Like many rugby league fans I have been building up for weeks to the announcement of the Super League fixtures for the remainder of the 2020 season. We have known since June 26 that the season would resume on August 2 with a triple header of fixtures scheduled to help those teams with games in hand due to postponements to catch up with the rest. Saints are one of those clubs and so the one thing we have known since then is that Kristian Woolf’s side will start against Catalans Dragons, while on the same date Leeds Rhinos will take on Huddersfield Giants and Hull KR Will face Toronto Wolfpack.
Since then there have been delays and postponements to the announcement of any further fixtures. Ongoing spats over wage cuts for players, match venues and the traditional Toronto visa fiasco have all contributed as the publication of the schedule was delayed more often than the 8.42 bone shaker to Lime Street. Some or all of these issues remain with just 17 days to go until that opening triple header. Yet a further delay would surely have thrown huge doubt over whether the restart would happen on time. So today the announcement was made as planned, but with a level of vagueness normally reserved for a government statement on face coverings in Pret A Manger. I can now tell you the order in which Saints play their remaining fixtures but the exact dates and venue details are still about as clear as the average 3-2-1 clue. Ask your dad.
It has now at least been confirmed that the Catalans game will take place at Headingley. This despite the fact that Saints own stadium, the one that doesn’t get a mention on these pages, is also named as a venue at which fixtures will take place following the restart. There will be a Round 9 triple header there on August 16 with Saints taking on Wakefield Trinity, Hull FC meeting Castleford Tigers and another dust-up between what will by then be the old foes of Hull KR and Toronto. Reports that the Wolfpack get to play Rovers every week to give the Canadian side the best chance possible of avoiding the wooden spoon are unconfirmed.
The question that immediately leaps out is why, if Saints can host Wakefield on August 16, do they have to travel to Leeds to play Catalans Dragons in what would have been a home game under normal circumstances? This is a rearranged fixture which should have been played on the weekend that Saints were otherwise engaged with Sydney Roosters in World Club Challenge action.
The line on triple headers at a single venue is that it “ensures greater control over the safety and well being of our players, staff and match officials.” That makes a lot of sense in the crazy Covid world, but under closer inspection basically means that if Saints had been allowed to play the Dragons on home soil then Leeds would not have been able to do the same against Huddersfield on the same day. Someone had to yield and it was never likely to be Gary Hetherington. Should Saints lose that opening game expect sparks to fly from the keyboard of Eamonn McManus in the aftermath.
Saints face the Rhinos on the second weekend of the restart in a more traditional away fixture before that date with Trinity. Beyond that there are no venues confirmed. In theory we could play all of our remaining home games at The Stadium Round The Back Of Tesco but presumably this will be deemed an unfair advantage if others are asked to play at neutral venues while games are still played behind closed doors. We saw a glimpse of what the response to that might look like last week when there was a largely hostile reception to the Dragons’ attempts to play their home games at Stade Gilbert Brutus. The French government have given the go ahead for the Dragons to open up to a maximum of 5,000 fans but as things stand the venues for the scheduled Dragons home games are one of many unconfirmed details of the 2020 season. There are still hopes that fans will be able to attend games in the UK as the season progresses but if that isn’t possible it doesn’t seem likely that the Dragons will drop their interest in hosting in France.
The other standout detail that is not set in stone following today’s announcement concerns the precise dates of matches. Saints’ have confirmed fixtures on August 2, 9, 16 and 30 but when September appears on the schedule released today it does so along with some fairly liberal use of a forward slash indicating that there are two possible dates. After the August 30 meeting with Hull KR Saints will face what should be an away game with Huddersfield Giants on either September 3 or 4. The following week Woolf’s side face Rovers again on either September 10 or 11 and then Toronto Wolfpack on September 24 or 25 and.....well....you get the picture. Interestingly, there is a gap in the schedule on the weekend of September 17 and 18 which given that there are midweek Super League games crammed in to the back end of the programme causing all manner of disputes about player welfare can only be a window deliberately created for the Challenge Cup. This has not been confirmed as yet but it has been the party line all along that the Challenge Cup will be completed despite serious doubts about whether rugby league will resume at professional levels below Super League.
The point about the exact dates of matches might be considered relatively minor by some given that as we stand fans will not be in attendance. Yet if the games are going to be televised or streamed then there will be fans who have complex work schedules who might appreciate a little more clarity. If you were going to try to arrange your work schedule around attending matches before Covid why wouldn’t you try to arrange it so that you can at least watch those games on TV or via a club stream? You’re going to want something if you have agreed to donate your season ticket money to your poor, cash strapped club. The one that goes shopping in the NRL while pleading that it has the financial plight of the NCL. As it stands Sky have committed to the live broadcast of 21 matches in August alone. There is the promise of a lot more along the way. That they have not been confirmed beyond August is a non-issue. It is fairly routine for broadcasters to make fairly late decisions about which games they will screen.
And so to the thorny issue of midweek games. They seemed an inevitability the longer the lockdown continued and are now a concrete part of the plans. Perhaps most interesting for Saints fans is the Wednesday night meeting with Wigan on September 30. Multi-sport fans might be peeved that they could end up having to choose between the derby and their team’s Champions League Group H trip to Vladikavkaz but the people who have the most justifiable gripe are the players. Rugby league is tough at the best of times and if players are asked to back up on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday from a Thursday or Friday game then injuries, fatigue and a general lowering of standards become increasingly likely.
The moans and groans out of the way let’s talk rugby. Saints had played six games before lockdown, winning against Salford, Hull FC and Toronto but suffering defeat to Warrington, Huddersfield and Castleford. That kind of iffy record makes the month of August crucial if we are to live up to the bookmakers billing of title favourites. The Dragons game takes on much more significance than a regular opener would. To go into the clash with a Rhinos side that was clobbering everyone before lockdown on the back of a defeat would present Woolf with a serious problem in this weirdest of debut seasons for the coach. Ending the month with Wakefield and Hull KR looks more gentle but a fast start is essential.
September starts with that Huddersfield clash on either the 3rd or 4th. The Giants had posed few problems for Saints in recent years until they rolled into town in early March and left with a 12-10 win on the back of Aidan Sezer’s surgical kicking game. They are a threat. A second meeting in the space of a fortnight with Rovers follows before Saints take on the Wolfpack and end the month of September with that midweek derby.
October is usually Grand Final month but the showpiece finale has been rescheduled for November in this new reality. Instead the month of October starts with a clash with Wakefield on October 8 or 9 before Castleford on October 14. A rare moment of decisiveness from the schedulers, there. The Tigers were Saints last opponents before lockdown and it was a game that the champions were never in. They went down 28-14 in what turned out to be Luke Thompson’s last appearance before joining Canterbury Bulldogs.
The Tigers match leads into a hectic end to October in which Saints will face Leeds, Salford and Wigan in the space of eight days. It looks a punishing schedule and there are those who feel midweek games should have been slotted in earlier in the schedule when players will be fresher. Yet there might be a reluctance to get the players to do too much too soon after the restart from the fixture planners. This route also gives players a chance to get used to the fitness sapping “6 again” rule and the abolition of scrums which are changes that we will see introduced when things get back under way. November is similarly over crowded, with Catalans Dragons, Hull FC and Warrington all on the to do list between Bonfire Night and November 13.
The playoffs will be reduced for this year. The five team McIntyre system has been temporarily shelved and instead we will see a straight semi-final and final knockout format contested between the top four teams at the end of the regular season. The dates are blighted by yet more vagueness but it seems likely that the opening round will be on the weekend of November 19 and 20 with the Grand Final on November 26. Old Trafford has hosted every Grand Final since its inception in 1998 but is not yet confirmed as the venue for 2020.
It was that sort of big reveal.
Weekly comment and analysis on all things Saints with perhaps the merest hint of bias...
Rugby League’s New Normal
Rugby league is coming back, but not quite as we know it. The RFL board met for another hard session of procrastination and kicking the can down the road on July 6.
No decision was reached on whether promotion and relegation to and from Super League will take place in 2020. In addition, no definitive fixture schedule has been set beyond the triple-header planned for August 2 featuring teams with games to make up on the rest. The release of a full schedule was delayed firstly until July 8 before it was then announced that it would not be finalised until some time this week. The suggestion was that there has been objections to Catalans Dragons’ playing home games with a capacity of up to 5,000 in line with French government guidelines at a time when UK clubs are still forced to keep their stadium gates closed.
As I write this there are suggestions that only six of the 12 Super League clubs can return to training, despite the fact that we are now just 19 days away from the proposed restart date. The remaining six are still said to be in discussions with their players about wage cuts. The clubs feel that reductions are necessary so long as games are to be staged behind closed doors. The players are understandably baulking at the idea of a lower reward for what is likely to be a more demanding if shorter schedule. Though we don’t yet know dates and times of matches we do know that plans are afoot to introduce some midweek fixtures to ensure that the Grand Final can be played in November. This is to prevent the current season from dragging on into the winter months and therefore allow the players a reasonable break before the 2021 season is due to get under way in February.
Amid the procrastination and possibly under the influence of the lockdown bubbly some key decisions were made about the way the game will be played in 2020. The Covid crisis has forced many sports to think carefully about how they can adapt to make competition safer and rugby league is no different. It arguably presents more challenges than most other sports because of the level of physical contact involved. Being gang-tackled by three toothless Wigan front rowers with meat pies where their brains should be almost certainly carries a greater risk than....say.....having your pony-tail pulled by Dejan Lovren at a corner kick.
Experts can’t agree on very much during this pandemic. Some will tell you that it’s all over and that it is time to go back to that awful state we used to call normal. Others will tell you it is only just beginning and that popping down to your local Tesco Express for some milk and a packet of Minstrels is an extreme sport that could see you meet your end by the middle of next week. The latter view has only been bolstered by the Prime Minister’s decision to introduce the compulsory wearing of face coverings from July 24. The horse is several furlongs into the distance on this one and Johnson shutting the gate now makes little sense except to say that it is entirely in keeping with his government’s mixed messages and muddled thinking in response to the pandemic. While the truth about the dangers posed by the virus is probably somewhere in between the two extremes that are so often peddled, one thing that they seem to have reached a consensus on is the notion that rugby league in the age of Covid-19 will be safer without scrums.
During the 2020 Super League season If a ball is knocked on, thrown, kicked or batted into touch then the game will restart with a tap for the opponent. This decision has been met with some pretty mixed reactions. There are those who have long held the view that scrums in rugby league are about as much use as Matt Hancock’s protective ring around care homes. I have not seen a rugby league scrum fairly contested since Scrumdown was an ITV highlights show. Nevertheless they do contribute to the spectacle in their own way. A bit like Michael Ball on The One Show.
The thing about scrums is that they take six king-size forwards out of the defensive line. The effect of this is that it makes space for teams to attack. To put on what Stevo used to call a ‘planned move’ and what modern coaches might term a set play. As the game gets more and more structured and players and coaches rattle on about processes, building pressure and completion rates, it needs the opportunities provided by scrums more than ever. In the early weeks of the NRL since its restart some of the best passing movements and the most spectacular tries have originated from scrums. Far from scrapping them in the Covid-19 climate, the Australians have taken advantage of the enhanced potential for excitement from scrums that comes from allowing the team feeding the scrum to choose whether they want to form the scrum 10m or 20m in from the touchline or whether they want it in line with the mid-point between the posts.
It’s not just about entertainment. The absence of scrums will alter the rhythm of the game. It will lack variety in the way it looks. It may also affect the game tactically. The long, raking touch finder is another of the game’s arts which might not be top of the list of skills that fans want to watch but can be an integral part of a team’s game plan. Previously it gave everybody a rest and allowed the kicking team to at least set up their defensive line in anticipation of what would be thrown at them from the resultant scrum. The new arrangement means it is theoretically possible that your halfback’s cool, measured kick for territory will be rewarded with the opposition’s rapid, 18-stone winger retrieving the ball, taking a quick tap and coming at you at a rate of knots before your tired pack have advanced 20 yards down the field.
If that prospect offers little respite the introduction of the ‘6 again’ rule will test the stamina of the athletes even more. In a bid to discourage defenders from lying on a tackled player or from wrestling in an attempt to slow down the play-the-ball a fresh set of six tackles will be awarded to the team in possession instead of a penalty. The rationale is similar to that which has seen off scrums, cutting down the amount of time that players are in close contact and therefore potentially lowering the risk of transmission. Yet that will bring its own challenges to the players. As irritating as they can be the award of a penalty against your defence for ruck infringements buys time to reset and get a bit of breath back in readiness for the next wave of attack. Now teams will need to be ready to defend that next play instantly. In the early weeks of the NRL resumption this had a seismic effect on the fatigue levels of players not used to it and we saw some big scores as a result. That imbalance has levelled off a little as the weeks have gone by and coaches and players have adapted. Still, be warned that the close, intense battles you tuned in for may turn into processions in the early going.
Even as teams adapt defensively there is an argument that the 6 again rule fundamentally changes the game too much. If you are carrying the ball off your own try-line you may prefer the solace of a penalty and a kick to touch to the alternative of six more hard carries starting in difficult field position. And what about if you are transgressed against within kicking distance of the posts? The chance to break a tied score is a thing of the past unless one of two things happens. Either the referee deems an infringement so cynical that the offender is yellow carded for a professional foul, or the ball comes loose meaning that the attack can’t just get on with the next play-the-ball with a new set. It is not hard to envisage a time during a game when a player who has been infringed upon in the ruck develops a relaxed attitude to ball retention. Referees already struggle to decide whether a ball has been stripped in the tackle, dropped or voluntarily lost in a bid to milk a penalty. That problem has the potential to get significantly worse in situations where the attacking side feels that a penalty would be altogether more beneficial than a fresh set of six.
With such a short time to get ready for the restart even for those clubs with pay agreements in place, and with significant rule changes which could make rugby league look and feel quite different to what we saw before lockdown, the game that comes back on August 2 might not be quite as you know it.
After four months without it and as good as the NRL has been, I am still desperate for Super League to start. Even if it is laced with controversy, blowouts and quick-taps.
No decision was reached on whether promotion and relegation to and from Super League will take place in 2020. In addition, no definitive fixture schedule has been set beyond the triple-header planned for August 2 featuring teams with games to make up on the rest. The release of a full schedule was delayed firstly until July 8 before it was then announced that it would not be finalised until some time this week. The suggestion was that there has been objections to Catalans Dragons’ playing home games with a capacity of up to 5,000 in line with French government guidelines at a time when UK clubs are still forced to keep their stadium gates closed.
As I write this there are suggestions that only six of the 12 Super League clubs can return to training, despite the fact that we are now just 19 days away from the proposed restart date. The remaining six are still said to be in discussions with their players about wage cuts. The clubs feel that reductions are necessary so long as games are to be staged behind closed doors. The players are understandably baulking at the idea of a lower reward for what is likely to be a more demanding if shorter schedule. Though we don’t yet know dates and times of matches we do know that plans are afoot to introduce some midweek fixtures to ensure that the Grand Final can be played in November. This is to prevent the current season from dragging on into the winter months and therefore allow the players a reasonable break before the 2021 season is due to get under way in February.
Amid the procrastination and possibly under the influence of the lockdown bubbly some key decisions were made about the way the game will be played in 2020. The Covid crisis has forced many sports to think carefully about how they can adapt to make competition safer and rugby league is no different. It arguably presents more challenges than most other sports because of the level of physical contact involved. Being gang-tackled by three toothless Wigan front rowers with meat pies where their brains should be almost certainly carries a greater risk than....say.....having your pony-tail pulled by Dejan Lovren at a corner kick.
Experts can’t agree on very much during this pandemic. Some will tell you that it’s all over and that it is time to go back to that awful state we used to call normal. Others will tell you it is only just beginning and that popping down to your local Tesco Express for some milk and a packet of Minstrels is an extreme sport that could see you meet your end by the middle of next week. The latter view has only been bolstered by the Prime Minister’s decision to introduce the compulsory wearing of face coverings from July 24. The horse is several furlongs into the distance on this one and Johnson shutting the gate now makes little sense except to say that it is entirely in keeping with his government’s mixed messages and muddled thinking in response to the pandemic. While the truth about the dangers posed by the virus is probably somewhere in between the two extremes that are so often peddled, one thing that they seem to have reached a consensus on is the notion that rugby league in the age of Covid-19 will be safer without scrums.
During the 2020 Super League season If a ball is knocked on, thrown, kicked or batted into touch then the game will restart with a tap for the opponent. This decision has been met with some pretty mixed reactions. There are those who have long held the view that scrums in rugby league are about as much use as Matt Hancock’s protective ring around care homes. I have not seen a rugby league scrum fairly contested since Scrumdown was an ITV highlights show. Nevertheless they do contribute to the spectacle in their own way. A bit like Michael Ball on The One Show.
The thing about scrums is that they take six king-size forwards out of the defensive line. The effect of this is that it makes space for teams to attack. To put on what Stevo used to call a ‘planned move’ and what modern coaches might term a set play. As the game gets more and more structured and players and coaches rattle on about processes, building pressure and completion rates, it needs the opportunities provided by scrums more than ever. In the early weeks of the NRL since its restart some of the best passing movements and the most spectacular tries have originated from scrums. Far from scrapping them in the Covid-19 climate, the Australians have taken advantage of the enhanced potential for excitement from scrums that comes from allowing the team feeding the scrum to choose whether they want to form the scrum 10m or 20m in from the touchline or whether they want it in line with the mid-point between the posts.
It’s not just about entertainment. The absence of scrums will alter the rhythm of the game. It will lack variety in the way it looks. It may also affect the game tactically. The long, raking touch finder is another of the game’s arts which might not be top of the list of skills that fans want to watch but can be an integral part of a team’s game plan. Previously it gave everybody a rest and allowed the kicking team to at least set up their defensive line in anticipation of what would be thrown at them from the resultant scrum. The new arrangement means it is theoretically possible that your halfback’s cool, measured kick for territory will be rewarded with the opposition’s rapid, 18-stone winger retrieving the ball, taking a quick tap and coming at you at a rate of knots before your tired pack have advanced 20 yards down the field.
If that prospect offers little respite the introduction of the ‘6 again’ rule will test the stamina of the athletes even more. In a bid to discourage defenders from lying on a tackled player or from wrestling in an attempt to slow down the play-the-ball a fresh set of six tackles will be awarded to the team in possession instead of a penalty. The rationale is similar to that which has seen off scrums, cutting down the amount of time that players are in close contact and therefore potentially lowering the risk of transmission. Yet that will bring its own challenges to the players. As irritating as they can be the award of a penalty against your defence for ruck infringements buys time to reset and get a bit of breath back in readiness for the next wave of attack. Now teams will need to be ready to defend that next play instantly. In the early weeks of the NRL resumption this had a seismic effect on the fatigue levels of players not used to it and we saw some big scores as a result. That imbalance has levelled off a little as the weeks have gone by and coaches and players have adapted. Still, be warned that the close, intense battles you tuned in for may turn into processions in the early going.
Even as teams adapt defensively there is an argument that the 6 again rule fundamentally changes the game too much. If you are carrying the ball off your own try-line you may prefer the solace of a penalty and a kick to touch to the alternative of six more hard carries starting in difficult field position. And what about if you are transgressed against within kicking distance of the posts? The chance to break a tied score is a thing of the past unless one of two things happens. Either the referee deems an infringement so cynical that the offender is yellow carded for a professional foul, or the ball comes loose meaning that the attack can’t just get on with the next play-the-ball with a new set. It is not hard to envisage a time during a game when a player who has been infringed upon in the ruck develops a relaxed attitude to ball retention. Referees already struggle to decide whether a ball has been stripped in the tackle, dropped or voluntarily lost in a bid to milk a penalty. That problem has the potential to get significantly worse in situations where the attacking side feels that a penalty would be altogether more beneficial than a fresh set of six.
