Peter Sterling /

Year inducted: 2026
True Blue number: 760
Origin number: 24
Born: 16 June, 1960, Toowoomba, Queensland
Club: Parramatta Eels
Position: Halfback
Premiership Career: (1978-92) 228 games, 48 tries, 1 goal, 15 field goals
First Grade debut: Parramatta Eels v St George Dragons at Cumberland Oval, Parramatta on 23 July, 1978
Representative honours: Australia 22 Tests (1982-83, 1986-88), NSW 13 State of Origin appearances (1981, 1983-84, 1986-88)  
Other honours: NRL Hall of Fame 2008, Dally M Medal 1986-87

When Peter Sterling donned the sky blue of New South Wales for the first time in 1981, it marked a coming of age in more ways than one. Weeks after his 21st birthday, the rising Parramatta Eels star was fast-tracked into the New South Wales line-up for the second edition of State of Origin after the Blues had taken a 2-0 lead in that year’s interstate series.

Sterling’s introduction to representative football had come earlier that season for Country Seconds, but this was the big stage and when premiership success with the Eels followed his Origin debut, the blond-haired youngster was considered a near certainty for Kangaroo selection in 1982. It was on that tour that Sterling established himself as the game’s most gifted playmaker, a reputation he maintained through most of the 1980s.

‘Sterlo’ played many fine hands for the Blues, his four ‘Player of the Match’ awards was equalled by Andrew Johns but has never been surpassed by a New South Wales player. The Parramatta No 7 played a leading role in the first State of Origin clean sweep in 1986 and a year later he had the honour of leading the Blues into the historic Origin clash in California.