Matt Geyer (born 5 September 1975) is an Australian former professional
rugby league
Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...
footballer. A
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
State of Origin
A State of Origin competition is a type of sporting event between players representing their state or territory. State of Origin began in Australian rules football on 8 October 1977 between Western Australia (WA) and Victoria, at Subiaco Oval ...
representative , he played his club football primarily with the
Melbourne Storm
The Melbourne Storm are a rugby league club based in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia that participates in the National Rugby League. The first fully professional rugby league team based in the state, the Storm entered the competition in 1998. ...
of the
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...
competition, winning the 1999 premiership with them. He also represented
City Origin
The Sydney Rugby League team, known as the City Rugby League team, or Combined Sydney, or Sydney Firsts, or Sydney Capitals, is a representative rugby league team. From 2021, the men's team is to consist of players selected from the New South Wa ...
and played for the
Western Reds
The Western Reds were a rugby league football club based in Perth, Western Australia. Founded in 1992 as the Western Reds, they entered into the Australian Rugby League competition in 1995 before defecting to the rival Super League competition i ...
. Geyer is also the younger brother of rugby league personality
Mark Geyer
Mark Bradley Geyer (born 7 December 1967) is an Australian radio host and former
professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000. An Australian international and New South Wales State of Origin representative sec ...
.
Playing career
Geyer started his career in 1997 for the
Western Reds
The Western Reds were a rugby league football club based in Perth, Western Australia. Founded in 1992 as the Western Reds, they entered into the Australian Rugby League competition in 1995 before defecting to the rival Super League competition i ...
in the
Super League
The Super League (officially known as the Betfred Super League due to sponsorship from Betfred and legally known as Super League Europe), is the top-level of the British rugby league system. At present the league consists of twelve teams, of wh ...
competition where his older brother Mark was captain. Upon the club's dissolution at the end of 1997 he became one of the foundation members of the
Melbourne Storm
The Melbourne Storm are a rugby league club based in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia that participates in the National Rugby League. The first fully professional rugby league team based in the state, the Storm entered the competition in 1998. ...
when they started their first season in 1998. Since then, Geyer has become the most capped Melbourne Storm player, also holding the record for most tries for the club. Most of his career has been played at , but he has also played a large utility role at the club, including and . While with the Storm he played for the
Norths Devils
The Northern Suburbs Devils, or North Brisbane Devils, or often simply referred to as Norths for short, are a rugby league club representing the northern suburbs of Brisbane, Australia. The team colours are sky blue, navy blue and gold. They pl ...
in the 1998
Queensland Cup
The Queensland Cup, currently known as the Hostplus Cup for sponsorship reasons, is the highest-level regional rugby league football competition in Queensland, Australia. It is run by the Queensland Rugby League (QRL) and is contested by four ...
.
He became the first Storm player to lead the NRL's point-scoring for the season (
1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...
). That season he also played in all three State of Origin matches for New South Wales, scoring two tries.
Geyer played at five-eighth in the
1999 NRL Grand Final
The 1999 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding game of the 1999 NRL season. It was contested by the competition's two newest clubs: the Melbourne Storm, competing in only its second year (having finished the regular season ...
and kicked the winning conversion to earn the Storm a premiership in only their second year in the NRL competition (in which he was the leading pointscorer for the season). He replaced
Craig Smith, who had been knocked out (resulting in the Storm being awarded a penalty try). Geyer became the Storm's first player to make 200 appearances, against the
Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks
The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Cronulla, in the Sutherland Shire, Southern Sydney, New South Wales. They compete in the National Rugby League (NRL), Australasia's premier rugby league ...
at Melbourne's
Olympic Park
An Olympic Park is a sports campus for hosting the Olympic Games. Typically it contains the Olympic Stadium and the International Broadcast Centre. It may also contain the Olympic Village or some of the other sports venues, such as the aquatics c ...
in 2006. That season he was only remaining player from the 1999 grand final squad to also be a part of the Storm's
2006 NRL Grand Final
The 2006 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding match of the NRL's 2006 Telstra Premiership season. It was played between the first-placed Melbourne Storm and the third-placed Brisbane Broncos clubs on the night of Sunday, 1 ...
loss to the Broncos. In 2007 Melbourne again reached the grand final and won against the Sea Eagles but the premiership was later stripped for major breaches of the salary cap.
