the largest day of the season, Arthur, by then, the oldest coach in the history of the club, was fired.
A large number of teammates from the Gutherson Grand Final succumbed to age or could not match their shape or went to other clubs. The Eels were lost the final two years and, perhaps in their most admirable time, if it weren’t for the typical Gutherson mania, they would probably have finished the wooden spoon last season.
That is a terrible destination that could be found this season if the first month is something to happen, with life under Jason Ryles, starting with four consecutive losses.
Parramatta wanted a new beginning after Arthur and Gutherson’s era, and the replacement of Gutherson, the young recruit Isaiah Iongi, has been one of the weird bright points, but sometimes a team can catch fire while trying to pass the torch.
Dragons can only be a better gain, but that is nothing in a competition in which the margins are so well. And even in his first two defeats, Gutherson was close to the best.
The 30 -year -old feels for his former teammates, but will not hesitate to add his punishment.
Saturday is a great game for him. But when you are connected like him, all games are big. He always wants to gain so much that it is difficult to imagine a new level for him to hit, and anyway it is not the type he has fought for motivation.
“You never want to see your teammates fight and I have many colleagues there that will be my teammates after Footy,” Gutherson said.
“But we want to beat them, we want to win, and next week is just another game for me. It will be a bit an accumulation in the media, but this is how it works.
“I just want to win. We want to win.”
_0.jpg?w=1200&resize=1200,0&ssl=1 "Revo and Ocean Heroes partnership aims to make waves")