With such a short time to get ready for the restart even for those clubs with pay agreements in place, and with significant rule changes which could make rugby league look and feel quite different to what we saw before lockdown, the game that comes back on August 2 might not be quite as you know it.
After four months without it and as good as the NRL has been, I am still desperate for Super League to start. Even if it is laced with controversy, blowouts and quick-taps.
Pack-Shuffling While We Wait For Action
After months of inactivity due the ongoing public health crisis Saints have made some significant recruitment moves in recent weeks.
First there was the sudden departure of Luke Thompson to Canterbury Bulldogs in the NRL which you can read about elsewhere on these pages. We are still waiting on the official confirmation of James Graham’s return to the club to temporarily fill the void left by Thompson. Graham’s current club St George-Illawarra Dragons formerly announced his departure earlier this week, paving the way for the scouse prop to finish 2020 and in all probability his career with Saints. Graham made 225 appearances for the club between 2003-2011. He won three Challenge Cup winners medals in that time, was a key member of the treble-winning side of 2006 under Daniel Anderson and was named Man Of Steel in 2008. Yet just as Saints prepared to move into the newly built Langtree Park for the 2012 season and following a trauma-inducing run of five consecutive Super League Grand Final defeats Graham chose to test himself in the the Australian competition with the Bulldogs. He moved on to the Dragons in 2018. If Is can be dotted and Ts crossed he should now get the opportunity to grace the turf at Saints still relatively new home, though whether there will be any fans there to witness it remains up in the air.
While we wait on Graham’s arrival in the front row there is activity in the back row department. First Zeb Taia announced that he will be leaving the club at the end of the 2020 season. Whenever that might be. Taia plans to return to Australia when this heavily interrupted campaign ends to continue what he calls ‘the next chapter’ in his life. Taia has made 95 appearances for Saints since becoming Kieron Cunningham’s last signing in March 2017 when he arrived from Gold Coast Titans. The deal saw Joe Greenwood move in the other direction and was met with no small amount of harrumphing from the fans. Cunningham’s record in recruitment had been less than stellar and Greenwood was prized as a hot prospect who had risen up through the club’s youth ranks. Cunningham was blamed for misusing Greenwood and forcing him to view his future elsewhere. At 32, Taia was not seen as a suitable replacement by many.
Perhaps because of that perception, unfair criticism has been a theme of Taia’s three-year spell at Saints. He has been outstanding in the left second row berth. He has twice made the top five in the league in offloads and has so often been the creative spark in the pack. Saints fans demand a flamboyant style even among the forwards and Taia has been a back rower in the very best traditions of the club. He has a languid style that might make the occasional error look like it has come about through carelessness or laziness, but that is an illusion. There have been few who have given more for the cause these last three seasons than the man who captained the Cook Islands at the 2013 World Cup and made the 2015 Super League Dream Team during his spell with Catalans Dragons.
Taia and the club itself have come a long way since the ignominy of an abject home defeat by Wakefield in his debut. He has formed a consistent second row partnership with Dominique Peyroux, another player who fans were not convinced about when he was brought in by Cunningham from New Zealand Warriors in 2016. Those who perceive Taia as anything less than a real grafter might also like to know that he has twice been in Super League’s top five metre makers and even in 2020, with Saints having endured a bumpy start before lockdown, you will find his name in the top 10 in that category.
Born in Australia, his Cook Islands heritage initially saw him represent New Zealand in the 2010 Anzac Day test against Australia. That was while he was with Newcastle Knights in the NRL having started his professional career with Parramatta Eels in 2006. He then moved to France in 2012, had a two-season stint with the Titans from 2016 before arriving in St Helens to begin the most successful phase of his club career. Taia has won two League Leaders Shields in his two full seasons with Saints and was a try-scorer in the 2019 Super League Grand Final defeat of Salford back in October. The only honour in the U.K. game that has eluded him is the Challenge Cup, though he did play in the Wembley defeat by Warrington last season. Taia will hopefully get one more crack at filling that gap in his CV if the authorities can figure out a way to get the competition up and running again post-Covid.
For all the positives around Taia and all the plaudits he is now rightfully receiving it is almost certainly the right time for him to move on. Taia will be 36 by the time this year’s re-scheduled Grand Final comes around. Although there are examples of players who have gone on beyond that age in Super League (Gareth Ellis and Steve Menzies spring immediately to mind) it is perhaps time to look to the future. That is why it is important that Saints have announced today that James Bentley has agreed a one-year extension to his contract. That ties him to the club until the end of the 2021 season. A few eyebrows have been raised at the length of the extension. Ordinarily you would expect a player who does not turn 24 until October to be secured on a longer term deal. Yet perhaps this is a sign of the times we are currently living in. It is arguably prudent for Saints not to commit to too many long term deals until the full financial implications of Covid-19 are clear.
There is every reason to believe that coach Kristian Woolf should want Bentley around for a few years more when financial circumstance allows. His versatility has proven invaluable since making his debut in a win over Hull FC in September 2018. In his 25 appearances for the first team to date Bentley has played second row, centre, hooker and loose forward. He has made 12 starts and scored four tries, including a controversial winner in a classic 32-30 win over Salford last May which turned out to be a dress rehearsal for the Grand Final. Disappointment followed for Bentley as he was left out of the Old Trafford showpiece as well as the Challenge Cup final by Justin Holbrook after making the initial 19-man selection ahead of both games. He will no doubt be keen to put that behind him to play a major role in what we hope will be further success under Woolf.
Perhaps that versatility has worked against Bentley as much as in his favour so far in his Saints career. He arrived at the club in 2018 on the back of Leon Pryce’s assertion that he was the best player in the Championship while playing at second row and loose forward for the Bulls. The young forward scored 18 tries in 28 appearances for the Bradford club as his reputation grew amid the chaos of the fall of Bullmania. Pryce has been wrong before, most notably about Bondi and Blackpool, but he wasn’t the only one making comparisons with John Bateman at that time. Bateman had just begun to star at Wigan at that point and there were hopes that the similarly built Bentley could develop at the same rate. Yet his failure to hold down a regular slot at second row or loose forward is down largely to the excellent form of Taia and Peyroux and the emergence of Morgan Knowles as one of the league’s most consistent performers at loose forward.
Bentley, who has made three appearances for Ireland, has more regularly found himself slotting in at hooker in the increasingly regular absences of James Roby. Bentley and Aaron Smith have often filled Roby’s role by committee. Woolf May choose to develop that strategy as Roby heads towards the twilight of his great career. Yet should the Tongan coach choose instead to bring in a big name replacement for the skipper when the time comes Bentley may find that he needs to establish himself in the back row in the longer term.
Wherever he fits in there’s little doubt that Bentley has been a useful contributor so far in 2020. When the action stopped he had scored tries in wins at Hull FC and against Toronto at Warrington in his five appearances. It might be telling or it might be coincidence, but an ankle injury kept Bentley out of the last two games before lockdown which both ended in meek defeat. A home loss to Huddersfield was followed by a game at Castleford which Saints were never in before the government called its belated halt to professional sport.
If Bentley has put that ankle knock behind him during the suspension he could yet be a key figure when play resumes.
First there was the sudden departure of Luke Thompson to Canterbury Bulldogs in the NRL which you can read about elsewhere on these pages. We are still waiting on the official confirmation of James Graham’s return to the club to temporarily fill the void left by Thompson. Graham’s current club St George-Illawarra Dragons formerly announced his departure earlier this week, paving the way for the scouse prop to finish 2020 and in all probability his career with Saints. Graham made 225 appearances for the club between 2003-2011. He won three Challenge Cup winners medals in that time, was a key member of the treble-winning side of 2006 under Daniel Anderson and was named Man Of Steel in 2008. Yet just as Saints prepared to move into the newly built Langtree Park for the 2012 season and following a trauma-inducing run of five consecutive Super League Grand Final defeats Graham chose to test himself in the the Australian competition with the Bulldogs. He moved on to the Dragons in 2018. If Is can be dotted and Ts crossed he should now get the opportunity to grace the turf at Saints still relatively new home, though whether there will be any fans there to witness it remains up in the air.
While we wait on Graham’s arrival in the front row there is activity in the back row department. First Zeb Taia announced that he will be leaving the club at the end of the 2020 season. Whenever that might be. Taia plans to return to Australia when this heavily interrupted campaign ends to continue what he calls ‘the next chapter’ in his life. Taia has made 95 appearances for Saints since becoming Kieron Cunningham’s last signing in March 2017 when he arrived from Gold Coast Titans. The deal saw Joe Greenwood move in the other direction and was met with no small amount of harrumphing from the fans. Cunningham’s record in recruitment had been less than stellar and Greenwood was prized as a hot prospect who had risen up through the club’s youth ranks. Cunningham was blamed for misusing Greenwood and forcing him to view his future elsewhere. At 32, Taia was not seen as a suitable replacement by many.
Perhaps because of that perception, unfair criticism has been a theme of Taia’s three-year spell at Saints. He has been outstanding in the left second row berth. He has twice made the top five in the league in offloads and has so often been the creative spark in the pack. Saints fans demand a flamboyant style even among the forwards and Taia has been a back rower in the very best traditions of the club. He has a languid style that might make the occasional error look like it has come about through carelessness or laziness, but that is an illusion. There have been few who have given more for the cause these last three seasons than the man who captained the Cook Islands at the 2013 World Cup and made the 2015 Super League Dream Team during his spell with Catalans Dragons.
Taia and the club itself have come a long way since the ignominy of an abject home defeat by Wakefield in his debut. He has formed a consistent second row partnership with Dominique Peyroux, another player who fans were not convinced about when he was brought in by Cunningham from New Zealand Warriors in 2016. Those who perceive Taia as anything less than a real grafter might also like to know that he has twice been in Super League’s top five metre makers and even in 2020, with Saints having endured a bumpy start before lockdown, you will find his name in the top 10 in that category.
Born in Australia, his Cook Islands heritage initially saw him represent New Zealand in the 2010 Anzac Day test against Australia. That was while he was with Newcastle Knights in the NRL having started his professional career with Parramatta Eels in 2006. He then moved to France in 2012, had a two-season stint with the Titans from 2016 before arriving in St Helens to begin the most successful phase of his club career. Taia has won two League Leaders Shields in his two full seasons with Saints and was a try-scorer in the 2019 Super League Grand Final defeat of Salford back in October. The only honour in the U.K. game that has eluded him is the Challenge Cup, though he did play in the Wembley defeat by Warrington last season. Taia will hopefully get one more crack at filling that gap in his CV if the authorities can figure out a way to get the competition up and running again post-Covid.
For all the positives around Taia and all the plaudits he is now rightfully receiving it is almost certainly the right time for him to move on. Taia will be 36 by the time this year’s re-scheduled Grand Final comes around. Although there are examples of players who have gone on beyond that age in Super League (Gareth Ellis and Steve Menzies spring immediately to mind) it is perhaps time to look to the future. That is why it is important that Saints have announced today that James Bentley has agreed a one-year extension to his contract. That ties him to the club until the end of the 2021 season. A few eyebrows have been raised at the length of the extension. Ordinarily you would expect a player who does not turn 24 until October to be secured on a longer term deal. Yet perhaps this is a sign of the times we are currently living in. It is arguably prudent for Saints not to commit to too many long term deals until the full financial implications of Covid-19 are clear.
There is every reason to believe that coach Kristian Woolf should want Bentley around for a few years more when financial circumstance allows. His versatility has proven invaluable since making his debut in a win over Hull FC in September 2018. In his 25 appearances for the first team to date Bentley has played second row, centre, hooker and loose forward. He has made 12 starts and scored four tries, including a controversial winner in a classic 32-30 win over Salford last May which turned out to be a dress rehearsal for the Grand Final. Disappointment followed for Bentley as he was left out of the Old Trafford showpiece as well as the Challenge Cup final by Justin Holbrook after making the initial 19-man selection ahead of both games. He will no doubt be keen to put that behind him to play a major role in what we hope will be further success under Woolf.
Perhaps that versatility has worked against Bentley as much as in his favour so far in his Saints career. He arrived at the club in 2018 on the back of Leon Pryce’s assertion that he was the best player in the Championship while playing at second row and loose forward for the Bulls. The young forward scored 18 tries in 28 appearances for the Bradford club as his reputation grew amid the chaos of the fall of Bullmania. Pryce has been wrong before, most notably about Bondi and Blackpool, but he wasn’t the only one making comparisons with John Bateman at that time. Bateman had just begun to star at Wigan at that point and there were hopes that the similarly built Bentley could develop at the same rate. Yet his failure to hold down a regular slot at second row or loose forward is down largely to the excellent form of Taia and Peyroux and the emergence of Morgan Knowles as one of the league’s most consistent performers at loose forward.
Bentley, who has made three appearances for Ireland, has more regularly found himself slotting in at hooker in the increasingly regular absences of James Roby. Bentley and Aaron Smith have often filled Roby’s role by committee. Woolf May choose to develop that strategy as Roby heads towards the twilight of his great career. Yet should the Tongan coach choose instead to bring in a big name replacement for the skipper when the time comes Bentley may find that he needs to establish himself in the back row in the longer term.
Wherever he fits in there’s little doubt that Bentley has been a useful contributor so far in 2020. When the action stopped he had scored tries in wins at Hull FC and against Toronto at Warrington in his five appearances. It might be telling or it might be coincidence, but an ankle injury kept Bentley out of the last two games before lockdown which both ended in meek defeat. A home loss to Huddersfield was followed by a game at Castleford which Saints were never in before the government called its belated halt to professional sport.
If Bentley has put that ankle knock behind him during the suspension he could yet be a key figure when play resumes.
Losing Luke
Look, I know that we have been desperate for something to get us all talking about Saints again but this wasn’t what I had in mind. In a terse statement by Eamonn McManus Saints announced today that Luke Thompson will join up with Canterbury Bulldogs with immediate effect. The England prop had already signed a deal with the NRL side which was due to start in 2021. He will instead fly down under straight away after the Bulldogs agreed to pay what Saints are calling an undisclosed sum.
Yet it was not so much the immediate sale of Thompson as the backdrop to it which caused the biggest stir. In his statement McManus revealed that Thompson ‘had opted not to participate in our club wide squad and staff pay reduction arrangement for the 2020 season’. The implication here is that Thompson’s decision not to take a pay cut was instrumental in the club’s decision to let him go to Australia earlier than planned. These are troubled times for everyone financially as the country bids to recover from a health crisis that has cost tens of thousands of lives and crashed the economy to the tune of a 20% downturn in the month of April. Saints desperately needed whatever money they have managed to get from Canterbury. That need was even greater if Thompson had already refused a pay cut.
Clearly the negotiations have left scars. The club ended the brief message by adding that ‘Thompson spent 13 years at Saints, having progressed through our successful academy system to make his debut in 2013. The club wish Luke all the best in the next stage of his career.’. As a tribute to Thompson’s contribution to Saints since joining as an 11-year-old in 2007 it was fairly minimalist. No mention of Thompson’s two Grand Final wins, his three League Leaders Shields, his 157 appearances for Saints or his development into an international player with few equals in his position anywhere in the world. Just an acknowledgement that he was here. For 13 years. And then he left.
Perhaps it is right that some have criticised the club’s statement. It arguably veers too far into dummy spitting territory and is not really a fitting end to the years that Thompson has been part of the fabric of the club as man and boy. Yet equally there is understandable anger, barely disguised, about Thompson’s insistence on receiving his full salary. Thompson is thought to be a very wealthy man outside of rugby league. He doesn’t really need the money even if the argument that he is entitled to it is legally sound. Other players in less fortunate financial circumstances will likely have put their hands up and accepted the reduction. It’s been claimed that Thompson’s decision not to follow suit was an act of altruism aimed at showing the rest of the players and those who might come after that they should not let the club push them around or make them feel like they have to bow down to their demands. After all, it is not yet clear how much of a pay cut McManus has taken to help the club out during the pandemic. If we are all in this together then it should not fall only on the players to be the philanthropists.
And yet for me it seems a stretch to believe that Thompson’s actions are motivated by the need to look after other players or make political points. The kid is not Arthur Fucking Scargill. He’s a young, world class sportsman who would probably tell you that he is entitled to make as much money as possible in what is, after all, a short career. But I come back again to the point about need. Already wealthy and with a lucrative NRL contract in the bag did he need to dig his heels in over the wage cut? Could he not have worn it for a few months knowing full well that he would soon be paid something closer to his actual worth?
Did the notion that such a gesture would go a long way to allowing his hometown club to operate in the way to which they have become accustomed not enter his head? If this were Ben Barba, standing behind the posts miming the counting of his dollars there’d be knowing shrugs all around. Oh aye, another mercenary come for a jolly and jumping ship at the first sign of a better offer. You accept that. But this is a hometown boy. A lad steeped in the club. A symbol for every child in this town of what can be achieved through hard work, discipline and willingness to learn. It’s all just so......disappointing.
If my inclination is to be highly critical of Thompson there are others of a Saints persuasion more than happy to come to his defence. There is a school of thought developing that argues we should not burn our bridges with him just in case he might want to come back to the club somewhere further down the track. This need of some Saints fans to cling on to ex-players baffles me. There are still some people doing the joke about Mal Meninga returning for a second stint. It has only been 36 years since his first and at 59 years of age Big Mal might still be a level or two above all but about three Super League centres. But whether it is Meninga, Barba, Jamie Lyon, James Graham or Sia Soliola there is always a sizeable section of the fan base getting all misty-eyed and insisting that the past has not gone from our grasp. It is delusion. Even before this spat between Thompson and the club there was never any prospect of the 25-year-old returning to Saints in his prime years. This is not Wigan. Once they’re gone, they’re gone until their agent notices that their contract is almost up and tries to sell you a 33-year-old version for top dollar. Three careless owners, 25% effectiveness.
Whether Thompson dons the red vee again or not his departure leaves us with a huge hole to fill in our squad in the here and now. Though it is not yet guaranteed it looks ever more likely that the 2020 season will take place in whatever adapted format is voted through by the 12 disciples of self-interest who run our top flight clubs. If it were to start tomorrow then there would only be Alex Walmsley among our prop corps who could be regarded as 100% reliable and the envy of all our competitors. Matty Lees may see Thompson’s exit as an opportunity to step up and start more regularly with his bench slot back-filled by Jack Ashworth or Callum Hazzard.
The NRL has been under way again since May 28 and with Super League not slated for a resumption until August it is hard to see any of their top line stars being persuaded to come over here in 2020. An import would likely be one not currently enjoying game time in the NRL. Anyone not good enough to secure regular game time in the NRL is not going to be close enough to Thompson’s level to fill our requirements. At home the only name that stands out for me is Liam Watts. Even with Ashworth as a sweetener that would probably require a hefty investment. It would be difficult for McManus to garner much sympathy if he is calling out Thompson for not understanding the club’s financial need on the one hand but then splashing the cash needed to get Watts on the other.
We haven’t started the season all that well. As things stand we could be set to take a little more pain in 2020 before head coach Kristian Woolf can make some important recruitment decisions for 2021 and beyond. The Luke Thompson chapter in the Saints story is closed. We must move on and not let our disappointment fester for too long.
Yet it was not so much the immediate sale of Thompson as the backdrop to it which caused the biggest stir. In his statement McManus revealed that Thompson ‘had opted not to participate in our club wide squad and staff pay reduction arrangement for the 2020 season’. The implication here is that Thompson’s decision not to take a pay cut was instrumental in the club’s decision to let him go to Australia earlier than planned. These are troubled times for everyone financially as the country bids to recover from a health crisis that has cost tens of thousands of lives and crashed the economy to the tune of a 20% downturn in the month of April. Saints desperately needed whatever money they have managed to get from Canterbury. That need was even greater if Thompson had already refused a pay cut.