![Boffa](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Boffa.JPG)
During the 2008 season, Geyer had been playing off the interchange bench as he had for the 2007 finals series. After
Will Chambers
William Chambers (born 26 May 1988) is an Australian professional rugby union footballer who previously played for the LA Giltinis in Major League Rugby (MLR) in the United States. After winning two titles with the Melbourne Storm, he retired ...
' season-ending injury, Geyer took up his centre position for the remainder of the season. On 14 July 2008 he became the first Melbourne Storm player to play 250 games.
He played in the
2008 NRL Grand Final
The 2008 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding game of the 2008 NRL season. It was played between the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles and the Melbourne Storm on Sunday, 5 October at ANZ Stadium in Sydney.
The 2008 Grand Final ...
defeat by Manly
and retired at conclusion of the 2008 season.
He left Melbourne as the club's all-time top try scorer.
In July 2009, Geyer revealed that he had made himself available for the
Gold Coast Titans
The Gold Coast Titans are a professional rugby league football club, based on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. The club competes in the National Rugby League (NRL), Australia and New Zealand's national rugby league club competition. The ...
in the
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...
. However he ended up retiring in Queensland after playing in the
Queensland Cup
The Queensland Cup, currently known as the Hostplus Cup for sponsorship reasons, is the highest-level regional rugby league football competition in Queensland, Australia. It is run by the Queensland Rugby League (QRL) and is contested by four ...
for the
Norths Devils
The Northern Suburbs Devils, or North Brisbane Devils, or often simply referred to as Norths for short, are a rugby league club representing the northern suburbs of Brisbane, Australia. The team colours are sky blue, navy blue and gold. They pl ...
.
Post playing
He was involved in coaching junior rugby league at the Currumbin Eagles JRL club where he had success in getting his teams to the Grand finals and ultimately winning his first premiership as a coach in the 2013 season, backing up again as premiership coach in 2014 and 2017 where his U16's team were crowned undefeated premiers for the 2017 season. Geyer's success as a coach continued into the 2018 season with the U17's playing group boasting the only U17's in the Gold Coast competition to field teams in every division and as well as being 2018 Premiers of all divisions. Geyer's U19's senior squad tasted success also, being crowned premiers and being the first Currumbin Eagles senior team to win a grand final in 2018 and then going back-to-back taking out the U20 Premiership again in 2019.
As a result, a large number of Geyer's premiership winning teams have been accepted into Sporting Excellence programs at high schools such as
Palm Beach – Currumbin High School
Palm most commonly refers to:
* Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand
* Palm plants, of family Arecaceae
**List of Arecaceae genera
* Several Arecaceae#Other plants, other plants known as "palm"
Palm or Palms may also refer ...
), with several of Geyer's former and current players going on to gain Queensland Schoolboy and Queensland U16 (2017), U18 QLD Schoolboys (Xavier Coates, Tom Dearden, Juwan Compain, Toby Sexton), U18 State of Origin representative honors (Xavier Coates and Tom Dearden) and 2018 U18 Australian Schoolboys (Tom Dearden and Juwan Compain, 2019 U18 School Boys (Toby Sexton) as well as Gold Coast Vikings and SEQ Kookaburra's representation. A number of Geyer's playing squad born in 2001 have gained NRL contracts with the Titans, Broncos and Bulldogs with Tom Dearden and Xavier Coates making their NRL debut for the Broncos. Also known as Boofa, he now works as a maths/HPE teacher at
Marymount College, Gold Coast
, motto_translation = My God, My All
, established =
, type = Independent co-educational secondary school
, gender =
, denomination = Roman Catholic
, principal = Martina Millard
, city ...
in Queensland, where his success as a coach has continued with his teams winning the Titans Cup back to back for the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons.
Statistics
NRL
: ''Statistics are correct to the end of the 2014 season''
State of Origin
:
Matt Geyer's Representative player profile at Rugby League Project
/ref>
References
External links
Storm Profile
Storm Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Geyer, Matt
1975 births
Living people
Australian rugby league players
Melbourne Storm players
New South Wales City Origin rugby league team players
New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin players
Norths Devils players
Rugby league centres
Rugby league five-eighths
Rugby league fullbacks
Rugby league players from Blacktown
Rugby league wingers
Western Reds players