NRL x EA Sports - Part II

We dive into the Playstation 2 era of an EA Sports rugby league series, featuring some of the most polarising, beloved and endearing stars of early 2000s NRL.

Jan 27, 2025

After a much longer than intended hiatus, I’m back with the Playstation 2 era of the NRL x EA Sports crossover series. If you missed the first part of this series or you need a little refresher on the inspiration and background of this project, you can read the Playstation 1 Era here and get yourself up to speed.

In this part of the series, I’ve moved away from FIFA as the main source of aesthetic inspiration, choosing to focus on singular player covers that were fresh each year, rather than the same cover stars carried across multiple titles.

I’ve also taken the musical element of Part I a few steps further, expanding to a full soundtrack for every title of this series, that can be listened to on Spotify (not sorry Apple Music users, grow up). The FIFA soundtracks are such a huge cultural aspect of each year’s release, so I built these out while designing the covers to completely immerse myself in the experience.

SPOTIFY SOUNDTRACKS

I’ve done my best to stick to the guidelines of a real FIFA soundtrack, avoiding the biggest songs/artists of that year (as much as possible), while mixing in a more Australian and rugby league flavour. You obviously won’t love or agree with every song included in these soundtracks, but the overall intention behind them is to make you feel the way you did when you were playing sports video games at the time each of these would’ve come out. Whether that’s as a kid on school holidays knowing you have absolutely nowhere to be that day other than sitting at your screen dominating your franchise mode, or as a uni student staying up all night playing with your mates, I hope these give you the same nostalgia hit they’ve given me the past few months.

NRL 2001

Cover Star: Ryan Girdler (Penrith Panthers)

NRL 2001 Soundtrack on Spotify - Highlighted by Powderfinger, The Dandy Warhols & Incubus.

Much like Brett Kimmorley’s NRL 2000 cover, I felt as if the gap in star power remained here before some of the more quintessential early 2000s players came to be in the following years. My original pick for this cover was Wendell Sailor (even going as far as creating it) before my research found that he actually signed with the ARU in February of 2001, ruling him out of a cover star position.

At this stage of Ryan Girdler’s career, he was coming off back to back Dally M Centre of the Year selections and a 32 point performance in the final game of the 2000 State of Origin series. He’d established himself as a consistent Test player in the 2000 World Cup and was very much a fan favourite across the game.

The cover primarily focuses on the aesthetic of the FIFA 2001 cover, while mixing in some of the more futuristic design elements of Madden and NBA Live to make it more eye-catching.

NRL 2002

Cover Star: Preston Campbell (Cronulla Sharks)

NRL 2002 Soundtrack on Spotify - Highlighted by Alex Lloyd, Weezer, Alien Ant Farm & Jimmy Eat World.

It is only fitting that the first Indigenous man to grace the cover of this fictional series is someone who would go on to do such incredible things for the cultural aspect of our game throughout his career.

Preston Campbell was flying on the back of winning the Dally M medal in 2001, playing a key role alongside David Peachey in making the Sharks one of the strongest teams in the competition. There’s just something about this Sharks logo, jersey and overall vibe that feels so overwhelmingly late 90s/early 00s, and I think an electric, young Preston Campbell is the perfect man to represent this period of the game.

NRL 2003

Cover Star: Stacey Jones (New Zealand Warriors)

NRL 2003 Soundtrack on Spotify - Highlighted by Grinspoon, Taxiride & The Sugababes.

For the first time in the series we head across the Tasman, featuring Warriors superstar Stacey Jones on the cover of NRL 2003. Something I only discovered in my research for this project is that the original Sidhe Rugby League game, which was actually released in 2003, was titled Stacey Jones Rugby League in New Zealand and featured him on the cover rather than Steve Price. The more you know!

While they didn’t go on to win the Premiership, the 2002 New Zealand Warriors are one of the most iconic teams of this time period and the incredible solo Grand Final try from Jones is their clear landmark moment. This year didn’t feel quite right for someone like Lockyer or a return to a Knight (Buderus) or Rooster (Minichiello) already, so I think The Little General works well here on the back of the momentum the Warriors should’ve had going into 2003.