Clearly the negotiations have left scars. The club ended the brief message by adding that ‘Thompson spent 13 years at Saints, having progressed through our successful academy system to make his debut in 2013. The club wish Luke all the best in the next stage of his career.’. As a tribute to Thompson’s contribution to Saints since joining as an 11-year-old in 2007 it was fairly minimalist. No mention of Thompson’s two Grand Final wins, his three League Leaders Shields, his 157 appearances for Saints or his development into an international player with few equals in his position anywhere in the world. Just an acknowledgement that he was here. For 13 years. And then he left.
Perhaps it is right that some have criticised the club’s statement. It arguably veers too far into dummy spitting territory and is not really a fitting end to the years that Thompson has been part of the fabric of the club as man and boy. Yet equally there is understandable anger, barely disguised, about Thompson’s insistence on receiving his full salary. Thompson is thought to be a very wealthy man outside of rugby league. He doesn’t really need the money even if the argument that he is entitled to it is legally sound. Other players in less fortunate financial circumstances will likely have put their hands up and accepted the reduction. It’s been claimed that Thompson’s decision not to follow suit was an act of altruism aimed at showing the rest of the players and those who might come after that they should not let the club push them around or make them feel like they have to bow down to their demands. After all, it is not yet clear how much of a pay cut McManus has taken to help the club out during the pandemic. If we are all in this together then it should not fall only on the players to be the philanthropists.
And yet for me it seems a stretch to believe that Thompson’s actions are motivated by the need to look after other players or make political points. The kid is not Arthur Fucking Scargill. He’s a young, world class sportsman who would probably tell you that he is entitled to make as much money as possible in what is, after all, a short career. But I come back again to the point about need. Already wealthy and with a lucrative NRL contract in the bag did he need to dig his heels in over the wage cut? Could he not have worn it for a few months knowing full well that he would soon be paid something closer to his actual worth?
Did the notion that such a gesture would go a long way to allowing his hometown club to operate in the way to which they have become accustomed not enter his head? If this were Ben Barba, standing behind the posts miming the counting of his dollars there’d be knowing shrugs all around. Oh aye, another mercenary come for a jolly and jumping ship at the first sign of a better offer. You accept that. But this is a hometown boy. A lad steeped in the club. A symbol for every child in this town of what can be achieved through hard work, discipline and willingness to learn. It’s all just so......disappointing.
If my inclination is to be highly critical of Thompson there are others of a Saints persuasion more than happy to come to his defence. There is a school of thought developing that argues we should not burn our bridges with him just in case he might want to come back to the club somewhere further down the track. This need of some Saints fans to cling on to ex-players baffles me. There are still some people doing the joke about Mal Meninga returning for a second stint. It has only been 36 years since his first and at 59 years of age Big Mal might still be a level or two above all but about three Super League centres. But whether it is Meninga, Barba, Jamie Lyon, James Graham or Sia Soliola there is always a sizeable section of the fan base getting all misty-eyed and insisting that the past has not gone from our grasp. It is delusion. Even before this spat between Thompson and the club there was never any prospect of the 25-year-old returning to Saints in his prime years. This is not Wigan. Once they’re gone, they’re gone until their agent notices that their contract is almost up and tries to sell you a 33-year-old version for top dollar. Three careless owners, 25% effectiveness.
Whether Thompson dons the red vee again or not his departure leaves us with a huge hole to fill in our squad in the here and now. Though it is not yet guaranteed it looks ever more likely that the 2020 season will take place in whatever adapted format is voted through by the 12 disciples of self-interest who run our top flight clubs. If it were to start tomorrow then there would only be Alex Walmsley among our prop corps who could be regarded as 100% reliable and the envy of all our competitors. Matty Lees may see Thompson’s exit as an opportunity to step up and start more regularly with his bench slot back-filled by Jack Ashworth or Callum Hazzard.
The NRL has been under way again since May 28 and with Super League not slated for a resumption until August it is hard to see any of their top line stars being persuaded to come over here in 2020. An import would likely be one not currently enjoying game time in the NRL. Anyone not good enough to secure regular game time in the NRL is not going to be close enough to Thompson’s level to fill our requirements. At home the only name that stands out for me is Liam Watts. Even with Ashworth as a sweetener that would probably require a hefty investment. It would be difficult for McManus to garner much sympathy if he is calling out Thompson for not understanding the club’s financial need on the one hand but then splashing the cash needed to get Watts on the other.
We haven’t started the season all that well. As things stand we could be set to take a little more pain in 2020 before head coach Kristian Woolf can make some important recruitment decisions for 2021 and beyond. The Luke Thompson chapter in the Saints story is closed. We must move on and not let our disappointment fester for too long.
A Magic Day In 2008
I meant to write this closer to the Bank Holiday weekend when Magic should have been played. I’ve never been a huge advocate of Magic but when you haven’t seen a game of rugby league for over two months the thought of being beaten over the head with six of them in just over 24 hours seems far more appealing than it otherwise might. To prove the point I took annual leave and watched all eight NRL games over four days when it resumed last week and it didn’t feel like too much.
Let’s hope the resumption of our Super League season and the rest of this blog are worth waiting for. I’m taking you back to the summer of 2008. Boris Johnson took his first steps towards fucking the country by winning the London mayoral election, Portsmouth won the FA Cup, Rihanna and Leona Lewis were engaged in a tense warble-off at the top of the UK charts and proof was provided that box office figures do not reflect quality as Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull raked in $126million.
It was the second year of rugby league’s bold new enterprise, Millennium Magic, in which all 12 Super League teams gathered at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium to play a round of league fixtures. The first one had been deemed a success overall despite or maybe even in some small way because of its controversial ending. Kevin Sinfield was attempting to land a late penalty goal that would have earned a draw for Leeds Rhinos against the once mighty Bradford Bulls. His shot bounced away off the crossbar before falling kindly for the demonstrably offside Jordan Tansey to cross for a try to seal an unlikely 42-38 win. Video assistance was available - rugby league being 23 years ahead of football in that regard - but referee Steve Ganson decided to make his own mind up. Rather like Robert Hicks at last year’s Challenge Cup final but without the added grimness of Warrington winning a major trophy which tipped Eamonn McManus over the edge of reason.
Derbies were very much the thing in the early years of Magic. It was felt that they were the fixtures most likely to excite the fans. The hope was that fans would stay transfixed as Huddersfield and Wakefield duked it out rather than spend that time in the bar oiling themselves senseless on the cheapest beer they could find in South Wales. And so for the second year running Saints were paired with Wigan. Saints has beaten their rivals 34-18 in the inaugural event. Ordinarily the 2008 game might have been billed as a revenge mission for the Warriors but this was the start of the era we are still in now when great foes meet more often than you are currently allowed out for your exercise and your medication. This would be the fourth meeting since that first Magic Weekend and Saints had won them all by an aggregate of 85-34. It would be another year before Wigan would get the better of Saints again.
Coming into the clash both had been experiencing some iffy form. They had each lost five of their first 12 Super League games. This was unexpected for Saints who had won the League Leaders Shield for each of the previous three seasons and would do so for a fourth in 2008. By contrast two years earlier Wigan had not so much flirted with relegation but positively honey-trapped it like an undercover police officer in a cliched TV drama. They escaped and improved to a sixth-placed finish in 2007 but they had still not reached a Grand Final for five years, hadn’t won the League Leaders Shield in eight years and hadn’t been crowned champions for a decade. Expectation wouldn’t have weighed massively on coach Brian Noble with that sort of recent history at any other club. But this was Wigan, where regardless of the absolute state of their squad they book their Wembley tickets with their Christmas money and proclaim themselves a dark horse when they hobble into the playoffs like Hugh Laurie clanking down the corridor at Princeton—Plainsboro. There was still pressure on Noble.
Saints’ line-up should have provided the Wigan fans with all the anxiety they could handle. Packed with superstars they had four players that I consider all-time greats in the starting 13 (Paul Wellens, Sean Long, Kieron Cunningham and James Graham) and another on the bench in James Roby. Paul Sculthorpe was enduring an injury-ravaged final season with Saints and missed out to spare Wigan having to face a sixth. Outside of that group the options for coach Daniel Anderson weren’t too shabby either. Only 16 men have scored more tries for Saints than Ade Gardner, Matt Gidley played 11 State Of Origin games for New South Wales and 17 times for Australia while Chris Flannery also had Origin experience. Willie Talau and Jason Cayless were New Zealand internationals as was Francis Meli. The winger was slightly maligned by fans back then but would arguably be a standout now. Closer to home Leon Pryce and Lee Gilmour has arrived from Bradford Bulls and would end their careers with 32 Great Britain caps and a Boris Johnson-sized fridge full of medals between them.
On the face of it Wigan were bringing a half-eaten Curly-Wurly to a gunfight. Their star name was stand-off Trent Barrett but his two-year, 60-game stint never really hit the heights expected of a man who gained almost as much Origin and Australian Kangaroos experience throughout his career as Gidley. Barrett wasn’t awful, but he was probably more Josh Perry than Jamie Lyon in terms of impact. Pat Richards had a much longer and more successful Wigan career after making the switch from Wests Tigers. Thomas Leuluai and Sean O’Loughlin’s quality and longevity can be judged by the fact that they are still in the Warriors side in 2020. The one genuine British superstar in the ranks at the time was prop forward Stuart Fielden, drafted in two years earlier to help give relegation the slip.
After these individuals the Wigan group was one of nearly men. Of Richie Mathers’ and Darrell Gouldings. Paul Prescotts and Mickey Highams. On the bench that day was 22-year-old Tommy Coyle, who would make only five appearances for Wigan before a tour of the lower leagues that took in Halifax, Oldham, Hunslet, Whitehaven and Swinton among others. He came in to the squad after an injury to Phil Bailey. There’s probably a Phil Collins/Easy Lover joke in here somewhere but this Phil Bailey was a four-time Australian international and three-time Origin player who managed over 100 appearances for Wigan in case you’re struggling as much as I am to recall him. Yet he was out of this one with illness, giving Coyle an opportunity that he probably hasn’t forgotten.
Though the teams were level on points in the league table at the start of play it didn’t take long for the gap between them to begin to show. Only points difference separated third-placed Saints from fifth-placed Wigan when referee Phil Bentham blew the first whistle. Five minutes in it was Long who bagged the first try. Continuing his decade-long torment of his hometown club who had once released him Long darted over from dummy half to put Saints in front. He converted his own try to make it 6-0.
When listing the array of talent available to Anderson I didn’t mention the name of Jon Wilkin. A future captain of the club who would go on to make over 400 appearances for them. The 2008 Wilkin was a recent Great Britain international. He was next to go over after he was put through by Cayless and avoided the apologetic tackle attempt by Mathers. Long goaled again and Saints led 12-0 at a rate of only just lower than a point a minute.
Six minutes later Wigan drew up plans for their own demise. A pass near midfield was knocked backwards by Talau and scooped up by Meli. Wigan’s players seemed to stop in anticipation of a knock-on call from Bentham. As they hesitated Meli raced 50 metres in a display of what in the current climate would be viewed as admirable social distancing. Long’s third successful conversion gave Saints an 18-0 lead. The contest was as good as over in the first quarter. Thoughts may have even started to turn to the events of three years earlier when Saints had flogged Wigan 75-0 in a Challenge Cup tie at Knowsley Road.
Wigan held out for a spell after Meli’s effort, but would have been dismayed to see Roby entering the fray fresh from the bench after 25 minutes. He replaced Cunningham and within two minutes Saints went further ahead. Gidley spun brilliantly out of the tackle of Richards before placing a pin-point grubber on to which Gardner pounced. Long could not land the extras this time but Saints were putting on a show now at 22-0.
Barely three minutes later Long was creating more goal kicking practice for himself. His pass put Gilmour through a hole in the Wigan defensive line and the second row forward handed on to Talau to touch down. Long’s fourth goal of the evening made it 28-0 with only half an hour played. He was racking up the points, and added four more when he supported Pryce’s break inside his own half and went 55 metres to score Saints’ sixth try of the first half and his second. Long’s conversion made it 34-0. He wasn’t done there, adding an insulting drop-goal four minutes from half-time. It took the proverbial out of Wigan and was completely in keeping with Long’s personality and style of play. It would have been frowned upon perhaps when Mick Potter took over from Anderson the following year, or during the Building Pressure, Energy Battle years of the Cunningham philosophy. In 2008 it was joyful, almost funny, and Saints went to the break 35-0 up.
Then something odd happened. Wigan scored. A rare mistake inside his own quarter from Wellens gave Coyle the opportunity to make his mark. He fed Leuluai from dummy half and the New Zealander broke out of Long’s tackle to score. Richards could not convert but you can’t have everything Wigan fans. At least your lot were on the board now at 35-4.
Long’s response to this rude interruption to what had hitherto been a procession was to complete his hat-trick. Gidley was the creator, breaking the line before finding Long on his inside. It was Long’s fourth hat-trick for Saints but his first since a 54-12 win over Castleford Tigers at Knowsley Road five years earlier. It would also be his last. Long scored only another nine tries for Saints before moving to Hull FC at the end of 2009. Fittingly, his last try was also against Wigan and helped Saints reach the third of five consecutive Grand Finals at the expense of the old enemy. Though we may reflect now that we wish we hadn’t bothered going to Manchester until 2014.
Back to 2008. Saints led 41-4 at this point and their next score sparked the beginning of the famed Wigan Walk. To be fair to their fans they had endured 50 minutes of this outright pummelling before Talau grabbed his second. Wellens shimmied Goulding into one of the many attractive bars outside the Millennium Stadium and handed on to Talau to score. Long failed with the conversion but a 45-4 deficit was enough to convince a few Wigan fans that their time might be better spent elsewhere.
They had probably got far enough away not to have to listen to the roar that greeted Saints’ next score. Even when Long was making mistakes he profited. On 57 minutes he threw what NRL commentators refer to as a ‘bludger’ of a pass out to the right hand edge. It went to ground but bobbled around conveniently for Gardner to pick up and notch his brace. Long’s conversion made it 51-4 and was almost his last act of the day. Anderson withdrew his his halfback combination of Long and Pryce shortly after, presumably to spare Wigan further punishment.
It could have been a coincidence but that move preceded a mini Wigan fight back as first Harrison Hansen and then Higham got over for tries. Hansen’s was the result of a glorious short ball from Barrett as the former St George man showed a flash of his quality. Higham benefitted from an offload from Iafeta Paleaaesina to claim his meat pie. Richards made good on both conversions and Wigan were into double figures at 51-16.
Yet predictably, inevitably, it was Saints who had the last word. Nine minutes from time a move involving Graham, Wilkin and Wellens allowed Gilmour to score against the club for whom he played 108 times from 1997-2001. With Long off the field Gidley took the opportunity to notch the first of his six goals for Saints and complete the scoring at 57-16.
Saints would not lose again in 2008 until the Grand Final. They won 18 out of 19 games in all competitions after this Magic Massacre, the only blemish being a 16-16 draw with Wigan at Knowsley Road in September. They picked up the Challenge Cup during that run, beating Hull FC 28-16 at Wembley in what would turn out to be Sculthorpe’s last game for the club. Yet it was Leeds who were crowned champions. They had finished the regular season a point behind Saints but edged them 24-16 at Old Trafford thanks to a double from Danny McGuire and further scores from Lee Smith and Ryan Hall.
We can’t end on that note. Would it help if I told you that after this drubbing Wigan lost five more times in the league, including another 46-12 hiding by Saints on their own patch? They could only finish fourth before being eliminated from the race to Old Trafford by Leeds.
No. Thought not.
Let’s hope the resumption of our Super League season and the rest of this blog are worth waiting for. I’m taking you back to the summer of 2008. Boris Johnson took his first steps towards fucking the country by winning the London mayoral election, Portsmouth won the FA Cup, Rihanna and Leona Lewis were engaged in a tense warble-off at the top of the UK charts and proof was provided that box office figures do not reflect quality as Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull raked in $126million.
It was the second year of rugby league’s bold new enterprise, Millennium Magic, in which all 12 Super League teams gathered at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium to play a round of league fixtures. The first one had been deemed a success overall despite or maybe even in some small way because of its controversial ending. Kevin Sinfield was attempting to land a late penalty goal that would have earned a draw for Leeds Rhinos against the once mighty Bradford Bulls. His shot bounced away off the crossbar before falling kindly for the demonstrably offside Jordan Tansey to cross for a try to seal an unlikely 42-38 win. Video assistance was available - rugby league being 23 years ahead of football in that regard - but referee Steve Ganson decided to make his own mind up. Rather like Robert Hicks at last year’s Challenge Cup final but without the added grimness of Warrington winning a major trophy which tipped Eamonn McManus over the edge of reason.
Derbies were very much the thing in the early years of Magic. It was felt that they were the fixtures most likely to excite the fans. The hope was that fans would stay transfixed as Huddersfield and Wakefield duked it out rather than spend that time in the bar oiling themselves senseless on the cheapest beer they could find in South Wales. And so for the second year running Saints were paired with Wigan. Saints has beaten their rivals 34-18 in the inaugural event. Ordinarily the 2008 game might have been billed as a revenge mission for the Warriors but this was the start of the era we are still in now when great foes meet more often than you are currently allowed out for your exercise and your medication. This would be the fourth meeting since that first Magic Weekend and Saints had won them all by an aggregate of 85-34. It would be another year before Wigan would get the better of Saints again.
Coming into the clash both had been experiencing some iffy form. They had each lost five of their first 12 Super League games. This was unexpected for Saints who had won the League Leaders Shield for each of the previous three seasons and would do so for a fourth in 2008. By contrast two years earlier Wigan had not so much flirted with relegation but positively honey-trapped it like an undercover police officer in a cliched TV drama. They escaped and improved to a sixth-placed finish in 2007 but they had still not reached a Grand Final for five years, hadn’t won the League Leaders Shield in eight years and hadn’t been crowned champions for a decade. Expectation wouldn’t have weighed massively on coach Brian Noble with that sort of recent history at any other club. But this was Wigan, where regardless of the absolute state of their squad they book their Wembley tickets with their Christmas money and proclaim themselves a dark horse when they hobble into the playoffs like Hugh Laurie clanking down the corridor at Princeton—Plainsboro. There was still pressure on Noble.
Saints’ line-up should have provided the Wigan fans with all the anxiety they could handle. Packed with superstars they had four players that I consider all-time greats in the starting 13 (Paul Wellens, Sean Long, Kieron Cunningham and James Graham) and another on the bench in James Roby. Paul Sculthorpe was enduring an injury-ravaged final season with Saints and missed out to spare Wigan having to face a sixth. Outside of that group the options for coach Daniel Anderson weren’t too shabby either. Only 16 men have scored more tries for Saints than Ade Gardner, Matt Gidley played 11 State Of Origin games for New South Wales and 17 times for Australia while Chris Flannery also had Origin experience. Willie Talau and Jason Cayless were New Zealand internationals as was Francis Meli. The winger was slightly maligned by fans back then but would arguably be a standout now. Closer to home Leon Pryce and Lee Gilmour has arrived from Bradford Bulls and would end their careers with 32 Great Britain caps and a Boris Johnson-sized fridge full of medals between them.
