'I hid in the dressing-room toilets and pushed my broken jaw back into place. No one would stop me. I ran back on before anyone could.'
This is the authorised biography of John Sattler, a rugby league luminary, the hardest of hard men and the last person to captain South Sydney to a premiership, 43 years ago in 1971.
For all his many achievements, which include being named in the Australian Rugby League's list of 100 greatest players, Sattler is best remembered for playing the last 73 minutes of the 1970 Grand Final with a broken jaw. For four decades that moment has defined him, as a footballer and as a man, and it secured his place in the code's folklore. Sattler was and still is revered by his contemporaries, and his reputation has remained strong in the modern era.
Humble and shy, Sattler has declined many approaches to document his remarkable life story. Now, having turned 70, he feels the time is right.
This, then, is the compelling story of 'Gentleman John' Sattler, a rugby league deity, the kid from Kurri Kurri who became the ultimate paradox: softly spoken and adored off the field, but feared and hard as nails on it. He was the heart and soul of the glory years of rugby league's oldest and most glorious club, the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
