League: Warriors missed out on Marshall, says scout

When Bob Hall sits down tonight to watch the NRL grand final he will look and wonder what might have been.

Hall, in remission from cancer after a five-year battle, offered the prodigiously talented Benji Marshall to the Warriors while he was still a Gold Coast high school student.

The former league scout supreme and Cowboys reserve grade coach spotted Marshall, upon whose shoulders Wests Tigers hopes rest when they meet the North Queensland Cowboys tonight, when he was a nobody playing for Keebra Park State High School and knew he was some-thing special "as soon as I saw that sidestep".

In conjunction with the schools' sporting director he presented a letter to the Warriors requesting a formal scholar-ship arrangement between the school and the club. Hall also emphasised to then chief executive Mick Watson that Marshall was a must-get.

"I told them he was somebody they really needed to have a look at. For some reason it was never followed up," Hall laments. "Then along came Wests... The opportunity was there, it is now lost. The boy is talented and what he's got you can't coach."

Marshall was by chance invited to trial with the Keebra Park school during a bi-cultural exchange with Whakatane High School. There are several talented Kiwis playing at Keebra now, most of whom will be picked up by the Tigers if they are deemed capable of making grade.

Hall, recognised as one of league's most astute judges of talent, couldn't believe Marshall's step but had some concerns over his upper body strength. His shoulder problems have come as no surprise.

Hall will have mixed emotions during the final, having an affinity for the Cowboys after coaching their reserve grade team in 1996 and working as a scout for them for two years following that.

But it's when he looks at Marshall, and the glittering success he's enjoying, that Hall feels a sense of wasted opportunity for New Zealand league.

"I think he was here, but for the grace of God." Or the sloppiness of the Warriors management.

Hall has been forced to scale down his scouting over recent times. "I've got cancer, mate," he said. "I've had it now for five years and it's Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. What I've got there isn't any cure for.

"I had three years of chemo, got out the other side of that and this year I've had no chemo at all and I've had three clearances in the last 12 weeks.

"It's in remission, the sleeping giant."

- HERALD ON SUNDAY