"I could see it last Friday night when they lost against the Panthers," said Steve Edge, who captained the Eels in their finest hours from 1981 to '83. "It means that much to him. He takes it personally, because he thinks he could have done more to stop it happening. Which he can't, because nobody can give more than he does."
It wasn't too hard to find people wanting to pay tribute yesterday to Hindmarsh, who announced his retirement in typical understated fashion - just hours after Cooper Cronk held his own press conference to announce a contract extension.
Blog with Buzz: How do you rate Nathan Hindmarsh? Have your say from 12:30pm Friday
Debuting in 1998, Hindmarsh has so far played 310 NRL games, completed 11,192 career tackles, made 4183 runs for 31,895 metres. He once made 68 tackles in a game against St George Illawarra.
It was that redoubtable defence that will mean the 32-year-old will go down as one of Parramatta's greatest players, nestled alongside Mick Cronin, Ray Price, Ken Thornett, Brett Kenny and Peter Sterling.
"He will go down in Parramatta history as one of the club's greats," Kenny said last night.
Sadly, though, he has not yet been able to secure that elusive prize a premiership. Hindmarsh's Eels lost grand finals in 2009 and 2001.
As Edge said: "Absolutely, he deserves to be considered one of the Eels legends, alongside those players from when we won grand finals. We were lucky in that we won comps. You can be a good side but you need a little bit of luck to win competitions. In 2001, they broke every record in the book but didn't win the big one. But Hindy would sit very comfortably in the top three as one of our best."
Eels fans will hope his announcement will lift the besieged side in tomorrow night's big match against Manly at Parramatta Stadium.
"It's been a tough start to the season but the lads are focused on making sure Nathan finishes his career on a high," Eels coach Steve Kearney said. "He's a guy who pretty much redefined how much work one human being can get through. I don't know how many times I've seen replays of him chasing down wingers and fullbacks, making that last ditch effort that's the difference between winning and losing matches."
A relentless competitor, Hindmarsh became the modern day Ray Price the second coming of Mr Perpetual Motion.
"I don't know if we ever saw the best of him as an attacking player," Price said. "Two reasons - he didn't have the backline to back him up like I did. And he did so much work in defence - too many people took advantage of that. He carried them."
Perhaps the greatest accolade anyone at Parramatta could have made was that legendary coach Jack Gibson would've picked him in his side.
"Jack would love him," Edge said. "Jack would say to do something, and Nathan Hindmarsh would do it to the letter. When assessing any player, Jack would look at them and ask, 'But can I win with him?'
"Hindy just put in. Because it meant so much to him."
Replies
Play limited game time or come off the bench Hindy, take a pay cut and forget about this week and what has eventuated.
Would b nice but I thinks he has made his decision
Hindy would have to go down as one of our all time best- just sad to see it all come to and end just doesnt seem like 15 yrs. He will be missed