Ray Hadley has hailed David Morrow as “the most versatile sports commentator Australia has produced” after it was announced this week he would be inducted into the NRL Hall of Fame.
There will be plenty of debate about who should become rugby league’s next Immortal – but many will applaud the decision to acknowledge Morrow’s contribution to the game as he fights brain cancer.
Now 71, the man nicknamed “Thirsty’“struggles to speak, but was reduced to tears when good friend Hadley broke the news to him and his wife, Chris.
Hadley is on the NRL’s Hall of Fame committee, and had to seek permission from ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys and CEO Andrew Abdo to go public with Morrow’s honour.
“It’s an acknowledgment for a bloke who spent over 50 years in broadcasting, and most of it in rugby league,” said the host of 2GB’s Ray Hadley Morning Show, which is owned by Nine Entertainment, publishers of this masthead.
“It was always going to happen, but it’s happened now under these circumstances, which are sad and tragic, but I’m also happy that ‘Thirsty’ is still here and can be acknowledged by his peers and the NRL.
NRL Hall of Fame inductee David Morrow.
“He is, without doubt, the most versatile sports commentator Australia has produced. He did cricket better than most, was a race-caller along with me in the 1980s and 1990s – we’d call the Harold Park trots together – and you’d get to the Olympics and he could call track and field, hockey ... if there are 33 sports that need calling at these Paris Olympics, he could call 31 of them.”
Morrow covered eight Olympic Games and six Commonwealth Games, including the 1994 edition in Canada when he and Hadley enjoyed a memorable night listening to stories from former ABC Perth caller George Grljusich until the early hours.
Hadley also recalled the time they thought they would spend the night in a Manchester jail when Bob Fulton, the then coach on a Kangaroos tour in 1990, got into a verbal confrontation with a police officer.
“‘Bozo’ [Fulton] kept telling the copper he had the biggest head he had seen,” Hadley said.
“[Peter] ‘Chippy’ Frilingos was driving, Thirsty and I were in the back seat and kept telling Bozo to keep quiet when making fun of this copper’s head.
“But the officer ended up realising it was Bob Fulton, and instead of me and Thirsty thinking we were about [to go to jail], we got a police escort back into town.”
Morrow, a huge St George Illawarra fan, retired at the start of the year after the cancer diagnosis. He told good friend Mark Levy, also a 2GB host, that the week before Christmas he had fallen in a pool and had briefly forgotten how to swim.
The NRL will hold a ceremony on August 21, when Morrow and nine others will be inducted into the Hall of Fame, as well as the first Immortal since 2018.
Watch State of Origin exclusively Live and Free on Channel 9 & 9Now
Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.