On the face of it Wigan were bringing a half-eaten Curly-Wurly to a gunfight. Their star name was stand-off Trent Barrett but his two-year, 60-game stint never really hit the heights expected of a man who gained almost as much Origin and Australian Kangaroos experience throughout his career as Gidley. Barrett wasn’t awful, but he was probably more Josh Perry than Jamie Lyon in terms of impact. Pat Richards had a much longer and more successful Wigan career after making the switch from Wests Tigers. Thomas Leuluai and Sean O’Loughlin’s quality and longevity can be judged by the fact that they are still in the Warriors side in 2020. The one genuine British superstar in the ranks at the time was prop forward Stuart Fielden, drafted in two years earlier to help give relegation the slip.
After these individuals the Wigan group was one of nearly men. Of Richie Mathers’ and Darrell Gouldings. Paul Prescotts and Mickey Highams. On the bench that day was 22-year-old Tommy Coyle, who would make only five appearances for Wigan before a tour of the lower leagues that took in Halifax, Oldham, Hunslet, Whitehaven and Swinton among others. He came in to the squad after an injury to Phil Bailey. There’s probably a Phil Collins/Easy Lover joke in here somewhere but this Phil Bailey was a four-time Australian international and three-time Origin player who managed over 100 appearances for Wigan in case you’re struggling as much as I am to recall him. Yet he was out of this one with illness, giving Coyle an opportunity that he probably hasn’t forgotten.
Though the teams were level on points in the league table at the start of play it didn’t take long for the gap between them to begin to show. Only points difference separated third-placed Saints from fifth-placed Wigan when referee Phil Bentham blew the first whistle. Five minutes in it was Long who bagged the first try. Continuing his decade-long torment of his hometown club who had once released him Long darted over from dummy half to put Saints in front. He converted his own try to make it 6-0.
When listing the array of talent available to Anderson I didn’t mention the name of Jon Wilkin. A future captain of the club who would go on to make over 400 appearances for them. The 2008 Wilkin was a recent Great Britain international. He was next to go over after he was put through by Cayless and avoided the apologetic tackle attempt by Mathers. Long goaled again and Saints led 12-0 at a rate of only just lower than a point a minute.
Six minutes later Wigan drew up plans for their own demise. A pass near midfield was knocked backwards by Talau and scooped up by Meli. Wigan’s players seemed to stop in anticipation of a knock-on call from Bentham. As they hesitated Meli raced 50 metres in a display of what in the current climate would be viewed as admirable social distancing. Long’s third successful conversion gave Saints an 18-0 lead. The contest was as good as over in the first quarter. Thoughts may have even started to turn to the events of three years earlier when Saints had flogged Wigan 75-0 in a Challenge Cup tie at Knowsley Road.
Wigan held out for a spell after Meli’s effort, but would have been dismayed to see Roby entering the fray fresh from the bench after 25 minutes. He replaced Cunningham and within two minutes Saints went further ahead. Gidley spun brilliantly out of the tackle of Richards before placing a pin-point grubber on to which Gardner pounced. Long could not land the extras this time but Saints were putting on a show now at 22-0.
Barely three minutes later Long was creating more goal kicking practice for himself. His pass put Gilmour through a hole in the Wigan defensive line and the second row forward handed on to Talau to touch down. Long’s fourth goal of the evening made it 28-0 with only half an hour played. He was racking up the points, and added four more when he supported Pryce’s break inside his own half and went 55 metres to score Saints’ sixth try of the first half and his second. Long’s conversion made it 34-0. He wasn’t done there, adding an insulting drop-goal four minutes from half-time. It took the proverbial out of Wigan and was completely in keeping with Long’s personality and style of play. It would have been frowned upon perhaps when Mick Potter took over from Anderson the following year, or during the Building Pressure, Energy Battle years of the Cunningham philosophy. In 2008 it was joyful, almost funny, and Saints went to the break 35-0 up.
Then something odd happened. Wigan scored. A rare mistake inside his own quarter from Wellens gave Coyle the opportunity to make his mark. He fed Leuluai from dummy half and the New Zealander broke out of Long’s tackle to score. Richards could not convert but you can’t have everything Wigan fans. At least your lot were on the board now at 35-4.
Long’s response to this rude interruption to what had hitherto been a procession was to complete his hat-trick. Gidley was the creator, breaking the line before finding Long on his inside. It was Long’s fourth hat-trick for Saints but his first since a 54-12 win over Castleford Tigers at Knowsley Road five years earlier. It would also be his last. Long scored only another nine tries for Saints before moving to Hull FC at the end of 2009. Fittingly, his last try was also against Wigan and helped Saints reach the third of five consecutive Grand Finals at the expense of the old enemy. Though we may reflect now that we wish we hadn’t bothered going to Manchester until 2014.
Back to 2008. Saints led 41-4 at this point and their next score sparked the beginning of the famed Wigan Walk. To be fair to their fans they had endured 50 minutes of this outright pummelling before Talau grabbed his second. Wellens shimmied Goulding into one of the many attractive bars outside the Millennium Stadium and handed on to Talau to score. Long failed with the conversion but a 45-4 deficit was enough to convince a few Wigan fans that their time might be better spent elsewhere.
They had probably got far enough away not to have to listen to the roar that greeted Saints’ next score. Even when Long was making mistakes he profited. On 57 minutes he threw what NRL commentators refer to as a ‘bludger’ of a pass out to the right hand edge. It went to ground but bobbled around conveniently for Gardner to pick up and notch his brace. Long’s conversion made it 51-4 and was almost his last act of the day. Anderson withdrew his his halfback combination of Long and Pryce shortly after, presumably to spare Wigan further punishment.
It could have been a coincidence but that move preceded a mini Wigan fight back as first Harrison Hansen and then Higham got over for tries. Hansen’s was the result of a glorious short ball from Barrett as the former St George man showed a flash of his quality. Higham benefitted from an offload from Iafeta Paleaaesina to claim his meat pie. Richards made good on both conversions and Wigan were into double figures at 51-16.
Yet predictably, inevitably, it was Saints who had the last word. Nine minutes from time a move involving Graham, Wilkin and Wellens allowed Gilmour to score against the club for whom he played 108 times from 1997-2001. With Long off the field Gidley took the opportunity to notch the first of his six goals for Saints and complete the scoring at 57-16.
Saints would not lose again in 2008 until the Grand Final. They won 18 out of 19 games in all competitions after this Magic Massacre, the only blemish being a 16-16 draw with Wigan at Knowsley Road in September. They picked up the Challenge Cup during that run, beating Hull FC 28-16 at Wembley in what would turn out to be Sculthorpe’s last game for the club. Yet it was Leeds who were crowned champions. They had finished the regular season a point behind Saints but edged them 24-16 at Old Trafford thanks to a double from Danny McGuire and further scores from Lee Smith and Ryan Hall.
We can’t end on that note. Would it help if I told you that after this drubbing Wigan lost five more times in the league, including another 46-12 hiding by Saints on their own patch? They could only finish fourth before being eliminated from the race to Old Trafford by Leeds.
No. Thought not.
Super League Greatest Ever 13 - 25 Years On
If you are kind enough to be a regular reader of this column you will notice that it has been quiet around here for a while. There’s a couple of reasons for this. One is that if we are honest there is not much happening in rugby league beyond the continued speculation around if, when and how the sport will resume in 2020. The other is that it is difficult to make any observations without Arthur Angrybloke from the small village of Furious trying to shame you for talking about anything that might be enjoyed while ‘people are dying’. But if the Minister Of Skiving can tell everyone to get back to work in such circumstances then I suggest that this column won’t do any major damage to the ongoing battle with Covid-19.
So, what to discuss? Well, helpfully for anyone looking to whack out a few hundred words that might provoke non-Covid discussion the Super League website are inviting visitors to select their best ever 13 from the 24 and a bit seasons of the competition since its inception in 1996. This I have done, in the great hope that you will shout at me for leaving out James Roby rather than for the heinous crime of contemplating rugby league in a pandemic.
Full Back - Paul Wellens
The site offers you eight options for the number one jersey but realistically it was only ever between two. Kris Radlinski was the only name that came close to shifting that of Wellens from my in no way biased selection. You can make a case for either, but I’d ask you to bear in mind that Radlinski’s career at Wigan started before Super League and ended in 2005. He did return in 2006, apparently for no fee and out of the goodness of his heart as Wigan defied the odds and the salary cap to avoid an unthinkable relegation from the top flight. Yet the 10 Super League seasons he managed and the 322 career appearances for Wigan are dwarfed by Wellens’ 17 Super League seasons with Saints during which he made 499 appearances and scored 231 tries. While Radlinski was blessed with more pace than Wellens, spending some time on the wing in his early days, Wellens compensated for a perceived lack of speed with an other-worldly ability to be in the right place at the right time. His positioning and reading of the game had to be faultless and he was every bit as reliable under pressure or a high bomb as Radlinski. A close call, but it’s Paul.
Right Wing - Jason Robinson
Robinson’s Super League career was relatively short, but how can you leave him out? Like Radlinski he first played for Wigan in the years leading up to Super League and by the end of its fifth season in 2000 had taken the decision to go off and conquer the rugby union world. That he did so is no surprise since he had all of the transferable skills needed to succeed in either code. Blindingly quick, especially off the mark from a standing start, he could change direction faster than anyone the game had ever seen to that point. He scored 171 tries in 281 appearances for Wigan, including the winner in the inaugural Super League Grand Final in 1998. That was actually the only honour the Warriors won in the Super League era before Robinson left for the other code but he just has to be in this team because he transcends rugby league in a way that few others who have played the game have managed.
Right Centre - Jamie Lyon
The Australian star was only with Saints and Super League for two years and I can tell you from personal experience that a good chunk of that time was spent at Nexus. Yet the period we are concentrating on from 1996 to the present day has never seen anyone who could do everything expected of an elite centre so spectacularly well as Lyon. There have been more powerful players in the position, men whose combination of pace and strength made them almost unstoppable. There have been great creators, men who didn’t raise any eyebrows with their try-scoring exploits but who made their winger’s job a much easier one. Lyon could be both creator and prolific scorer, and he could also kick goals. Searingly quick, he had a body swerve that put defenders in a different time zone. Part of the treble winning team of 2006, perhaps the greatest of all Saints teams, Lyon bagged 46 tries and 206 goals in 63 appearances in the red vee. Not until Ben Barba arrived in 2018 did we see another import at Saints who could dominate the league in the way Lyon did. And he gave everything in every minute he played before returning to the NRL, which is perhaps not something that can be said about Barba.
Left Centre - Paul Newlove
Hands up those of you who picked your own teams who went with Keith Senior ahead of Newlove? Be gone with your nonsense. Senior was a great player but comparisons with Newlove are fanciful. Newlove was a freak, playing international rugby league at 18 years of age and going on to play over 200 times for Saints in a glorious eight-year spell. His arrival from a pre-Bullmania Bradford Northern in 1995 was the catalyst for Saints establishing themselves as the dominant force throughout the first decade of Super League. We were only two years on from the depressing loss of Gary Connolly who had joined Wigan in 1993. This writer thought we would might not see a British centre in Connolly’s class in a Saints shirt for a generation.
Newlove more than filled the void, though he was different in style to Connolly. Where Connolly was defensively solid and had guile and imagination to create for others, Newlove was a destructive force who usually didn’t need any help finishing his breaks. At times he would literally carry defenders over the line with him. You might catch him, but you weren’t stopping him. He possessed the most outrageous fend perhaps in the history of the game. He would arch his back as a tackler approached and then just effortlessly swat them away like mere irritants. All without breaking stride. Newlove scored 134 tries for Saints, and it felt like most of them came in those early Super League seasons when he was unplayable as the balance of power in the game shifted across Billinge Lump. An absolute game changer of a player in the broadest sense. Keith Senior.... Pffft...
Left Wing - Lesley Vainikolo
The Volcano, as he was known when he joined the Bradford Bulls from Canberra Raiders in 2002, arguably redefined the winger’s role in Super League. Before then the best wingers were either slight but athletic, gazelle-like flyers in the Martin Offiah mould or short, elusive whirling dervishes like Robinson. Then along came Vainikolo to prove that you could be as big as anyone in the pack and still have speed and finishing instincts equal to anyone.
In a five-year spell the New Zealand international scored 149 tries for the Bulls, winning Grand Finals in 2003 and 2005 and the Challenge Cup in 2003. Along with Leeds Rhinos legend Danny McGuire, Vainikolo set the record for the most tries scored in a single Super League season when he grabbed 38 in 2004. Yet alongside his try-scoring exploits it was Vainikolo’s ability to make hard yards inside his own quarter on kick returns and early in the tackle count which made him such an important member of Brian Noble’s Bulls side.
Stand-Off - Henry Paul
Wigan may have lost their aura of invincibility with the advent of Super League but they were still a threat. Saints won that inaugural title by a single point in 1996 after Wigan were held to an 18-18 draw at London Broncos that proved pivotal. They handed Saints a 35-19 thumping at Central Park that could have cost Saints everything. Whenever Saints faced Wigan during his spell there between 1994-1998 it was the name of Henry Paul on the opposing team sheet that troubled me most.
Blessed with dazzling footwork and magical ball-handling skills, Paul had helped Wigan to the title in the two seasons prior to Super League having joined them from Wakefield Trinity. He was part of Wigan’s Grand Final-winning line-up of 1998 when they saw off Leeds Rhinos before teaming up with his brother Robbie at Bradford. There he added the 2000 Challenge Cup to the one he had won with Wigan in 1995 before his third title arrived at the expense of the Warriors. The Bulls cruised past his former club in the 2001 Grand Final, winning 37-6. In that season Paul set a then world record, landing 35 consecutive successful goals as he mastered the art. But it is for his ability to break a game open with the unexpected, those moments that were so rare in players then and even more so now, that seal his place in my selection.
Scrum Half - Sean Long
The easiest selection of them all. Discarded by his boyhood club Wigan, Long was picked up by Widnes Vikings were some impressive displays earned him another shot at the big league with Saints. It was very much shit or bust for Long at that time. His talent was undoubted but clearly some of his behavioural issues early in his career had given Wigan cause for concern. Saints already had a legend in the scrum half position, another ex-Wigan man who sometimes found unusual ways to pass the time off the field in Bobbie Goulding. So life at Saints for Long began as a stand-off, wearing the number 3 shirt and playing as a pure runner while leaving the organising to Goulding.
Within a year Goulding had blown his top once too often and it was to Long that Saints turned. He developed from elusive runner and support player into the greatest scrum half that Super League has ever seen. It is debatable whether there has ever been a better exponent of halfback skills in the history of the British game. Long’s performance in the 2004 Challenge Cup final win over Wigan serves as an example of how to play halfback as near to perfectly as possible. Long always had speed to burn but by 2004 he had added organisational skills, decision making and a kicking game that meant turning the ball over to the opposition could be used as a weapon to assist the attacking game soon after.
In 12 years at Saints Long won four Grand Finals, and five Challenge Cups and was part of the sides that won World Club Challenge matches with Brisbane Broncos in 2001 and 2007. He had progressed to club captain by the time of the second of those victories while other individual accolades include the 2000 Man Of Steel Award and three Lance Todd trophies for man of match performances in the Challenge Cup finals of 2004, 2006 and in 2007 when he shared the award with Wellens. The greatest. No argument.
Prop Forward - Stuart Fielden
One of the main reasons for the Bradford Bulls success in the first 10 years of Super League was their power. Their blueprint was to blow opponents away in the forwards, pioneering the four-pronged prop forward corps that is now a routine component of any Super League match day 17. Toronto’s moany, ring-hoarding coach Brian McDermott was a mainstay of the group as were future Saint Paul Anderson and Kiwi wrecking ball Joe Vagana. Yet perhaps the pick of the bunch was Fielden.
Making your debut in the pack at 17 is hard enough, doing so for the then defending Super League champions within such a physical game plan marks you out as something special. Fielden won three Grand Finals, two Challenge Cups and two world titles with the Bulls before their money ran out and he was one of those sacrificed in the financial fallout. Some rather more creative accounting saw him pitch up at Wigan where he added another Grand final success in 2010. Fielden never made it to the NRL but that was surely a matter of choice. He was named in the international team of the year on four occasions and with 25 Great Britain caps and 10 England appearances he was as revered on the other side of the rugby league world as any other Englishman.
Hooker - Kieron Cunningham.
The younger element of the TSBYQL readership, if such a group exists, will probably be howling at my decision not to include James Roby here. There is little argument that Roby is an all-time great. A serial winner and now club captain who has, despite his success, also felt what it is like to have the burden of being the only world class performer on an otherwise fairly middling team. As a pure rugby league player and measured by his impact on a team and on the game Roby is probably superior to half a dozen of the players in this selection. But unless you are Kyle Walker in lockdown you cannot play with 13 hookers. You can only have one (Sorry Kyle, maybe that’ll increase in phase 2) so it has to be Kieron Cunningham.
Put simply I have never seen another rugby league player like Kieron Cunningham. For 17 years he dominated and helped to reinvent the position, turning the dummy half role into one of the most creative on the field. His mix of fast, accurate distribution and an obdurate refusal to accept being tackled caused outright mayhem in the early years of summer rugby. Call me nostalgic but I still get excited if I hear Chumbawamba’s tub-thumping on the radio. Ironic then that tub-thumping was exactly what Cunningham accused a section of the fans of engaging in when the noise around Jack Owens got a little too loud during the former Welsh international’s tepid coaching stint.
In many ways Cunningham’s difficult spell as head coach has clouded the memory of some fans about Cunningham the player. Majestic isn’t too strong a word for the greatest of all the players I have seen in the red vee. Admittedly I started with a relatively low bar in the mid-80s, but the Super League has seen us blessed with some of the game’s greats of whom for me Cunningham is the absolute standout. Almost 500 appearances for Saints, five Super League titles, seven Challenge Cup wins, two world titles and 23 international appearances for Wales and Great Britain. A bona fide legend. Sorry James. And Kyle.
Prop Forward - James Graham
Considering its proximity to several big rugby league clubs there have been surprisingly few top class players from the city of Liverpool. James Graham has to be the best of them by some distance. Like Fielden he made his debut short of his 18th birthday and established himself as the premier prop forward in world rugby league by the time of his departure to Canterbury Bulldogs in 2011. He has since moved on to St George-Illawarra Dragons and is closing in on 200 appearances in the NRL having made 245 for Saints.
Graham has a reputation of being a bit of a Jonah in Grand Finals having played in all five of Saints’ consecutive Old Trafford defeats in 2007-2011. He has lost two more in the NRL with the Bulldogs. Yet he has still found time to win one Super League Grand Final (2006) and three Challenge Cup finals (2006-2008). If nothing else this is evidence that any team featuring Graham in its ranks over the last 15 years has been a serious contender for honours, even if they haven’t always got over the line. This is not a coincidence. Graham isn’t just a battering ram either. He is famed among modern forwards for his ability to pass before the line where necessary. He can run through you or over you too, but there is a degree of subtlety to his game that is not present in many front rowers.
In the last week or so there has been some talk of a return to Saints for 2021. He will be 35 by then and perhaps not at the peak required to be an adequate replacement for the outgoing Luke Thompson. Yet if you can ignore the amount of money it would cost to tempt him back he would probably remain more than good enough to stand out in Super League and perhaps a great mentor for Matty Lees and Jack Ashworth. Whether he comes back or not he has already cemented his position among the greats of Saints and Super League.
Second Row - Jamie Peacock
I read recently that a poll once found that former Bradford and Leeds forward Jamie Peacock was the only man voted into an all-Super League team in two positions. We’re not going down that route. Fans of Netflix sports documentary blockbuster The Last Dance will accept that even the great Michael Jordan cannot play two positions at once. Peacock is not in that category in terms of talent but that does not stop him from being one of the best prop forwards and second row forwards of the modern era albeit at different times of his career.