NRL 2004

Cover Star: Darren Lockyer (Brisbane Broncos)

NRL 2004 Soundtrack on Spotify - Highlighted by Franz Ferdinand, Sugar Ray & Jet.

It almost feels like a crime (and quite unrealistic) that is has taken this long to get a Bronco on the cover, but who better than Darren Lockyer to be the first?

With the benefit of hindsight, I wanted to wait until the year Lockyer transitioned from fullback to five-eighth, as I think this is not only a landmark moment in Lockyer’s career but also the direction of the modern game.

Lockyer was at the peak of his powers at the time of the switch, winning the Golden Boot in 2003 before going on to win the Dally M Five-Eighth of the Year, the Provan Summons Medal and RLIF Back of the Year in his first year as a half. With the Broncos well and truly established as one of the NRL’s most high profile clubs and Lockyer’s impending positional switch the biggest talking point of the 03/04 off-season, Lockyer’s place as the NRL 2004 cover star becomes a no brainer.

This cover is a particularly special one for me as I attach these Nike Broncos kits with my first real memories of watching and attending rugby league games as a kid. Living in Brisbane, Darren Lockyer was naturally my first ever favourite player and seeing this cover, with the design inspiration coming from Rugby 2004 (which I played religiously), it immediately takes me right back to those days.

NRL 2005

Cover Star: Willie Mason (Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs)

NRL 2005 Soundtrack on Spotify - Highlighted by Caesars, Modest Mouse & Stereophonics (My favourite soundtrack & cover of the series so far).

Madden made a splash in 2005 by featuring a defensive player on the cover, so I’ve decided to follow a similar path and feature a forward for the first time.

As far high-profile rugby league stars go, there were few more polarising than Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs star Willie Mason. Featuring an incredibly rare mix of size, strength, speed, skill and a huge personality to boot, Mason was the type of player that every fan either loved or hated.

Hot on the heels of a Clive Churchill Medal and Premiership in 2004, Mason is exactly the type of megastar with a side of controversy that Madden have run with over the years.

NRL 06

Cover Star: Benji Marshall (Wests Tigers)

NRL 2006 Soundtrack on Spotify - Highlighted by Fort Minor, The Kooks & Thirsty Merc.

Maybe the easiest selection for a cover that there will be for the entirety of this series, Wests Tigers superstar Benji Marshall graces the cover of NRL 06.

It is hard to adequately describe the stranglehold that Marshall had on rugby league culture at this point in time, you just had to be there. Every single kid across Australia and New Zealand (and a fair share of adults) spent hours in their backyards or at the park desperately trying to recreate the footwork, flick passes and swagger that Marshall played with.

At just 20 years of age and already the owner of one of the most iconic Grand Final moments in the sport’s history, there are no bigger slam dunk cover selections than Benji Marshall.

Shout out to Eels rookie sensation Tim Smith, who I would’ve absolutely given a cover to had his one iconic season been in any year other than this.

NRL 07

Cover Star: Cam Smith (Melbourne Storm)

NRL 2007 Soundtrack on Spotify - Highlighted by The Fratellis, Sneaky Sound System & Little Birdy.

Trying to work out where to fit Cameron Smith into this series was one of the bigger challenges that I came across, but in the end I settled on getting him in early in his career. Despite being arguably the greatest to have ever played the game, Smith was constantly (largely unfairly in my opinion) maligned by fans and in the media, whether it be for his ruck control, ‘management’ of referees or the Storm’s salary cap saga. These incidents all took place across the upcoming five to ten years of Smith’s career, which would’ve always made him an unnatural fit for any of those seasons.

At this point in time, all those controversies are still ahead of Smith and he’s just a breakout star coming off his first Dally M medal, a drought-breaking Origin series win and the Storm’s first Grand Final appearance since 1999.