Sattler stayed on the field,and couldn’t help himself. In a rare moment of clarity,he poked his index finger into the left side of his mouth. Blood spattered out onto his jersey. He felt a hole that shouldn’t have been there. Then another. And finally a crack.

His jaw had been broken in three places.

“In grand finals you’ve got to have your legs broken to stay off,I think,” Sattler said.

So he stayed on,and South Sydney won 23-12. As his teammates chaired him from the field,the famous image of Sattler’s wonky jaw was etched into rugby league folklore. It even inspired the song The Day John Sattler Broke His Jaw,which was recently covered by the Whitlams.

But even in his moment of excruciating pain,Sattler made a point of acknowledging his teammates by showing his appreciation,patting them on their heads and shoulders.

“I watched footage of Satts play and he was so tough and uncompromising,” said Burgess,who followed in Sattler’s footsteps when he played the entire 2014 grand final with a broken cheekbone sustained in the first tackle of the match.

“Yet he was such a kind and gentle and happy-going bloke away from the pitch.”

How would rugby league react to something happening like Sattler’s incident in 2023? To put simply,it won’t have to react because it will never happen again.

Punching was outlawed long ago,with any perpetrator automatically sent to the sin bin or sent off. Concussion protocols dictate any player suspected of a brain injury is taken from the field,and players who fail a HIA are now stood down for 11 days.

Sattler’s son Scott had his own magical grand final moment 33 years after his father’s,when he pulled off a desperate covering tackle on Roosters winger Todd Byrne,a man supposed to be much faster than he ever was.

Two years ago,Scott explained why he never wants to see another era like the one his father played in.

It came in the weeks after the NRL’s snap crackdown on high tackles during Magic Round in 2021. Scott was being told players were upset with the code for cracking down so harshly on illegal tackles.

He started rattling off the speeches his father had made in front of thousands of people. On the steps of Town Hall as South Sydney fans marched for their reinstatement into the competition. At the 2014 grand final luncheon. An impromptu rendition of the club’s victory song.

Then he brought up dementia,and a man who couldn’t,at the time,recognise his own family.

“I get really emotional about it,I’ve never seen my father beaten in anything in life,” Sattler told SEN. “But I watch him and hear him deteriorating every week,every month,dementia just beats him,it just breaks him.

“My wife,his daughter-in-law,went in to see him a couple of weeks ago,he didn’t even know who she was. His grandkids,he’s got no connection or affiliation to his grandchildren.

“It’s sad to see,what I’d give to be able to sit and talk rugby league like we used to for hours. I’ll never get that again,this is the effect of rugby league.”

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