Mainly because the alternatives at prop were tastier than those at second row I have gone for Bradford Bulls-era Peacock. Back then he was a rangy, wide running back rower able to capitalise on the havoc wreaked by the Bulls prop group (see Stuart Fielden). Alongside Fielden Peacock helped Bradford win three Super League Grand Finals, the last of them as captain in 2005 before he crossed the West Yorkshire divide to turn out for boyhood club Leeds Rhinos.
Converting to the front row in his later years Peacock added a further six Super League rings to his collection, taking his total to a ridiculous nine. Jordan only managed six in his whole career, although he did interrupt it to pretend to be a baseball player for a while. But nine? Preposterous. Expect Jordan to come out of retirement again when he finds out.
Peacock was in his late 30s by the time a short spell with Hull KR brought his career to an end. By that time he had racked up 47 international appearances and won four Challenge Cups. Still only good enough for one spot in this team.
Second Row - Chris Joynt
Chris Joynt is the one player in this selection that might be able to lay claim to being slightly under-rated. All of the others are widely recognised as greats of the game with all the bells and whistles that status brings with it. Yet when the conversation about greats of the modern game crops up you rarely hear the name of the former Saints captain.
This is largely a style issue. Although he was capable of eye-catching moments such as his famous Wide To West try in a playoff win over Bradford Bulls in 2000, Joynt was there for the less noticeable parts of the game. Tackling, carting the ball up in his own half, leadership, setting an example. Some of these things don’t often make the highlight reels but every team needs players willing to do them.
Aside from that iconic try against the Bulls most of Joynt’s flashier moments pre-date Super League. When he joined Saints from Oldham in 1992 he was an elusive back rower with good hands very much in the club’s tradition of the time. He would later feature at prop at international level where our sport’s whacky rules allowed him to turn out for all of England, Ireland and Great Britain at various times. Yet at Saints he stayed largely in the second row, skippering the side from 1997-2003 during which time he lifted two Challenge Cups and three Super League Grand Final trophies. He also led Saints to their memorable World Club Challenge victory over Brisbane Broncos in 2001.
Self-proclaimed rules experts remember him for an alleged voluntary tackle in the dying moments of the 2002 Grand Final. Again Bradford were the victims as James Lowes’ tears failed to persuade referee Russell Smith to award what would have been a kickable penalty as Joynt seemed to go to ground with nobody near him. Yet he then got up without attempting to play the ball first so perhaps Smith got it right. Either way it was in the paper the next day that Saints had won.
In all Joynt amassed 383 appearances for Saints and 29 more at international level. A decorated player of outstanding consistency and a worthy if under-stated member of this line-up.
Loose Forward - Paul Sculthorpe
Some say Paul Sculthorpe was the best rugby league player they have seen in the Super League era and one of the best ever. He had it all. Pace, strength, toughness, intelligence and a winning mentality. He arrived at Saints from Warrington in 1997 for a then world record fee for a forward of £375,000. Yet he was so much more than a forward, slotting in at stand-off if the need arose at both club and international level. He was named Man Of Steel in both 2001 and 2002, the first man in the history of the award to win it in consecutive seasons.
Scunthorpe’s roll of honours is impressive. He won three Grand Finals with Saints and a further four Challenge Cup finals, captaining the side in two of those. Yet injury deprived him of an even greater haul. Sculthorpe made 261 appearances for Saints in just over a decade at the club. That doesn’t compare with the figures posted by Wellens and Cunningham who had far greater longevity and more luck with injuries during their time. The mind boggles at what Sculthorpe might have achieved if he had stayed fit for the length of time that some of his illustrious colleagues managed.
Though he was one of the first names on the sheet at international level he was probably too often shunted into the stand-off role instead of playing in his favoured loose forward slot. This was due mainly to the lack of a natural stand-off that any Great Britain coach trusted but also as a way of accommodating both Sculthorpe and Andy Farrrell in the line-up. It never quite worked out despite the occasional victory over the Australians and the wait for a first Ashes series win since 1970 continues. Sculthorpe played 30 times for either England or Great Britain between 1996-2006.
In terms of all-around rugby league talents and attributes Sculthorpe has few equals and gets the nod ahead of Farrell and Kevin Sinfield, despite playing over 100 games fewer than the former and only just over half as many as the latter. He was that good.
So, what to discuss? Well, helpfully for anyone looking to whack out a few hundred words that might provoke non-Covid discussion the Super League website are inviting visitors to select their best ever 13 from the 24 and a bit seasons of the competition since its inception in 1996. This I have done, in the great hope that you will shout at me for leaving out James Roby rather than for the heinous crime of contemplating rugby league in a pandemic.
Full Back - Paul Wellens
The site offers you eight options for the number one jersey but realistically it was only ever between two. Kris Radlinski was the only name that came close to shifting that of Wellens from my in no way biased selection. You can make a case for either, but I’d ask you to bear in mind that Radlinski’s career at Wigan started before Super League and ended in 2005. He did return in 2006, apparently for no fee and out of the goodness of his heart as Wigan defied the odds and the salary cap to avoid an unthinkable relegation from the top flight. Yet the 10 Super League seasons he managed and the 322 career appearances for Wigan are dwarfed by Wellens’ 17 Super League seasons with Saints during which he made 499 appearances and scored 231 tries. While Radlinski was blessed with more pace than Wellens, spending some time on the wing in his early days, Wellens compensated for a perceived lack of speed with an other-worldly ability to be in the right place at the right time. His positioning and reading of the game had to be faultless and he was every bit as reliable under pressure or a high bomb as Radlinski. A close call, but it’s Paul.
Right Wing - Jason Robinson
Robinson’s Super League career was relatively short, but how can you leave him out? Like Radlinski he first played for Wigan in the years leading up to Super League and by the end of its fifth season in 2000 had taken the decision to go off and conquer the rugby union world. That he did so is no surprise since he had all of the transferable skills needed to succeed in either code. Blindingly quick, especially off the mark from a standing start, he could change direction faster than anyone the game had ever seen to that point. He scored 171 tries in 281 appearances for Wigan, including the winner in the inaugural Super League Grand Final in 1998. That was actually the only honour the Warriors won in the Super League era before Robinson left for the other code but he just has to be in this team because he transcends rugby league in a way that few others who have played the game have managed.
Right Centre - Jamie Lyon
The Australian star was only with Saints and Super League for two years and I can tell you from personal experience that a good chunk of that time was spent at Nexus. Yet the period we are concentrating on from 1996 to the present day has never seen anyone who could do everything expected of an elite centre so spectacularly well as Lyon. There have been more powerful players in the position, men whose combination of pace and strength made them almost unstoppable. There have been great creators, men who didn’t raise any eyebrows with their try-scoring exploits but who made their winger’s job a much easier one. Lyon could be both creator and prolific scorer, and he could also kick goals. Searingly quick, he had a body swerve that put defenders in a different time zone. Part of the treble winning team of 2006, perhaps the greatest of all Saints teams, Lyon bagged 46 tries and 206 goals in 63 appearances in the red vee. Not until Ben Barba arrived in 2018 did we see another import at Saints who could dominate the league in the way Lyon did. And he gave everything in every minute he played before returning to the NRL, which is perhaps not something that can be said about Barba.
Left Centre - Paul Newlove
Hands up those of you who picked your own teams who went with Keith Senior ahead of Newlove? Be gone with your nonsense. Senior was a great player but comparisons with Newlove are fanciful. Newlove was a freak, playing international rugby league at 18 years of age and going on to play over 200 times for Saints in a glorious eight-year spell. His arrival from a pre-Bullmania Bradford Northern in 1995 was the catalyst for Saints establishing themselves as the dominant force throughout the first decade of Super League. We were only two years on from the depressing loss of Gary Connolly who had joined Wigan in 1993. This writer thought we would might not see a British centre in Connolly’s class in a Saints shirt for a generation.
Newlove more than filled the void, though he was different in style to Connolly. Where Connolly was defensively solid and had guile and imagination to create for others, Newlove was a destructive force who usually didn’t need any help finishing his breaks. At times he would literally carry defenders over the line with him. You might catch him, but you weren’t stopping him. He possessed the most outrageous fend perhaps in the history of the game. He would arch his back as a tackler approached and then just effortlessly swat them away like mere irritants. All without breaking stride. Newlove scored 134 tries for Saints, and it felt like most of them came in those early Super League seasons when he was unplayable as the balance of power in the game shifted across Billinge Lump. An absolute game changer of a player in the broadest sense. Keith Senior.... Pffft...
Left Wing - Lesley Vainikolo
The Volcano, as he was known when he joined the Bradford Bulls from Canberra Raiders in 2002, arguably redefined the winger’s role in Super League. Before then the best wingers were either slight but athletic, gazelle-like flyers in the Martin Offiah mould or short, elusive whirling dervishes like Robinson. Then along came Vainikolo to prove that you could be as big as anyone in the pack and still have speed and finishing instincts equal to anyone.
In a five-year spell the New Zealand international scored 149 tries for the Bulls, winning Grand Finals in 2003 and 2005 and the Challenge Cup in 2003. Along with Leeds Rhinos legend Danny McGuire, Vainikolo set the record for the most tries scored in a single Super League season when he grabbed 38 in 2004. Yet alongside his try-scoring exploits it was Vainikolo’s ability to make hard yards inside his own quarter on kick returns and early in the tackle count which made him such an important member of Brian Noble’s Bulls side.
Stand-Off - Henry Paul
Wigan may have lost their aura of invincibility with the advent of Super League but they were still a threat. Saints won that inaugural title by a single point in 1996 after Wigan were held to an 18-18 draw at London Broncos that proved pivotal. They handed Saints a 35-19 thumping at Central Park that could have cost Saints everything. Whenever Saints faced Wigan during his spell there between 1994-1998 it was the name of Henry Paul on the opposing team sheet that troubled me most.
Blessed with dazzling footwork and magical ball-handling skills, Paul had helped Wigan to the title in the two seasons prior to Super League having joined them from Wakefield Trinity. He was part of Wigan’s Grand Final-winning line-up of 1998 when they saw off Leeds Rhinos before teaming up with his brother Robbie at Bradford. There he added the 2000 Challenge Cup to the one he had won with Wigan in 1995 before his third title arrived at the expense of the Warriors. The Bulls cruised past his former club in the 2001 Grand Final, winning 37-6. In that season Paul set a then world record, landing 35 consecutive successful goals as he mastered the art. But it is for his ability to break a game open with the unexpected, those moments that were so rare in players then and even more so now, that seal his place in my selection.
Scrum Half - Sean Long
The easiest selection of them all. Discarded by his boyhood club Wigan, Long was picked up by Widnes Vikings were some impressive displays earned him another shot at the big league with Saints. It was very much shit or bust for Long at that time. His talent was undoubted but clearly some of his behavioural issues early in his career had given Wigan cause for concern. Saints already had a legend in the scrum half position, another ex-Wigan man who sometimes found unusual ways to pass the time off the field in Bobbie Goulding. So life at Saints for Long began as a stand-off, wearing the number 3 shirt and playing as a pure runner while leaving the organising to Goulding.
Within a year Goulding had blown his top once too often and it was to Long that Saints turned. He developed from elusive runner and support player into the greatest scrum half that Super League has ever seen. It is debatable whether there has ever been a better exponent of halfback skills in the history of the British game. Long’s performance in the 2004 Challenge Cup final win over Wigan serves as an example of how to play halfback as near to perfectly as possible. Long always had speed to burn but by 2004 he had added organisational skills, decision making and a kicking game that meant turning the ball over to the opposition could be used as a weapon to assist the attacking game soon after.
In 12 years at Saints Long won four Grand Finals, and five Challenge Cups and was part of the sides that won World Club Challenge matches with Brisbane Broncos in 2001 and 2007. He had progressed to club captain by the time of the second of those victories while other individual accolades include the 2000 Man Of Steel Award and three Lance Todd trophies for man of match performances in the Challenge Cup finals of 2004, 2006 and in 2007 when he shared the award with Wellens. The greatest. No argument.
Prop Forward - Stuart Fielden
One of the main reasons for the Bradford Bulls success in the first 10 years of Super League was their power. Their blueprint was to blow opponents away in the forwards, pioneering the four-pronged prop forward corps that is now a routine component of any Super League match day 17. Toronto’s moany, ring-hoarding coach Brian McDermott was a mainstay of the group as were future Saint Paul Anderson and Kiwi wrecking ball Joe Vagana. Yet perhaps the pick of the bunch was Fielden.
Making your debut in the pack at 17 is hard enough, doing so for the then defending Super League champions within such a physical game plan marks you out as something special. Fielden won three Grand Finals, two Challenge Cups and two world titles with the Bulls before their money ran out and he was one of those sacrificed in the financial fallout. Some rather more creative accounting saw him pitch up at Wigan where he added another Grand final success in 2010. Fielden never made it to the NRL but that was surely a matter of choice. He was named in the international team of the year on four occasions and with 25 Great Britain caps and 10 England appearances he was as revered on the other side of the rugby league world as any other Englishman.
Hooker - Kieron Cunningham.
The younger element of the TSBYQL readership, if such a group exists, will probably be howling at my decision not to include James Roby here. There is little argument that Roby is an all-time great. A serial winner and now club captain who has, despite his success, also felt what it is like to have the burden of being the only world class performer on an otherwise fairly middling team. As a pure rugby league player and measured by his impact on a team and on the game Roby is probably superior to half a dozen of the players in this selection. But unless you are Kyle Walker in lockdown you cannot play with 13 hookers. You can only have one (Sorry Kyle, maybe that’ll increase in phase 2) so it has to be Kieron Cunningham.
Put simply I have never seen another rugby league player like Kieron Cunningham. For 17 years he dominated and helped to reinvent the position, turning the dummy half role into one of the most creative on the field. His mix of fast, accurate distribution and an obdurate refusal to accept being tackled caused outright mayhem in the early years of summer rugby. Call me nostalgic but I still get excited if I hear Chumbawamba’s tub-thumping on the radio. Ironic then that tub-thumping was exactly what Cunningham accused a section of the fans of engaging in when the noise around Jack Owens got a little too loud during the former Welsh international’s tepid coaching stint.
In many ways Cunningham’s difficult spell as head coach has clouded the memory of some fans about Cunningham the player. Majestic isn’t too strong a word for the greatest of all the players I have seen in the red vee. Admittedly I started with a relatively low bar in the mid-80s, but the Super League has seen us blessed with some of the game’s greats of whom for me Cunningham is the absolute standout. Almost 500 appearances for Saints, five Super League titles, seven Challenge Cup wins, two world titles and 23 international appearances for Wales and Great Britain. A bona fide legend. Sorry James. And Kyle.
Prop Forward - James Graham
Considering its proximity to several big rugby league clubs there have been surprisingly few top class players from the city of Liverpool. James Graham has to be the best of them by some distance. Like Fielden he made his debut short of his 18th birthday and established himself as the premier prop forward in world rugby league by the time of his departure to Canterbury Bulldogs in 2011. He has since moved on to St George-Illawarra Dragons and is closing in on 200 appearances in the NRL having made 245 for Saints.
Graham has a reputation of being a bit of a Jonah in Grand Finals having played in all five of Saints’ consecutive Old Trafford defeats in 2007-2011. He has lost two more in the NRL with the Bulldogs. Yet he has still found time to win one Super League Grand Final (2006) and three Challenge Cup finals (2006-2008). If nothing else this is evidence that any team featuring Graham in its ranks over the last 15 years has been a serious contender for honours, even if they haven’t always got over the line. This is not a coincidence. Graham isn’t just a battering ram either. He is famed among modern forwards for his ability to pass before the line where necessary. He can run through you or over you too, but there is a degree of subtlety to his game that is not present in many front rowers.
In the last week or so there has been some talk of a return to Saints for 2021. He will be 35 by then and perhaps not at the peak required to be an adequate replacement for the outgoing Luke Thompson. Yet if you can ignore the amount of money it would cost to tempt him back he would probably remain more than good enough to stand out in Super League and perhaps a great mentor for Matty Lees and Jack Ashworth. Whether he comes back or not he has already cemented his position among the greats of Saints and Super League.
Second Row - Jamie Peacock
I read recently that a poll once found that former Bradford and Leeds forward Jamie Peacock was the only man voted into an all-Super League team in two positions. We’re not going down that route. Fans of Netflix sports documentary blockbuster The Last Dance will accept that even the great Michael Jordan cannot play two positions at once. Peacock is not in that category in terms of talent but that does not stop him from being one of the best prop forwards and second row forwards of the modern era albeit at different times of his career.
Mainly because the alternatives at prop were tastier than those at second row I have gone for Bradford Bulls-era Peacock. Back then he was a rangy, wide running back rower able to capitalise on the havoc wreaked by the Bulls prop group (see Stuart Fielden). Alongside Fielden Peacock helped Bradford win three Super League Grand Finals, the last of them as captain in 2005 before he crossed the West Yorkshire divide to turn out for boyhood club Leeds Rhinos.
Converting to the front row in his later years Peacock added a further six Super League rings to his collection, taking his total to a ridiculous nine. Jordan only managed six in his whole career, although he did interrupt it to pretend to be a baseball player for a while. But nine? Preposterous. Expect Jordan to come out of retirement again when he finds out.
Peacock was in his late 30s by the time a short spell with Hull KR brought his career to an end. By that time he had racked up 47 international appearances and won four Challenge Cups. Still only good enough for one spot in this team.
Second Row - Chris Joynt
Chris Joynt is the one player in this selection that might be able to lay claim to being slightly under-rated. All of the others are widely recognised as greats of the game with all the bells and whistles that status brings with it. Yet when the conversation about greats of the modern game crops up you rarely hear the name of the former Saints captain.
This is largely a style issue. Although he was capable of eye-catching moments such as his famous Wide To West try in a playoff win over Bradford Bulls in 2000, Joynt was there for the less noticeable parts of the game. Tackling, carting the ball up in his own half, leadership, setting an example. Some of these things don’t often make the highlight reels but every team needs players willing to do them.
Aside from that iconic try against the Bulls most of Joynt’s flashier moments pre-date Super League. When he joined Saints from Oldham in 1992 he was an elusive back rower with good hands very much in the club’s tradition of the time. He would later feature at prop at international level where our sport’s whacky rules allowed him to turn out for all of England, Ireland and Great Britain at various times. Yet at Saints he stayed largely in the second row, skippering the side from 1997-2003 during which time he lifted two Challenge Cups and three Super League Grand Final trophies. He also led Saints to their memorable World Club Challenge victory over Brisbane Broncos in 2001.
Self-proclaimed rules experts remember him for an alleged voluntary tackle in the dying moments of the 2002 Grand Final. Again Bradford were the victims as James Lowes’ tears failed to persuade referee Russell Smith to award what would have been a kickable penalty as Joynt seemed to go to ground with nobody near him. Yet he then got up without attempting to play the ball first so perhaps Smith got it right. Either way it was in the paper the next day that Saints had won.
In all Joynt amassed 383 appearances for Saints and 29 more at international level. A decorated player of outstanding consistency and a worthy if under-stated member of this line-up.
Loose Forward - Paul Sculthorpe
Some say Paul Sculthorpe was the best rugby league player they have seen in the Super League era and one of the best ever. He had it all. Pace, strength, toughness, intelligence and a winning mentality. He arrived at Saints from Warrington in 1997 for a then world record fee for a forward of £375,000. Yet he was so much more than a forward, slotting in at stand-off if the need arose at both club and international level. He was named Man Of Steel in both 2001 and 2002, the first man in the history of the award to win it in consecutive seasons.
