Benny Elias

Benny Elias (born November 15, 1963, Tripoli, Lebanon) was the leading hooker in rugby league for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Along with Wayne Pearce, Paul Sironen and Steve Roach, Elias formed one of the most destructive forward packs Sydney club rugby has ever known during the late 1980s.

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Many historians of rugby league argue that Benny Elias was responsible for the reinvention of the hooker's role in rugby league: changing it from that of a scrummager to a skilful playmaker at "dummy half" (the player who receives the play-the-ball). He has sometimes been spoken of as "a player with a halfback's talents playing at hooker", yet Elias was still a superb scrummager, as shown when he won three key scrums against the feed in a 1990 play-off against Newcastle.

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After migrating to Australia at a young age, Elias was a fan of rugby league from very young days and played his first rugby for Holy Cross Ryde in the late 1970s as a halfback. He was graded by Balmain in 1981, and transferred quickly to the hooking position where he remained for the rest of his career. When he first played first grade in 1982 his potential as a teenager was immediately noticed, and he developed so well that by 1984 he was earmarked according to all judges of the game for major representative honours.

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These came Elias' way in 1985 when he played in New South Wales' first team to win a State of Origin series, and did so well he toured New Zealand that year. The tour was controversial because of its timing in the middle of a State of Origin series, but Elias' skill was so great that he was an automatic selection for the following year's Kangaroo Tour, which was unbeaten but where Elias could not steal the Test jersey from Royce Simmons. 1987 saw no advance on previous form, but Elias' brilliant workrate in defence, superb backing up, and perfectly judged kicking and chasing reached a new level in 1988: he became the chief force that pushed Balmain into its first Grand Final since 1969. Though they lost 12-24 to Canterbury, Elias won Rugby league Week's Player of the Year award (the only hooker to do so). He was an automatic choice for the 1988 World Cup, and only injury kept him out of representative rugby in 1989 - though he was back at his best in Balmain's surge to the Grand Final later on - when he narrowly missed a field goal that would have won the game for sure.

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It wasn in 1990 that Elias became the unquestioned first-choice represnetative hooker, and the year had many highlights, including:

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• A brilliant solo try in the City v Country match
• A superb performace in New South Wales' first Origin win since 1987
• Two brilliant performance on the Kangaroo tour, including a famous try in the Elland Road Test.

However, 1991 was largely washed out by injury, and though Elias was fit again in 1992, he could not displace Steve Walters from his Test spot and had many competitors for the New South Wales jersey. 1993 was controversial, hit hard by suspension which prevented his re-establishing his representative career, but in 1994 Elias showed some wonderful form in the State of Origin series (man of the match in the last game) and even at times for Balmain (who were having their worst season ever). It was expected that he would go on his third Kangaroo tour, and it was a genuine shock when, just having turned 31, Elias announced his retirement as a player in December after having been turned down for the tour.

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Since then, Elias has been a commentator. At first he only made special comments, but today he is the rugby league reporter for SBS Television's 7pm weeknight sports program, talking about the competition and current events in the game.

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1963: 1963 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar)....

Tripoli: This page refers to Tripoli, the capital of Libya. For the Lebanese city of the same name, see Tripoli, Lebanon. For other uses, see Tripoli (disambiguation)....

Rugby league: Rugby league is one of the two codes of rugby, the other being rugby union....

Benny Elias related Images and Photos (experimental)

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