State of Origin 2017 game three, New South Wales vs. Queensland

MARK Caroll has a special place in State of Origin folklore.

Tommy Raudonikis might have invented the iconic ‘Cattledog’ cry, but there’s no ‘Cattledog’ call, unless Mark Carroll puts the plan into action.

The phrase was the code word used by Raudonikis when he was New South Wales State of Origin coach in the 1997 series.

If the Blues players heard it, it meant they were to start an all-in-brawl, and every player had to get involved.

And when Raudonikis said the word at the Sydney Football Stadium during Game Three, Carroll was the one who kicked things off — by planting a punch on the chin of a Queensland foe.

“Back in 1997, Tommy had this call for ‘fight’,” Carroll told NRL 360.

“We got through the first game, second game and third game I thought ‘He’s going to call it’.

“Clinton O’Brien took the ball up and got a bit of an elbow and they took him off.

“The trainer ran on yelling ‘Cattledog, Cattledog’ and I said to Chief (Blues legend Paul Harragon), ‘I’ve got the Cattledog’.”

Carroll was a known enforcer in NRL circles (then ARL) and the New South Wales brute had a ready-made plan, should Raudonikis’ make the now iconic call.

“I’d visualised what to do, because back then there was only one camera, there wasn’t cameras everywhere,” Carroll explained.

“The poor bloke that came on was Craig Smith from St George Illawarra (born in New Zealand), he’s just come on and I just went whack.

“It’s the best punch I’ve ever landed, on his chin, and that was the ‘Cattledog’.”

The 1997 ‘Cattledog’ incident is probably best remembered for the stoush between league legend Andrew Johns and Queensland hooker Jamie Goddard.

Johns was knocked to the ground by Goddard after the two Origin No. 9’s went toe to toe. Unfortunately for Johns he was left with 27 stitches and an embarrassing YouTube clip to boot.

Carroll says Raudonikis let Johns know he had let his state down post-game. But for Carroll, the incident has prompted a life long bond between the two.

“He (Johns) got hammered off Tommy, saying ‘you’re a such and such’, but he loved me,” Carroll said.

“Every State of Origin I still ring Tommy up and down the phone I go ‘Cattledog’. He always goes ‘I love you Spud’.

“Tommy got me in a headlock after it finished, he’d had about forty bungas. His breath was outstanding.”

The ‘Cattledog’ tactic would have no place in the modern Origin arena, given the NRL’s hard stance on on-field violence.

But that’s not the reason why the former New South Wales and Australian forward does not want to play the modern version of Origin football, saying the matches now sit on a different level of endurance.

“The hunger and the passion has always been there from both sides,” Carroll said.

“I just can’t believe the games now go for eighty minutes, when I was playing the game might have been over after 70 minutes.

“To go the full 80 minutes, it’s quite staggering there’s only one game in every series at the moment. It’s incredible how the game is going. I’d hate to be playing, it’s too fast.”

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