2014 NRL Grand Final

Both teams' first choice hookers were ruled out from playing in the week leading up to the Grand Final:

• For South Sydney, Issac Luke was suspended for a dangerous throw in the Preliminary Final against Sonny Bill Williams of the Sydney Roosters and was replaced by Apisai Koroisau.[1]
• For Canterbury, captain Michael Ennis withdrew after suffering a fractured foot in the Preliminary Final against the Penrith Panthers; he was replaced by Moses Mbye as hooker, and the captaincy was shared between James Graham and Trent Hodkinson.[2]

Sunday, 5 October 7:35pm (AEDT)

South Sydney Rabbitohs	30 – 6	Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
Tries: Johnston (20') 1 G Burgess (56') 1 Auva'a (73') 1 Reynolds (78') 1 Inglis (80') 1 Goals: Reynolds 5/7 (27' pen, 57', 64' pen, 75', 79') S Burgess 0/1	Report	Tries: 1 (49') Williams Goals: 1/1 (50') Hodkinson

ANZ Stadium, Sydney Referee: Shayne Hayne, Gerard Sutton Clive Churchill Medal: Sam Burgess

The first half of the match was a low-scoring affair. There was only one try—to South Sydney's Alex Johnston—while Adam Reynolds kicked a penalty goal to give Souths a 6–0 half-time lead. Canterbury equalised ten minutes into the second half through a converted try to Tony Williams. George Burgess restored Souths' lead shortly thereafter, before further tries to Kirisome Auva'a, Reynolds and Greg Inglis in the final ten minutes of the match. The final score was Souths 30, Canterbury 6.[3]

Souths' Sam Burgess played the entire match, despite fracturing his cheekbone and eye socket in contact in the opening tackle with James Graham.[4] He was awarded the Clive Churchill Medal, as the man of the match in the grand final.[3] Souths player Dave Tyrrell was stretchered from the field after he was knocked out in the 68th minute following a head clash with Canterbury player James Graham.[5]

Fullback Greg Inglis, who scored the final try of the game in the final minute of play, won his first valid premiership ring after previously featuring in the Melbourne Storm's 2007 and 2009 sides which had their premierships stripped from them due to salary cap breaches.[6]

Former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash performed "Bent To Fly" from World on Fire, with the accompanying vocal track by Myles Kennedy being played over loudspeaker.[7] The performance of the song was accompanied by a montage of the 2014 NRL season on ANZ Stadium's screens. Slash also performed the guitar riff from Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine", before closing the set with an improvised solo.

Train performed as the main act, playing "Hey, Soul Sister", "Angel in Blue Jeans", and "Drops of Jupiter".

Shayne Hayne and Gerard Sutton were the match referees. It was Hayne's fourth grand final as he has officiated in the 2009, 2010 and 2013 grand finals. It was Sutton's first grand final as referee.

Steve Carrol and Jason Walsh were the touch judges, and the video referees were Bernard Sutton and Luke Phillips. The standby referee was Ben Cummins and the standby touch judge was Brett Suttor.

The 2014 NRL Grand Final was the most-watched club game in the history of rugby league, with a five-city average television audience of 2.597 million, with a peak of 3.098 million viewers. Combined with 1.354 million regional viewers tuning in, the game had an average audience of 3.951 million viewers, and a national peak audience of 4.650 million viewers.[8][9][10]

The crowd of 83,833 was the largest attendance at a sporting event at Stadium Australia since its 2001 reconfiguration.[8][10]

Souths' premiership victory qualified them for the 2015 World Club Challenge, their first ever appearance in the end of year event, in which they beat St. Helens RFC 39-0 at Langtree Park.

• 2014 NRL season
• NRL Premiership winners

Wikinews has news on this topic:

• South Sydney wins first premiership in 43 years

• 2014 NRL Finals Series website
• 2014 Holden Cup Grand Final