Scunthorpe’s roll of honours is impressive. He won three Grand Finals with Saints and a further four Challenge Cup finals, captaining the side in two of those. Yet injury deprived him of an even greater haul. Sculthorpe made 261 appearances for Saints in just over a decade at the club. That doesn’t compare with the figures posted by Wellens and Cunningham who had far greater longevity and more luck with injuries during their time. The mind boggles at what Sculthorpe might have achieved if he had stayed fit for the length of time that some of his illustrious colleagues managed.
Though he was one of the first names on the sheet at international level he was probably too often shunted into the stand-off role instead of playing in his favoured loose forward slot. This was due mainly to the lack of a natural stand-off that any Great Britain coach trusted but also as a way of accommodating both Sculthorpe and Andy Farrrell in the line-up. It never quite worked out despite the occasional victory over the Australians and the wait for a first Ashes series win since 1970 continues. Sculthorpe played 30 times for either England or Great Britain between 1996-2006.
In terms of all-around rugby league talents and attributes Sculthorpe has few equals and gets the nod ahead of Farrell and Kevin Sinfield, despite playing over 100 games fewer than the former and only just over half as many as the latter. He was that good.
Classic Games - Saints 41 Wigan 6
I have a tendency to recall that Wigan won every game they played when I was growing up. To some extent that is true. It is well documented that they won eight consecutive Challenge Cup finals between 1988 and 1995. Saints were involved in two of those, humiliated 27-0 at the old Wembley in 1989 but pushing them to the very limit in a match that finished 13-8 two years later. As well as success at Wembley Wigan dominated the first division championship too. They bagged seven in a row between 1989-90 and the final season of winter rugby league in 1995-96.
Although that trophy haul demonstrates their dominance of the era immediately prior to Super League there were times when it didn’t go all their own way. When a bounce of the ball here, a refereeing decision there, could have brought the streak of league titles to a shuddering halt. In two consecutive seasons - 1992-93 and 1993-94 - Wigan won the title only by virtue of a superior points difference over the campaign. In the latter of those two seasons there were not one but two other sides involved in the tie-breaker. Both Warrington and Bradford Northern matched Wigan’s 46 points from 23 wins and seven losses in 30 outings.
It is to the first of those two seasons with photo-finish endings that we go to remember one of the great Saints performances in a derby, or indeed any other fixture. Wigan came to Knowsley Road on December 27 1992 with only one league defeat blotting their record. That came in what these days would be known as Round 2 when they lost 14-13 in a game notable for the fact that Martin Offiah kicked a rare drop-goal. Saints by contrast had lost three times, so needed a win in this one to prevent their local rivals opening up an eight-point advantage over them. That kind of deficit would have seemed insurmountable even with half of the season still to play.
The teams had met once already that season, a bruising Lancashire Cup final encounter at Knowsley Road in October. That game had been so tight that no tries were scored by either side. The result was still familiar even if the methods were not, Wigan winning 5-4 thanks to Frano Botica’s drop-goal. Botica was one of nine Wigan players from the starting line-up that day to start the festive league encounter. Phil Clarke had missed the cup final but returned here allowing Dean Bell to revert back to the centres in place of Joe Lydon. Andy Platt moved from prop to second row to make room for Neil Cowie as Billy McGinty dropped to the bench. Sam Panapa started on the wing in place of Jason Robinson who was only a substitute.
Saints returned the same number to their side. Phil Veivers was relegated to the bench as David Lyon came in at fullback, while Paul Loughlin’s return to the fold meant Aussie import Jarrod McCracken moved to the wing. With Anthony Sullivan out Alan Hunte switched wings. Jonathan Griffiths was also absent leaving Saints with an all-Kiwi halfback partnership of Tea Ropati and Shane Cooper. Chris Joynt moved to Cooper’s regular loose forward spot so George Mann partnered Sonny Nickle in the second row. Kevin Ward, - one of the chief protagonists of the story of the Good Friday meeting which ultimately decided the destiny of the title - was not available so Jon Neill and John Harrison started at prop.
Optimism did not often endure when it came to derby matches during Wigan’s glory days. You’d approach the game thinking that if every Saints player played to the best of his ability, if every risky offload stuck, and if two or three of Wigan’s key players had an off day we had a chance. The trouble was that this Wigan side had more keys than Elton John’s piano. If Offiah didn’t get you with his Spaceballs ‘are you nuts?’ speed then Shaun Edwards, Botica, Clarke, Bell, Steve Hampson or Platt - with all of their varied weapons and talents (yes Clarke had talents in those days) - would. They had internationals all over the field and a couple on the bench in McGinty and Robinson. So there was a sense of foreboding as early as the fourth minute when Offiah turned up on the right edge to put Botica over in the right hand corner. Botica was fairly automatic when it came to goal kicking so barely an eyebrow was raised when he slotted over the conversion from out wide to give Wigan a 6-0 advantage. It was the last time the scoreboard operators would need to bother with the Wigan side of the ledger that day.
Had Botica been wearing the red vee rather than Wigan’s blue and white hoops the final score line could have been uglier for the visitors. Saints missed a plethora of goal kicking opportunities, the first of which came on seven minutes and was spurned by Lyon. The responsibility would be handed back to Loughlin for the rest of the afternoon and although he was just as wayward at times he would get plenty of opportunities. The first of those arrived on 11 minutes. After building their way back into the game with a good spell of possession Saints broke through. Cooper found Hunte on the left hand touchline and the then 22-year-old squeezed in at the corner. Loughlin was unsuccessful with the extras but Saints were back in the game at 6-4.
It was at this point that one of Wigan’s biggest weapons (which works on at least a couple of levels) left proceedings. As Saints prepared to restart the game the frustrated figure of Offiah could be seen being led away for further examination on what seemed to be an injury of some sort. For all his brilliance Offiah was not the most robust of rugby league players. His ability to evade being tackled served him as well for his own protection as it did for rattling multiples of four on to the scoreboard. He was replaced by Robinson. History dictates that Robinson is just about as good a replacement winger as it was possible to introduce. Yet at the time Robinson was still a fairly raw 18-year-old playing in his first season in the first division after arriving at Wigan from Hunslet. He would have much, much better days than this.
Saints were beginning to establish their supremacy on the game. Just before the 20 minute mark one of rugby league’s long forgotten relics created an opportunity to extend the lead. This was a time when it was perfectly legal to tap the ball to yourself at the play-the-ball. Sonny Nickle did exactly that to go over by the posts after a dazzling move earlier in the set involving Mann, Cooper and Joynt. Loughlin was more accurate with the extras this time and Saints were 10-6 up.
It was only two minutes later that the scoreboard and as a consequence the game itself started to get away from Wigan. Lyon stormed through on a sizzling break and when the ball eventually found its way to Hunte he finished it superbly. In doing so he absorbed a hit from Clarke that was later than a government lockdown. The kind of challenge that were Blackrod’s finest to witness it now in his role as a Sky Sports summariser he would no doubt emit one of his unloved piercing shrieks before calling for the culprit to be sent for an early wash. The game was different then, however, not least because games were not covered by live TV very often and therefore not subject to the musings of a trolling controversy hound. The worst that happened to Clarke was that Loughlin tagged on two more points and Saints led 16-6.
Joynt was next to cross for Saints as proceedings took us ever closer to Dreamland. Bernard Dwyer was the provider and when Loughlin was on target with the conversion and a penalty just before half-time Saints headed to the break with a barely credible 24-6 lead. Yet still we wondered. Even as Ropati was scything through the Wigan defence to set up the position for Dwyer to put Joynt over you were not a proper, seasoned Saints fan if you were not thinking about how much better Wigan were going to be in the second half. How they would romp back into the game and snatch it away, probably via some heinous act of skullduggery and shithousery.
Except they didn’t. To our absolute delight John Monie’s side were just as bad after the oranges. Monie would later remark that he didn’t have a good player on the field which was some statement. He had several good players and some greats. Yet they were made to look average by a Saints side for whom everything was working. There was one surreal moment when Gary Connolly was forced into a rash kick from dummy half on the last tackle. Connolly was to kicking what Priti Patel is to the oration of six-figure numbers, but his effort nevertheless pulled up inches short of the dead ball line forcing his future employers to have to run it back into the field of play. It was that sort of day.
Gus O’Donnell had been at Wigan for four years before switching to Saints earlier in the year. He was introduced at the start of the second half in place of Neill. This forced a bit of reshuffling, with Mann slotting back into his preferred prop role from the back row, Joynt moving into the spot vacated by Mann alongside Nickle and Cooper reverting to loose forward. That allowed O’Donnell to partner Ropati in the halves and within two minutes he had made his mark. His grubber bounced into the Wigan in-goal area where it was missed by Connolly but pounced upon by Lyon. Loughlin fluffed his attempt at two more points but at 28-6 those half-time doubts were diminishing.
If there was ever any doubt about who was going to win this game it evaporated three minutes later. McCracken embarked on a typically strong run, the type which regards self preservation low on the list of priorities, whereupon he was met with some of that Wigan skullduggery and shithousery. Kelvin Skerrett hit McCracken in the head with a shoulder, dropping the Kiwi centre to the floor like Boris Johnson dropping a pregnant mistress. Or the idea of herd immunity. There was no surprise in Skerrett’s actions. He had something of a reputation. I met him in a long forgotten St Helens drinking establishment once and we recalled the incident - and a subsequent one in which he jumped over a pile of bodies to get involved in a fight with some Featherstone players - with great amusement. He couldn’t explain his actions on either occasion and didn’t seem to feel the need to. It just was what it was. Skerretts gonna Skerrett.
His dismissal was the final nail in the Wigan coffin on the day. For a while after all they wanted to do was fight and spoil. Any thoughts of playing their way back into the game had drifted away. Within two minutes there was another confrontation, the upshot of which was that Nickle and Platt were ordered to sit down and cool off for 10 minutes by referee Robin Whitfield. Platt had played 185 times for Saints before moving to Wigan in 1988. He had shed tears on the Wembley turf in 1987 when two disallowed Mark Elia tries denied Saints victory and had all of Halifax (and probably Wigan) in rapture. I couldn’t hear what was said to Platt as he and Nickle trudged off for their enforced rest, but it was unlikely that many of the fans on that side of the ground were asking after his health.
Loughlin slotted another penalty five minutes later and Saints led 30-6. In many ways the decision to kick for goal there was indicative of how the game has changed, and how the power dynamic between these two great rivals has transformed. If the Saints of 2020 get back on the field they can expect nothing short of a social media shit storm should they decide to kick for goal from a penalty while leading Wigan at home by 22 points with only a quarter of the game left. It suggested that there was still a part of the Saints psyche that wouldn’t allow itself to believe that the game was won against Wigan until the final hooter sounded. Every point still seemed crucial. It was that sort of insecurity which probably led Mann into deliberately interfering with an attempted quick play-the-ball which meant that he also saw yellow shortly after. For a time it was 11 v 11 with Skerrett showering and all of Nickle, Mann and Platt in the sin-bin.
McCracken should have added to Saints lead but couldn’t chase down his own kick after an errant Wigan pass had gifted him an opportunity. He was probably still seeing fairies and stars after the hit from Skerrett. Loughlin hit the post with another attempt at goal before we saw the next points of the afternoon. When they came they were worth the wait. It was undoubtedly the aesthetic highlight of the game. Hunte was found in space on the left touchline where he broke and then attempted an audacious chip and chase. The bounce of the ball beat him but it was scooped up by Veivers, on as a 61st minute replacement for Ropati. The Australian fullback found the newly returned Nickle in support, and he trekked right across the width of the Knowsley Road pitch before strolling over in the right hand corner. Again the conversion failed but Wigan were now officially on the end of a hammering at 34-6.
When O’Donnell added a drop-goal to push it out to 35-6 even the most paranoid Saints fan could breath easily, the most optimistic Wigan fan already ordering his first pint at the Black Bull or the Bird I’th Hand. Yet Saints weren’t finished. Nickle was quite a sight in full flow back then. A more slight, speedier presence than the player who returned after a spell with Bradford Bulls. He used that speed to great effect to set up Saints’ final try of the night, hurtling through a gap and charging down the right hand touchline. He was eventually stopped, but some trademark ball skills from Cooper drew in several Wigan defenders and with a flick of the wrist Cooper found his compatriot Ropati who walked in untouched. Loughlin’s sixth goal of the day completed an eye-popping 41-6 win.
We know the rest of the story. Saints would only lose twice more in the league that campaign, at Widnes and Hull FC. Yet that 8-8 draw on Good Friday at Central Park - which saw Ward suffer the leg break which would end his career - also did for Saints title hopes. Wigan recovered sufficiently from their Knowsley Road towelling, albeit slowly. Nine days after their visit to St Helens Monie’s side lost 11-4 at home to Warrington. Further defeats in the run-in at Bradford and Castleford meant that the Easter meeting was effectively a winner takes all clash. Like a boxer defending his belt the draw was just about enough to see Wigan through to the fourth of those seven successive titles.
The tide would turn towards Saints as professionalism emerged. They would have their time with a new set of stars. Bobbie Goulding - formerly of Wigan - Paul Newlove, Scott Gibbs and a bright young thing named Keiron Cunningham joined the likes of Joynt and Hunte in Shaun McRae’s inaugural Super League champion side of 1996. Yet for many December 27 1992 is the date when the fear factor attached to facing Wigan started to subside.
Although that trophy haul demonstrates their dominance of the era immediately prior to Super League there were times when it didn’t go all their own way. When a bounce of the ball here, a refereeing decision there, could have brought the streak of league titles to a shuddering halt. In two consecutive seasons - 1992-93 and 1993-94 - Wigan won the title only by virtue of a superior points difference over the campaign. In the latter of those two seasons there were not one but two other sides involved in the tie-breaker. Both Warrington and Bradford Northern matched Wigan’s 46 points from 23 wins and seven losses in 30 outings.
It is to the first of those two seasons with photo-finish endings that we go to remember one of the great Saints performances in a derby, or indeed any other fixture. Wigan came to Knowsley Road on December 27 1992 with only one league defeat blotting their record. That came in what these days would be known as Round 2 when they lost 14-13 in a game notable for the fact that Martin Offiah kicked a rare drop-goal. Saints by contrast had lost three times, so needed a win in this one to prevent their local rivals opening up an eight-point advantage over them. That kind of deficit would have seemed insurmountable even with half of the season still to play.
The teams had met once already that season, a bruising Lancashire Cup final encounter at Knowsley Road in October. That game had been so tight that no tries were scored by either side. The result was still familiar even if the methods were not, Wigan winning 5-4 thanks to Frano Botica’s drop-goal. Botica was one of nine Wigan players from the starting line-up that day to start the festive league encounter. Phil Clarke had missed the cup final but returned here allowing Dean Bell to revert back to the centres in place of Joe Lydon. Andy Platt moved from prop to second row to make room for Neil Cowie as Billy McGinty dropped to the bench. Sam Panapa started on the wing in place of Jason Robinson who was only a substitute.
Saints returned the same number to their side. Phil Veivers was relegated to the bench as David Lyon came in at fullback, while Paul Loughlin’s return to the fold meant Aussie import Jarrod McCracken moved to the wing. With Anthony Sullivan out Alan Hunte switched wings. Jonathan Griffiths was also absent leaving Saints with an all-Kiwi halfback partnership of Tea Ropati and Shane Cooper. Chris Joynt moved to Cooper’s regular loose forward spot so George Mann partnered Sonny Nickle in the second row. Kevin Ward, - one of the chief protagonists of the story of the Good Friday meeting which ultimately decided the destiny of the title - was not available so Jon Neill and John Harrison started at prop.
Optimism did not often endure when it came to derby matches during Wigan’s glory days. You’d approach the game thinking that if every Saints player played to the best of his ability, if every risky offload stuck, and if two or three of Wigan’s key players had an off day we had a chance. The trouble was that this Wigan side had more keys than Elton John’s piano. If Offiah didn’t get you with his Spaceballs ‘are you nuts?’ speed then Shaun Edwards, Botica, Clarke, Bell, Steve Hampson or Platt - with all of their varied weapons and talents (yes Clarke had talents in those days) - would. They had internationals all over the field and a couple on the bench in McGinty and Robinson. So there was a sense of foreboding as early as the fourth minute when Offiah turned up on the right edge to put Botica over in the right hand corner. Botica was fairly automatic when it came to goal kicking so barely an eyebrow was raised when he slotted over the conversion from out wide to give Wigan a 6-0 advantage. It was the last time the scoreboard operators would need to bother with the Wigan side of the ledger that day.
Had Botica been wearing the red vee rather than Wigan’s blue and white hoops the final score line could have been uglier for the visitors. Saints missed a plethora of goal kicking opportunities, the first of which came on seven minutes and was spurned by Lyon. The responsibility would be handed back to Loughlin for the rest of the afternoon and although he was just as wayward at times he would get plenty of opportunities. The first of those arrived on 11 minutes. After building their way back into the game with a good spell of possession Saints broke through. Cooper found Hunte on the left hand touchline and the then 22-year-old squeezed in at the corner. Loughlin was unsuccessful with the extras but Saints were back in the game at 6-4.
It was at this point that one of Wigan’s biggest weapons (which works on at least a couple of levels) left proceedings. As Saints prepared to restart the game the frustrated figure of Offiah could be seen being led away for further examination on what seemed to be an injury of some sort. For all his brilliance Offiah was not the most robust of rugby league players. His ability to evade being tackled served him as well for his own protection as it did for rattling multiples of four on to the scoreboard. He was replaced by Robinson. History dictates that Robinson is just about as good a replacement winger as it was possible to introduce. Yet at the time Robinson was still a fairly raw 18-year-old playing in his first season in the first division after arriving at Wigan from Hunslet. He would have much, much better days than this.
Saints were beginning to establish their supremacy on the game. Just before the 20 minute mark one of rugby league’s long forgotten relics created an opportunity to extend the lead. This was a time when it was perfectly legal to tap the ball to yourself at the play-the-ball. Sonny Nickle did exactly that to go over by the posts after a dazzling move earlier in the set involving Mann, Cooper and Joynt. Loughlin was more accurate with the extras this time and Saints were 10-6 up.
It was only two minutes later that the scoreboard and as a consequence the game itself started to get away from Wigan. Lyon stormed through on a sizzling break and when the ball eventually found its way to Hunte he finished it superbly. In doing so he absorbed a hit from Clarke that was later than a government lockdown. The kind of challenge that were Blackrod’s finest to witness it now in his role as a Sky Sports summariser he would no doubt emit one of his unloved piercing shrieks before calling for the culprit to be sent for an early wash. The game was different then, however, not least because games were not covered by live TV very often and therefore not subject to the musings of a trolling controversy hound. The worst that happened to Clarke was that Loughlin tagged on two more points and Saints led 16-6.
Joynt was next to cross for Saints as proceedings took us ever closer to Dreamland. Bernard Dwyer was the provider and when Loughlin was on target with the conversion and a penalty just before half-time Saints headed to the break with a barely credible 24-6 lead. Yet still we wondered. Even as Ropati was scything through the Wigan defence to set up the position for Dwyer to put Joynt over you were not a proper, seasoned Saints fan if you were not thinking about how much better Wigan were going to be in the second half. How they would romp back into the game and snatch it away, probably via some heinous act of skullduggery and shithousery.
Except they didn’t. To our absolute delight John Monie’s side were just as bad after the oranges. Monie would later remark that he didn’t have a good player on the field which was some statement. He had several good players and some greats. Yet they were made to look average by a Saints side for whom everything was working. There was one surreal moment when Gary Connolly was forced into a rash kick from dummy half on the last tackle. Connolly was to kicking what Priti Patel is to the oration of six-figure numbers, but his effort nevertheless pulled up inches short of the dead ball line forcing his future employers to have to run it back into the field of play. It was that sort of day.
