With the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles celebrating its 75th year in 2021, we take a look at some of the greatest players to wear the maroon and white jersey.
Today's feature in the '75 series' is on Kerry Boustead, who lit up the sidelines with his blistering speed in his 65 games for the Sea Eagles.
Kerry Boustead (#290)
Kerry Boustead came from a working family at Innisfail in Queensland. Small but compact and lion-hearted, he had electrifying speed. He and Eric Grothe stood out as the finest wingers of the early 1980s.
Kerry Boustead - Sea Eagle 290
Boustead had so impressed in the 1978 interstate series that he was the only Queensland-based player in Australia's starting XIII for that season's first Test against New Zealand.
At 18 years, 316 days, he became the second youngest Australian Test cap (''Chook'' Fraser was 18 years, 301 days young when he played against England in 1911), and the youngest to play a Test for Australia on home soil. Sione Mata'utia and Israel Folau have both since beaten the mark.
Close sets up Boustead
Boustead scored one try on his Test debut, two tries in the second Test and another in the third.
Boustead played in all five Tests on the 1978 Kangaroo tour, before moving to Easts in Sydney. Some wondered if his size would be against him, but he played successfully not just on the wing but in a variety of positions in the backline, including in the centres in the 1980 grand final.
A member of Queensland's first Origin team, he was a regular in interstate and Test football until 1984. Boustead made a second Kangaroo tour in 1982, and then followed his Roosters' coach Bob Fulton to Manly, where he stayed until 1986.
He’s a natural. You can’t make anyone like Kerry Boustead
Bob Fulton Former Manly and Easts coach