Jamie Lyon is a retired player most recently playing for Manly Sea Eagles.
Jamie Lyon (born 24 January 1982 in Narrabri, New South Wales) is an Australian professional rugby league footballer who currently captains the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles of the National Rugby League (NRL). An Australian international and New South Wales State of Origin representative goal-kicking centre, he played his first club football for the Parramatta Eels before joining Super League with English club St. Helens, with whom he won the 2006 Championship and Challenge Cup titles. Lyon then returned to the NRL with Manly-Warringah, winning the 2008 and 2011 grand finals with them. Since switching from five-eighth back to his regular centre position in 2009, he has been hailed as one of the all-time great centres, winning the Dally M Centre of the year in 2010 and 2011, RLIF Centre of the Year in 2011 and Dally M Captain of the Year (along with co-captain Jason King) in 2012. Lyon is also notable for his reluctance to participate in representative fixtures, often opting instead to apply for exemption, to some small controversey.
Born in Narrabri in north-central New South Wales and growing up in Wee Waa, New South Wales, he played junior rugby league for the Wee Waa Panthers. Selected to play for the Australian Schoolboys team, while attending Parramatta Marist High School he was part of the 1999 squad who went undefeated in their tour of France, Ireland and England. Parramatta Eels's club development officer at the time, Noel Cleal, saw potential in the young centre and managed to lure Lyon to sign with the Sydney club.
Lyon made his NRL début coming off the bench in the Eels' round 21 clash against the newly merged Wests Tigers on 25 June 2000 becoming the 622nd first grader for Parramatta in the process. He scored his first try just three rounds later and he finished his début season with a try in Parramatta's 32–24 defeat of the St George Illawarra Dragons. In 2001, Lyon found himself regularly in the run-on squad. By season's end Parramatta took out the J. J. Giltinan Shield as the minor premiers thanks in part to Lyon's 11 tries. After defeating the New Zealand Warriors and the Brisbane Broncos in the qualifying and preliminary finals respectively, Parramatta fell just short of becoming premiers losing to the Newcastle Knights in 2001 NRL Grand Final, in which Lyon played at centre, scoring two tries. At the end of the 2001 NRL season, Lyon became the 697th player to represent Australia when he made his national representative début in the test match at Lloyd Robson Oval, Port Moresby against Papua New Guinea where scored two tries off the bench. Later that year, he became the youngest-ever Kangaroo tourist when he was selected for the 2001 Kangaroo Tour. The start of the 2002 NRL season started off well for Lyon, and he made his New South Wales Blues début in Game I of the 2002 State of Origin series, scoring a try in 32–4 points victory. He played again in Game II of the series however an ankle injury that was sustained in the Eels round 14 match against the defending premiers, found Lyon out for the remainder of the season. In June 2002, he extended his contract with the Parramatta club until the end of 2006 at around $250,000 per season.[10]