Gus O’Donnell had been at Wigan for four years before switching to Saints earlier in the year. He was introduced at the start of the second half in place of Neill. This forced a bit of reshuffling, with Mann slotting back into his preferred prop role from the back row, Joynt moving into the spot vacated by Mann alongside Nickle and Cooper reverting to loose forward. That allowed O’Donnell to partner Ropati in the halves and within two minutes he had made his mark. His grubber bounced into the Wigan in-goal area where it was missed by Connolly but pounced upon by Lyon. Loughlin fluffed his attempt at two more points but at 28-6 those half-time doubts were diminishing.
If there was ever any doubt about who was going to win this game it evaporated three minutes later. McCracken embarked on a typically strong run, the type which regards self preservation low on the list of priorities, whereupon he was met with some of that Wigan skullduggery and shithousery. Kelvin Skerrett hit McCracken in the head with a shoulder, dropping the Kiwi centre to the floor like Boris Johnson dropping a pregnant mistress. Or the idea of herd immunity. There was no surprise in Skerrett’s actions. He had something of a reputation. I met him in a long forgotten St Helens drinking establishment once and we recalled the incident - and a subsequent one in which he jumped over a pile of bodies to get involved in a fight with some Featherstone players - with great amusement. He couldn’t explain his actions on either occasion and didn’t seem to feel the need to. It just was what it was. Skerretts gonna Skerrett.
His dismissal was the final nail in the Wigan coffin on the day. For a while after all they wanted to do was fight and spoil. Any thoughts of playing their way back into the game had drifted away. Within two minutes there was another confrontation, the upshot of which was that Nickle and Platt were ordered to sit down and cool off for 10 minutes by referee Robin Whitfield. Platt had played 185 times for Saints before moving to Wigan in 1988. He had shed tears on the Wembley turf in 1987 when two disallowed Mark Elia tries denied Saints victory and had all of Halifax (and probably Wigan) in rapture. I couldn’t hear what was said to Platt as he and Nickle trudged off for their enforced rest, but it was unlikely that many of the fans on that side of the ground were asking after his health.
Loughlin slotted another penalty five minutes later and Saints led 30-6. In many ways the decision to kick for goal there was indicative of how the game has changed, and how the power dynamic between these two great rivals has transformed. If the Saints of 2020 get back on the field they can expect nothing short of a social media shit storm should they decide to kick for goal from a penalty while leading Wigan at home by 22 points with only a quarter of the game left. It suggested that there was still a part of the Saints psyche that wouldn’t allow itself to believe that the game was won against Wigan until the final hooter sounded. Every point still seemed crucial. It was that sort of insecurity which probably led Mann into deliberately interfering with an attempted quick play-the-ball which meant that he also saw yellow shortly after. For a time it was 11 v 11 with Skerrett showering and all of Nickle, Mann and Platt in the sin-bin.
McCracken should have added to Saints lead but couldn’t chase down his own kick after an errant Wigan pass had gifted him an opportunity. He was probably still seeing fairies and stars after the hit from Skerrett. Loughlin hit the post with another attempt at goal before we saw the next points of the afternoon. When they came they were worth the wait. It was undoubtedly the aesthetic highlight of the game. Hunte was found in space on the left touchline where he broke and then attempted an audacious chip and chase. The bounce of the ball beat him but it was scooped up by Veivers, on as a 61st minute replacement for Ropati. The Australian fullback found the newly returned Nickle in support, and he trekked right across the width of the Knowsley Road pitch before strolling over in the right hand corner. Again the conversion failed but Wigan were now officially on the end of a hammering at 34-6.
When O’Donnell added a drop-goal to push it out to 35-6 even the most paranoid Saints fan could breath easily, the most optimistic Wigan fan already ordering his first pint at the Black Bull or the Bird I’th Hand. Yet Saints weren’t finished. Nickle was quite a sight in full flow back then. A more slight, speedier presence than the player who returned after a spell with Bradford Bulls. He used that speed to great effect to set up Saints’ final try of the night, hurtling through a gap and charging down the right hand touchline. He was eventually stopped, but some trademark ball skills from Cooper drew in several Wigan defenders and with a flick of the wrist Cooper found his compatriot Ropati who walked in untouched. Loughlin’s sixth goal of the day completed an eye-popping 41-6 win.
We know the rest of the story. Saints would only lose twice more in the league that campaign, at Widnes and Hull FC. Yet that 8-8 draw on Good Friday at Central Park - which saw Ward suffer the leg break which would end his career - also did for Saints title hopes. Wigan recovered sufficiently from their Knowsley Road towelling, albeit slowly. Nine days after their visit to St Helens Monie’s side lost 11-4 at home to Warrington. Further defeats in the run-in at Bradford and Castleford meant that the Easter meeting was effectively a winner takes all clash. Like a boxer defending his belt the draw was just about enough to see Wigan through to the fourth of those seven successive titles.
The tide would turn towards Saints as professionalism emerged. They would have their time with a new set of stars. Bobbie Goulding - formerly of Wigan - Paul Newlove, Scott Gibbs and a bright young thing named Keiron Cunningham joined the likes of Joynt and Hunte in Shaun McRae’s inaugural Super League champion side of 1996. Yet for many December 27 1992 is the date when the fear factor attached to facing Wigan started to subside.
RFL 125 Years - Greatest Ever Team
The Rugby Football League is 125 years old in 2020. Cynics might suggest that it is the most rugby league thing in the world to be celebrating this milestone at a time when the game has been hit by an unprecedented suspension, but it really is just bad luck. While we fans feed off the scraps offered to us in the form of nostalgic re-runs of classic matches, the RFL have sparked some much needed debate by staging a poll to find the greatest team of that 125-year history.
They have somehow narrowed it down to five which I will get to in a minute. First of all let’s get a few honourable mentions out of the way. Those that didn’t make the cut. Everyone will have their own ideas on which is the greatest team since the 1895 formation of the northern union and your preference will no doubt be influenced by your date of birth and how long you have been watching the game. None of the five shortlisted sides pre-date Sky Sports’ coverage of the game which began in 1990 which tells you either that the people behind this are targeting a younger audience or that they have taken the view that even the best of the semi-professional sides could not live with those who have prospered in the full-time era since 1996.
When I was growing up there seemed to be an endless stream of great Wigan sides. Stars like Ellery Hanley, Andy Gregory and Shaun Edwards enjoyed stellar careers and have overflowing medal collections. Any one of their sides from 1988-1995 could have made the cut. This was a period during which they won a ludicrous eight consecutive Challenge Cup finals at Wembley. Yes they had a competitive advantage as the only fully professional outfit for part of that time, but they nevertheless played some scintillating rugby. The mere sight of the cherry and white hooped shirt could give this impressionable youngster a sickening, sinking feeling before a ball was kicked. Success in those days was winning the odd derby or a John Player Trophy or Lancashire Cup, such was their grip on the first division title and the Challenge Cup.
That is until Widnes came along. It seems a world away now as they toil away in the Championship but the pre-Vikings Chemics were a formidable force in the late 80s and early 90s. Jonathan Davies’ high profile switch from rugby union was a roaring success along with that of John Devereux and the slightly less heralded Alan Tait. Yet their main weapon was the outlandish pace of Martin Offiah. Before he smelled the money on offer from Wigan Offiah scored 181 tries in 145 appearances for Widnes as they won back-to-back titles in 1987-88 and 1988-89. They then added the World title in 1989 when they beat Canberra Raiders on a memorable night at Old Trafford.
What about Hull KR? Back-to-back title winners in 1983-84 and 1984-85 and the first team to complete the league championship and Premiership double. Or the Leeds side of the late 1960s and early 1970s that won two titles in three years? Wakefield Trinity won two in a row just prior to that in 1966-67 and 1967-68. Any one of Ian Millward’s Saints sides between 2000-2005 could have been included if we are judging this on aesthetic pleasure and star power. For me it is only right to judge it on trophy haul, and although Millward picked up two Super League titles and two Challenge Cups it is hard to argue that any of them did quite enough to make the list. I will say though that the 1996 double-winners under Shaun McRae, featuring Paul Newlove, Bobby Goulding and Scott Gibbs are unfortunate not to make it.
The only one of the sides I have mentioned to make it into the final five is, perhaps predictably, a Wigan side. Specifically their 1994 vintage, which won the title only on points difference from both Bradford Northern and Warrington. The latter could by then count Davies among their ranks. But neither could quite edge Wigan who picked up the seventh of their eight straight Challenge Cup wins with a 26-16 win over Leeds at Wembley. That game featured a barely believable 90-metre glide to the line by the imperious Offiah who dropped to his knees in an iconic yet at the time vomit-inducing celebration which is now captured in statue form at the new Wembley.
All very impressive, yet I suspect it is Wigan’s World Club Challenge win over Brisbane Broncos in the Australian side’s back yard that has sealed their inclusion in this list. A side containing Offiah, Edwards, Jason Robinson, Gary Connolly, Andy Farrell and Sky Sports fashion criminal Phil Clarke went to ANZ Stadium and won 20-14. They did so despite the absence of first choice prop forwards Andy Platt and Kelvin Skerrett. They faced down a Broncos team featuring greats of the game like Steve Renouf, Allan Langer, the Walters brothers Kevin and Kerrod and a pacy, powerful winger just a month shy of his 20th birthday by the name of Wendell Sailor.
English club teams had beaten Australian opposition before. As well as Widnes’ 1989 triumph Wigan had themselves won it twice before, beating Manly in 1987 and Penrith in 1991, but nobody had done it on Australian soil. And they haven’t since. The side coached by former captain Graeme West following the sudden sacking of John Dorahy added another first when they became the first rugby league team to be named BBC Sports Review Of The Year Team Of The Year.
Jumping forward nine years to the next on the list and another team that would go on to be crowned World Champions, the 2003 Bradford Bulls. The switch to summer by then meant that they had to wait until early 2004 to take that title and add it to the Grand Final and Challenge Cup double they had already pocketed. The club had reinvented itself with the advent of Super League and summer rugby and had already won Super League titles in 1997 and 2001. Yet they entered 2003 on the back of some painful memories, beaten by Sean Long’s last-gasp drop-goal in the 2002 Grand Final. Having lost to Saints at Wembley in the Challenge Cup finals of both 1996 and 1997 they were thoroughly sick of the sight of them.
Even Saints couldn’t halt the Bulls in 2003. Brian Noble’s side won the league by three points from Leeds Rhinos and also scored a 22-20 Challenge Cup final win over Daryl Powell’s side under the roof at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. However, the league itself was not enough by 2003 thanks to the 1998 introduction of the Grand Final. A Bulls side featuring Lesley Vainikolo, James Lowes, Stuart Fielden and Jamie Peacock with Robbie Paul and Leon Pryce among the reinforcements off the bench beat Wigan 25-12 in the end of season showpiece.
Four months later they were too strong for Penrith Panthers, winning 22-4 at Huddersfield. Tries from Vainikolo and Pryce as well as prop turned actor Rob Parker and New Zealand international Logan Swann were more than enough to see off John Lang’s Panthers who could only respond through Luke Priddis’ solitary effort. Following that the Bulls were holders of the League Leaders Shield, the Challenge Cup, the Super League Grand Final trophy and the World Club Challenge title all at the same time. You don’t get many of those for a pound.
The time-hop isn’t quite as big for our next contender. Saints now enter the conversation with their own all-conquering side. They too would hold the same four titles as the 2003-04 Bulls had by the early part of 2007 thanks to victory over Brisbane Broncos after a dominant 2006 domestic season.
Coached by Daniel Anderson after the shock and fairly controversial departure of Millward a year previously, Saints were unstoppable in 2006. They topped the league by eight points, suffering only four league defeats from 28 regular season games before seeing off Hull FC in the Grand Final 28-8. There appeared to be no weakness anywhere in this Saints side which contained future legends of the game such as Paul Wellens, Sean Long, Kieron Cunningham and the genius of Jamie Lyon. A young James Graham came off the bench. Paul Sculthorpe missed the game through injury but was another all-time great that Anderson could call upon during the year. So star-studded and consistently brilliant was this Saints side that it joined Wigan’s 1994 team as only the second rugby league side to win the BBC Sports Review Of The Year Team Of The Year award.
Lyon had been replaced by Matthew Gidley by the time Saints faced the Broncos in early 2007 at Bolton’s Reebok Stadium. Gidley’s impact is often understated. Replacing Lyon was arguably an impossible job but Gidley made a reasonable fist of it with 48 tries in 123 appearances and two Challenge Cup winners medals in 2007 and 2008. On this night he was a provider, setting up Ade Gardner’s first try before the ex-Barrow winger soared into the Lancashire night sky to claim his second to secure Saints’ 18-14 win and cement their place among the greatest teams of all-time.
The year 2015 is not one fondly remembered by Saints fans but it is there we go next. Keiron Cunningham was in the first year of what turned out to be a disappointing spell as head coach at what was then called Langtree Park. Saints were the defending champions after their 14-6 Grand Final win over Wigan in 2014. Yet by the end of the following season the power had shifted east of the Pennines as Leeds Rhinos joined the exclusive club of treble winning sides.
Brian McDermott had been a key figure in the Bradford Bulls front row a decade earlier. Cutting his coaching teeth in the capital with Harlequins RL he switched back up north to Leeds in 2011. Grand Final success followed in 2012, the Rhinos’ fifth title in six seasons. Yet the best of Leeds’ Grand Final winning sides emerged in 2015 under McDermott’s stewardship. He implemented a fast, off-loading style of attacking rugby which perfectly suited the personnel at his disposal. A back five of Zak Hardaker, Tom Briscoe, Kallum Watkins, Joel Moon and Ryan Hall was as good as any in world rugby league at the time, but it was the influence of some ageing rugby league legends that set this team apart from their rivals. Danny McGuire, Kevin Sinfield, Rob Burrow and Peacock all had arguably the best seasons of their careers. The Rhinos only edged the league on points difference after the newly introduced Super 8s phase, but they racked up a record 50-0 score line in the Challenge Cup final win over Hull KR before settling the argument with Wigan by virtue of a 22-20 win. McGuire crossed for two tries to add to further efforts from Moon and Josh Walters.
The Rhinos could not add the world title to their trophy haul. They were comprehensively beaten 38-4 by North Queensland Cowboys at Headingley at the start of a 2016 season that would see them scrapping to avoid the drop to the Championship in the Middle 8s. Yet it would be unfair to accuse them of lacking longevity given that their 2015 success was their sixth in nine seasons. And by far the most impressive.
The last contender are the current champions. Saints entered 2019 with many raising doubts about their ability to get over the line in the very biggest games. Justin Holbrook’s first season in charge saw Saints storm the League Leaders Shield by 10 points, only to be upset in the play-off semi-final at home to Warrington. Speculation regarding the future of the outstanding Steve Prescott Man Of Steel Ben Barba was a distraction, but coming in the wake of a chastening 35-16 Challenge Cup semi-final defeat to Catalans Dragons it all added up to a fair degree of fear and loathing among the Saints faithful.
Barba did leave amid a hail of serious allegations of domestic abuse which ultimately scuppered the move to North Queensland Cowboys that he had already agreed. His replacement was former Cowboy Lachlan Coote, while Holbrook also added Fijian centre Kevin Naiqama from Wests Tigers. The results were spectacular. Saints lost only three of their 29 regular season games, two of which came at an eventually relegated London where Holbrook chose to field demonstrably weaker sides. The only question was whether this time they could negotiate the play-offs to reach and ultimately win the club’s seventh Super League crown.
They dismissed Wigan in the Qualifying Semi-Final with a ruthless display. Saints ran in seven tries against Adrian Lam’s men. Mark Percival grabbed a double and crossed again in the 23-6 Grand Final win over Salford. Ian Watson’s side has shocked everyone by reaching Old Trafford but were found out by the now undisputed champions who also scored through Morgan Knowles and Zeb Taia. There was quality throughout the side but it is perhaps their fearsome front three of Alex Walmsley, Luke Thompson and James Roby that had been the driving force. It is doubtful whether Saints have had a stronger front row at any point in their history.
Saints could not add either the Challenge Cup or the World Club Challenge. Defeat at Wembley to Warrington and a 20-8 loss to Sydney Roosters at the start of 2020 probably prevents this side getting the nod as the RFL’s greatest ever in 125 years. Yet with Holbrook having now left for the Gold Coast it is a side which ensures that he does leave a legacy from his two-year stint. He had improved the team immeasurably from the dark days of the end of Cunningham’s time in charge but he needed that Grand Final win to secure his place in Saints folklore.
So there’s your five contenders, spanning just 26 of the 125 years of rugby league in the UK. They all have their strengths, phenomenal achievements and a generous serving of star quality. Which one is your favourite?
They have somehow narrowed it down to five which I will get to in a minute. First of all let’s get a few honourable mentions out of the way. Those that didn’t make the cut. Everyone will have their own ideas on which is the greatest team since the 1895 formation of the northern union and your preference will no doubt be influenced by your date of birth and how long you have been watching the game. None of the five shortlisted sides pre-date Sky Sports’ coverage of the game which began in 1990 which tells you either that the people behind this are targeting a younger audience or that they have taken the view that even the best of the semi-professional sides could not live with those who have prospered in the full-time era since 1996.
When I was growing up there seemed to be an endless stream of great Wigan sides. Stars like Ellery Hanley, Andy Gregory and Shaun Edwards enjoyed stellar careers and have overflowing medal collections. Any one of their sides from 1988-1995 could have made the cut. This was a period during which they won a ludicrous eight consecutive Challenge Cup finals at Wembley. Yes they had a competitive advantage as the only fully professional outfit for part of that time, but they nevertheless played some scintillating rugby. The mere sight of the cherry and white hooped shirt could give this impressionable youngster a sickening, sinking feeling before a ball was kicked. Success in those days was winning the odd derby or a John Player Trophy or Lancashire Cup, such was their grip on the first division title and the Challenge Cup.
That is until Widnes came along. It seems a world away now as they toil away in the Championship but the pre-Vikings Chemics were a formidable force in the late 80s and early 90s. Jonathan Davies’ high profile switch from rugby union was a roaring success along with that of John Devereux and the slightly less heralded Alan Tait. Yet their main weapon was the outlandish pace of Martin Offiah. Before he smelled the money on offer from Wigan Offiah scored 181 tries in 145 appearances for Widnes as they won back-to-back titles in 1987-88 and 1988-89. They then added the World title in 1989 when they beat Canberra Raiders on a memorable night at Old Trafford.
What about Hull KR? Back-to-back title winners in 1983-84 and 1984-85 and the first team to complete the league championship and Premiership double. Or the Leeds side of the late 1960s and early 1970s that won two titles in three years? Wakefield Trinity won two in a row just prior to that in 1966-67 and 1967-68. Any one of Ian Millward’s Saints sides between 2000-2005 could have been included if we are judging this on aesthetic pleasure and star power. For me it is only right to judge it on trophy haul, and although Millward picked up two Super League titles and two Challenge Cups it is hard to argue that any of them did quite enough to make the list. I will say though that the 1996 double-winners under Shaun McRae, featuring Paul Newlove, Bobby Goulding and Scott Gibbs are unfortunate not to make it.
The only one of the sides I have mentioned to make it into the final five is, perhaps predictably, a Wigan side. Specifically their 1994 vintage, which won the title only on points difference from both Bradford Northern and Warrington. The latter could by then count Davies among their ranks. But neither could quite edge Wigan who picked up the seventh of their eight straight Challenge Cup wins with a 26-16 win over Leeds at Wembley. That game featured a barely believable 90-metre glide to the line by the imperious Offiah who dropped to his knees in an iconic yet at the time vomit-inducing celebration which is now captured in statue form at the new Wembley.
