Is this the most crass bet in football history? How a star promised to undergo painful surgery on a very private part of his body if his team won the NRL grand final

Cronulla’s 2016 team was inspired to win the club’s first championship in 50 years by a crude bet made between players mid-season.

The Sharks put together an incredible 16-match winning streak, including their grand final victory over the Melbourne Storm, to end their championship slump in style.

But that meant Sharks star Chris Heighington had to honour a bet he made with his teammates, which only came to light eight years later thanks to a shock admission from James Maloney on the Rugby League Journeyman podcast.

Maloney revealed that Heighington promised to get circumcised if the Sharks did the unthinkable and won the championship.

“In the past when we played, if we ever had to split up, you know, to touch the ball or something, before the session started and we split into two teams, it always used to be helmets versus forwards,” Maloney said.

‘Heighno is in the forward category and he came out and said ‘if we win the competition, I’ll cut my forwards’, so I said ‘bang, we’re set, it’s a deal’.

“We’re probably halfway through the season because we started that 16-game winning streak.”

Maloney said the bet was used to boost the team during close games.

‘We talked about it behind the posts when we came down, we said ‘lads, dig deep, Heighno’s going to get a circumcision here, dig deep lads’.