Sunday’s Canterbury rugby league premiership grand final against Halswell Hornets at Ngā Puna Wai will be the 44-year-old hooker’s last match as he retires from playing duties.
He’s one of three Panthers exiting. Wing James Baxendale, appearing in his 13th grand final, is moving to Brisbane, and head coach Jed Lawrie – Corey’s younger brother – is stepping down after nine years at the helm.
Corey Lawrie, who has also played for the Warriors and English club Doncaster, said the team wouldn’t be focusing on any of that come Sunday, with the Panthers looking to overturn the results of the last two grand finals, where they lost.
“I think the last few years we got caught up with emotions, worrying about someone’s last game or this or that,” he said.
“It takes away from what we’re trying to do.
“This year we’re just trying to do it for ourselves really, not trying to focus on any one individual.”
Lawrie said he’d be interested in the vacant head coach role – looking to follow in his brother’s footsteps.
“Someone’s got to step in so I’ll throw my name forward and even if there’s a better person, I can put in the aid and help them out a bit.
“It’d be great if there was a real good coach and then I can just be in the system. I struggle with the hard decisions, I’m probably too nice.”
Jed Lawrie said it would mean a lot to finish on a high and bring the Pat Smith Trophy back to Hornby. They last won the title in 2021, beating Linwood Keas 22-16.
“We’ve come up short a few times but obviously we put in all this hard work from the moment we hit pre-season in December for this opportunity, so bringing it home is going to be special if we can do it.”
Head coach Ray Hubbard said it was special for the club to be back in the grand final.
“It kind of makes everything worth it. Our season’s been centred around a slogan of “better than yesterday”, which is attached to the outcomes of the past and ways that we can improve to get different outcomes.
“So we come into a weekend just knowing that if we can be near our best and look to improve on that, we’ll go well.”
It is Halswell’s first final since 2014, when they beat Celebration Lions 28-24. Halswell captain Phil Nati was in the losing Lions side, but did claim the 2011 title with the Hornets in his first stint at the club.
He was trying to impart some of that experience on his teammates who had never played at this stage before.
“(I’ve) had a couple of teammates ask what should they do or what should they expect and I couldn’t help myself but throw the same old cliché that you’ll hear in most sports finals, ‘it’s pretty much just like any other game’,” Nati said.
“With all the excitement and the occasion and the noise from family and friends and supporters, you’ve just got to be able to find the balance and ability to block it out and literally just approach it like it’s another game.”
Looking back on past Hornby v Halswell finals
The grand final on Sunday is another chapter in the memorable rivalry between Hornby and Halswell, writes Will Evans.
The 1984 grand final would be the first of four consecutive deciders as the two clubs ruled the roost through the mid-80s.
Hornby notched back-to-back titles with the 22-12 victory, overwhelming the plucky Halswell defence. It was a mighty effort from Hornby, who had to negotiate the representative commitments of Barry Edkins, Marty Crequer, Robin Alfeld, Ross Taylor, Wayne Wallace and 1984 CRL Sportsman of the Year Adrian Shelford through the season.
The 1985 season produced one of the most dramatic grand finals in CRL history.
Edkins levelled up a seesawing decider at 16-all with a penalty goal two minutes from fulltime. But the mercurial Phil Bancroft snatched the Kevin Williams coached Halswell’s maiden championship with an unforgettable 47-metre field goal as the siren sounded.
Halswell rallied from a patchy regular season in 1986 to reach the grand final from fourth, but fell to Hornby 20-5 who lost just two games under the coaching of Frank Endacott.
Hornby led by just one point at halftime, but a hat-trick to back-rower Graham Larson – just the second player and the first forward to achieve the feat in a grand final – clinched the club’s third title in four years.
In 1987, it was that man Bancroft who again who stole the show, breaking a 14-all deadlock with a field goal from close range four minutes from fulltime in another instant classic.
The clubs met in another four grand finals during the 1990s: Hornby went back-to-back with an 18-8 win in the ’91 decider; Halswell turned the tables in ’93 with a tense 8-6 victory; the Panthers got the job done 22-12 in the ’96 grand final; and the Hornets romped to a 30-12 success in ’99.
The new millennium has seen three-more westside derbies on CRL Grand Final Day, with the Panthers prevailing 28-18 in the 2001 decider – with Wallace as coach – and breaking Hornets hearts with consecutive extra-time triumphs in 2012 (19-18) and 2012 (22-20).