All very impressive, yet I suspect it is Wigan’s World Club Challenge win over Brisbane Broncos in the Australian side’s back yard that has sealed their inclusion in this list. A side containing Offiah, Edwards, Jason Robinson, Gary Connolly, Andy Farrell and Sky Sports fashion criminal Phil Clarke went to ANZ Stadium and won 20-14. They did so despite the absence of first choice prop forwards Andy Platt and Kelvin Skerrett. They faced down a Broncos team featuring greats of the game like Steve Renouf, Allan Langer, the Walters brothers Kevin and Kerrod and a pacy, powerful winger just a month shy of his 20th birthday by the name of Wendell Sailor.
English club teams had beaten Australian opposition before. As well as Widnes’ 1989 triumph Wigan had themselves won it twice before, beating Manly in 1987 and Penrith in 1991, but nobody had done it on Australian soil. And they haven’t since. The side coached by former captain Graeme West following the sudden sacking of John Dorahy added another first when they became the first rugby league team to be named BBC Sports Review Of The Year Team Of The Year.
Jumping forward nine years to the next on the list and another team that would go on to be crowned World Champions, the 2003 Bradford Bulls. The switch to summer by then meant that they had to wait until early 2004 to take that title and add it to the Grand Final and Challenge Cup double they had already pocketed. The club had reinvented itself with the advent of Super League and summer rugby and had already won Super League titles in 1997 and 2001. Yet they entered 2003 on the back of some painful memories, beaten by Sean Long’s last-gasp drop-goal in the 2002 Grand Final. Having lost to Saints at Wembley in the Challenge Cup finals of both 1996 and 1997 they were thoroughly sick of the sight of them.
Even Saints couldn’t halt the Bulls in 2003. Brian Noble’s side won the league by three points from Leeds Rhinos and also scored a 22-20 Challenge Cup final win over Daryl Powell’s side under the roof at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. However, the league itself was not enough by 2003 thanks to the 1998 introduction of the Grand Final. A Bulls side featuring Lesley Vainikolo, James Lowes, Stuart Fielden and Jamie Peacock with Robbie Paul and Leon Pryce among the reinforcements off the bench beat Wigan 25-12 in the end of season showpiece.
Four months later they were too strong for Penrith Panthers, winning 22-4 at Huddersfield. Tries from Vainikolo and Pryce as well as prop turned actor Rob Parker and New Zealand international Logan Swann were more than enough to see off John Lang’s Panthers who could only respond through Luke Priddis’ solitary effort. Following that the Bulls were holders of the League Leaders Shield, the Challenge Cup, the Super League Grand Final trophy and the World Club Challenge title all at the same time. You don’t get many of those for a pound.
The time-hop isn’t quite as big for our next contender. Saints now enter the conversation with their own all-conquering side. They too would hold the same four titles as the 2003-04 Bulls had by the early part of 2007 thanks to victory over Brisbane Broncos after a dominant 2006 domestic season.
Coached by Daniel Anderson after the shock and fairly controversial departure of Millward a year previously, Saints were unstoppable in 2006. They topped the league by eight points, suffering only four league defeats from 28 regular season games before seeing off Hull FC in the Grand Final 28-8. There appeared to be no weakness anywhere in this Saints side which contained future legends of the game such as Paul Wellens, Sean Long, Kieron Cunningham and the genius of Jamie Lyon. A young James Graham came off the bench. Paul Sculthorpe missed the game through injury but was another all-time great that Anderson could call upon during the year. So star-studded and consistently brilliant was this Saints side that it joined Wigan’s 1994 team as only the second rugby league side to win the BBC Sports Review Of The Year Team Of The Year award.
Lyon had been replaced by Matthew Gidley by the time Saints faced the Broncos in early 2007 at Bolton’s Reebok Stadium. Gidley’s impact is often understated. Replacing Lyon was arguably an impossible job but Gidley made a reasonable fist of it with 48 tries in 123 appearances and two Challenge Cup winners medals in 2007 and 2008. On this night he was a provider, setting up Ade Gardner’s first try before the ex-Barrow winger soared into the Lancashire night sky to claim his second to secure Saints’ 18-14 win and cement their place among the greatest teams of all-time.
The year 2015 is not one fondly remembered by Saints fans but it is there we go next. Keiron Cunningham was in the first year of what turned out to be a disappointing spell as head coach at what was then called Langtree Park. Saints were the defending champions after their 14-6 Grand Final win over Wigan in 2014. Yet by the end of the following season the power had shifted east of the Pennines as Leeds Rhinos joined the exclusive club of treble winning sides.
Brian McDermott had been a key figure in the Bradford Bulls front row a decade earlier. Cutting his coaching teeth in the capital with Harlequins RL he switched back up north to Leeds in 2011. Grand Final success followed in 2012, the Rhinos’ fifth title in six seasons. Yet the best of Leeds’ Grand Final winning sides emerged in 2015 under McDermott’s stewardship. He implemented a fast, off-loading style of attacking rugby which perfectly suited the personnel at his disposal. A back five of Zak Hardaker, Tom Briscoe, Kallum Watkins, Joel Moon and Ryan Hall was as good as any in world rugby league at the time, but it was the influence of some ageing rugby league legends that set this team apart from their rivals. Danny McGuire, Kevin Sinfield, Rob Burrow and Peacock all had arguably the best seasons of their careers. The Rhinos only edged the league on points difference after the newly introduced Super 8s phase, but they racked up a record 50-0 score line in the Challenge Cup final win over Hull KR before settling the argument with Wigan by virtue of a 22-20 win. McGuire crossed for two tries to add to further efforts from Moon and Josh Walters.
The Rhinos could not add the world title to their trophy haul. They were comprehensively beaten 38-4 by North Queensland Cowboys at Headingley at the start of a 2016 season that would see them scrapping to avoid the drop to the Championship in the Middle 8s. Yet it would be unfair to accuse them of lacking longevity given that their 2015 success was their sixth in nine seasons. And by far the most impressive.
The last contender are the current champions. Saints entered 2019 with many raising doubts about their ability to get over the line in the very biggest games. Justin Holbrook’s first season in charge saw Saints storm the League Leaders Shield by 10 points, only to be upset in the play-off semi-final at home to Warrington. Speculation regarding the future of the outstanding Steve Prescott Man Of Steel Ben Barba was a distraction, but coming in the wake of a chastening 35-16 Challenge Cup semi-final defeat to Catalans Dragons it all added up to a fair degree of fear and loathing among the Saints faithful.
Barba did leave amid a hail of serious allegations of domestic abuse which ultimately scuppered the move to North Queensland Cowboys that he had already agreed. His replacement was former Cowboy Lachlan Coote, while Holbrook also added Fijian centre Kevin Naiqama from Wests Tigers. The results were spectacular. Saints lost only three of their 29 regular season games, two of which came at an eventually relegated London where Holbrook chose to field demonstrably weaker sides. The only question was whether this time they could negotiate the play-offs to reach and ultimately win the club’s seventh Super League crown.
They dismissed Wigan in the Qualifying Semi-Final with a ruthless display. Saints ran in seven tries against Adrian Lam’s men. Mark Percival grabbed a double and crossed again in the 23-6 Grand Final win over Salford. Ian Watson’s side has shocked everyone by reaching Old Trafford but were found out by the now undisputed champions who also scored through Morgan Knowles and Zeb Taia. There was quality throughout the side but it is perhaps their fearsome front three of Alex Walmsley, Luke Thompson and James Roby that had been the driving force. It is doubtful whether Saints have had a stronger front row at any point in their history.
Saints could not add either the Challenge Cup or the World Club Challenge. Defeat at Wembley to Warrington and a 20-8 loss to Sydney Roosters at the start of 2020 probably prevents this side getting the nod as the RFL’s greatest ever in 125 years. Yet with Holbrook having now left for the Gold Coast it is a side which ensures that he does leave a legacy from his two-year stint. He had improved the team immeasurably from the dark days of the end of Cunningham’s time in charge but he needed that Grand Final win to secure his place in Saints folklore.
So there’s your five contenders, spanning just 26 of the 125 years of rugby league in the UK. They all have their strengths, phenomenal achievements and a generous serving of star quality. Which one is your favourite?
Challenge Cup Memories - Demolition Derby
The Challenge Cup quarter-finals were scheduled for this weekend. They’re not going to happen and we don’t know when we are going to see any live rugby league at all. This is a big deal. A constant source of disappointment and anxiety in uncertain times. When people - usually medical experts on Twitter - tell me there are more important things in life than rugby league it’s hard to argue. To those people I say ‘when are there not more important things in life than rugby league’? It was ever thus, long before Covid-19 rode roughshod over our way of life.
Whatever else is going on in the world - maybe even because of the grave events of the last few weeks and their effect on the mental and physical health of all of us - we need an outlet. Something to cheer us up. That’s the beauty of sport and rugby league. Even when it is suspended indefinitely it has a rich history that we can turn to. To that end, does anybody remember when Wigan were utter shite? I don’t mean just Tony Clubb or Sam Powell shite. I mean unrelentingly, embarrassingly dismal.
Let me jog your memory. It’s June 26 2005. Saints have reached the quarter-finals of the Challenge Cup where they have been drawn at home to Wigan. Saints, led by Daniel Anderson following Ian Millward’s controversial sacking, are holders of the trophy having beaten Wigan 32-10 in the previous year’s final at Cardiff. On that occasion my cousin Alex and I deliberately missed the mini-bus back to St Helens in favour of a night out in the Welsh capital. If you were on that mini-bus and wasted valuable time waiting for us to come back, or if you were worried about our well being I apologise. What can I tell you? We were drunk.
Wigan were pretty average in 2005 and would get worse in 2006. The appointment of Millward following his sudden Saints exit had done little to turn around their fortunes. They escaped relegation from Super League in 2006 by only three points and some creative recruitment and accounting. Bradford and Great Britain forward Stuart Fielden arrived 18 matches in to the campaign with the Warriors rooted to the bottom of the table. We had already been asked to believe that Kris Radlinski, who had come out of retirement to help drag his side out of the mire, had done so for nothing but the love of the club. Whatever the truth of that, Wigan were docked four points for salary cap breaches relating to the 2006 season at a hearing in July of 2007. Having beaten the drop they probably reasoned that it was worth the hit. Saints and Bradford also incurred fines for breaches of the cap in 2006. It was all the rage back then.
Back to 2005. Wigan weren’t very good, but they were one of only three teams who had managed to beat Saints in all competitions leading in to their quarter-final meeting at Knowsley Road. Saints had lost at Leeds and been thrashed 44-6 at Hull FC, but it was perhaps the 22-20 defeat by Wigan at what was the JJB Stadium which hurt the most. Saints out scored their hosts four tries to three but the superior goal kicking of Danny Tickle proved the difference on a rare Good Friday evening kick-off between these two. By the time they met again Millward was in the Wigan dugout and his new club were on their way to missing the the top six playoffs by virtue of their hopeless points difference. The Challenge Cup was their last realistic hope of success.
The mind plays tricks. In researching this piece I was startled to find that Sean Long did not play in this game. The then 28-year-old had featured in the previous week’s 28-28 draw with London Broncos but did not play again until the end of July due to a broken wrist. Jon Wilkin is a man whose selection in the halfback role in later years under Kieron Cunningham caused grown men to have the kind of tantrums normally reserved for toddlers in the sweets and snacks aisle. He nevertheless formed a midfield pairing with Jason Hooper on this day, although the latter would be forced off with a dislocated shoulder in the first half. Hooper was an under-rated presence for Saints not known for his creativity. He spent much of his time as a destroyer at loose forward once Anderson brought Leon Pryce in from Bradford Bulls to partner Long.
Wilkin turned out to be good enough and then some. It was a tight first 20 minutes. Only Lee Gilmour’s converted try separated the two sides until the first quarter of the game drew to a close. At that point Terry Newton had his pass snaffled out of the air by Vinnie Anderson who raced half the length of the field to score under the posts. A few minutes later Nick Fozzard smashed his questionable forearm protector into the grill of three weak Wigan tackles to add Saints third try. Hooper left a parting gift as he crashed over after great work by Cunningham and Paul Sculthorpe and when the two-time Man Of Steel sent Willie Talau over on Saints left edge the match was pretty much over. Sculthorpe had time to add a drop-goal before half-time, that after Anderson had broken clear up the middle to put Paul Wellens in for Saints sixth try of what must have been a mortifying afternoon for Millward.
The second half wasn’t any kinder to the man who had won two Grand Finals and two Challenge Cups at Saints. Fozzard was involved again as the ball was switched right to Jamie Lyon who bamboozled the Wigan defence with his body swerve and footwork. The centre had support on his inside and the ball eventually found it’s way to Mark Edmondson via Sculthorpe for the first of one of the most unlikely hat-tricks in modern times. Edmondson scored 16 tries in 119 appearances for Saints before brief stints with Sydney Roosters and Salford. He managed three in less than half an hour here.
Fozzard’s try-scoring record is equally underwhelming. The prop managed just nine in 125 Saints appearances but he got two of them in this demolition derby. He took Sculthorpe’s pass to crash over before Lyon got in on the act. He swooped on Dennis Moran’s errant pass and scorched away untouched as Saints hit the half century. There were still 17 minutes left when Edmondson bagged his second after good work down the left channel by Anderson and Sculthorpe. Not long after Wilkin skipped around a bedraggled Wigan defence to find Edmondson on his inside to complete his hat-trick and take Saints through the 60-point barrier.
As shambolic as Wigan were on the day this was surreal. And Anderson’s side wasn’t done yet. Next to score was Ade Gardner. Playing on the left wing rather than the right wing he would become more familiar with, the ex-Barrow man dribbled through the Warriors edge defenders like Ryan Giggs toying with a group of under 10s at a summer soccer school. The last word went to a 19-year-old substitute prop by the name of James Graham. He darted over in the left corner after James Roby’s strong half-break had sent Mike Bennett on a marauding run downfield. The extras made the final score line a whopping 75-0 and left Saints one step from another final appearance.
Saints would go on to routinely win the League Leaders Shield but it all fell apart in the Challenge Cup and the Super League playoffs. Long suffered a season ending injury in a 38-12 win at Wigan just before the end of the regular campaign. Saints couldn’t repeat their heroics without him and slipped to playoff defeats to Bradford Bulls and Leeds Rhinos who would both go on to contest the Grand Final. The 34-8 Challenge Cup semi-final loss to Hull FC at Huddersfield was a much greater shock. The Airlie Birds lifted the cup with a thrilling final victory over Leeds.
Saints would win it all in 2006. The League Leaders Shield, the Super League Grand Final and the Challenge Cup and the BBC’s Sports Review Of The Year Team Of The Year Award. Possibly even Big Brother and one of Dale Winton’s National Lottery game shows. It is thought by many that the 2006 side is one of Saints best ever and certainly one of the best to be found anywhere in the Super League era. Yet it’s doubtful that they ever produced a performance as powerful and ruthless as the 2005 drubbing of Ian Millward’s Wigan.
There. Wasn’t that more fun than the news?
Whatever else is going on in the world - maybe even because of the grave events of the last few weeks and their effect on the mental and physical health of all of us - we need an outlet. Something to cheer us up. That’s the beauty of sport and rugby league. Even when it is suspended indefinitely it has a rich history that we can turn to. To that end, does anybody remember when Wigan were utter shite? I don’t mean just Tony Clubb or Sam Powell shite. I mean unrelentingly, embarrassingly dismal.
Let me jog your memory. It’s June 26 2005. Saints have reached the quarter-finals of the Challenge Cup where they have been drawn at home to Wigan. Saints, led by Daniel Anderson following Ian Millward’s controversial sacking, are holders of the trophy having beaten Wigan 32-10 in the previous year’s final at Cardiff. On that occasion my cousin Alex and I deliberately missed the mini-bus back to St Helens in favour of a night out in the Welsh capital. If you were on that mini-bus and wasted valuable time waiting for us to come back, or if you were worried about our well being I apologise. What can I tell you? We were drunk.
Wigan were pretty average in 2005 and would get worse in 2006. The appointment of Millward following his sudden Saints exit had done little to turn around their fortunes. They escaped relegation from Super League in 2006 by only three points and some creative recruitment and accounting. Bradford and Great Britain forward Stuart Fielden arrived 18 matches in to the campaign with the Warriors rooted to the bottom of the table. We had already been asked to believe that Kris Radlinski, who had come out of retirement to help drag his side out of the mire, had done so for nothing but the love of the club. Whatever the truth of that, Wigan were docked four points for salary cap breaches relating to the 2006 season at a hearing in July of 2007. Having beaten the drop they probably reasoned that it was worth the hit. Saints and Bradford also incurred fines for breaches of the cap in 2006. It was all the rage back then.
Back to 2005. Wigan weren’t very good, but they were one of only three teams who had managed to beat Saints in all competitions leading in to their quarter-final meeting at Knowsley Road. Saints had lost at Leeds and been thrashed 44-6 at Hull FC, but it was perhaps the 22-20 defeat by Wigan at what was the JJB Stadium which hurt the most. Saints out scored their hosts four tries to three but the superior goal kicking of Danny Tickle proved the difference on a rare Good Friday evening kick-off between these two. By the time they met again Millward was in the Wigan dugout and his new club were on their way to missing the the top six playoffs by virtue of their hopeless points difference. The Challenge Cup was their last realistic hope of success.
The mind plays tricks. In researching this piece I was startled to find that Sean Long did not play in this game. The then 28-year-old had featured in the previous week’s 28-28 draw with London Broncos but did not play again until the end of July due to a broken wrist. Jon Wilkin is a man whose selection in the halfback role in later years under Kieron Cunningham caused grown men to have the kind of tantrums normally reserved for toddlers in the sweets and snacks aisle. He nevertheless formed a midfield pairing with Jason Hooper on this day, although the latter would be forced off with a dislocated shoulder in the first half. Hooper was an under-rated presence for Saints not known for his creativity. He spent much of his time as a destroyer at loose forward once Anderson brought Leon Pryce in from Bradford Bulls to partner Long.
Wilkin turned out to be good enough and then some. It was a tight first 20 minutes. Only Lee Gilmour’s converted try separated the two sides until the first quarter of the game drew to a close. At that point Terry Newton had his pass snaffled out of the air by Vinnie Anderson who raced half the length of the field to score under the posts. A few minutes later Nick Fozzard smashed his questionable forearm protector into the grill of three weak Wigan tackles to add Saints third try. Hooper left a parting gift as he crashed over after great work by Cunningham and Paul Sculthorpe and when the two-time Man Of Steel sent Willie Talau over on Saints left edge the match was pretty much over. Sculthorpe had time to add a drop-goal before half-time, that after Anderson had broken clear up the middle to put Paul Wellens in for Saints sixth try of what must have been a mortifying afternoon for Millward.
The second half wasn’t any kinder to the man who had won two Grand Finals and two Challenge Cups at Saints. Fozzard was involved again as the ball was switched right to Jamie Lyon who bamboozled the Wigan defence with his body swerve and footwork. The centre had support on his inside and the ball eventually found it’s way to Mark Edmondson via Sculthorpe for the first of one of the most unlikely hat-tricks in modern times. Edmondson scored 16 tries in 119 appearances for Saints before brief stints with Sydney Roosters and Salford. He managed three in less than half an hour here.
Fozzard’s try-scoring record is equally underwhelming. The prop managed just nine in 125 Saints appearances but he got two of them in this demolition derby. He took Sculthorpe’s pass to crash over before Lyon got in on the act. He swooped on Dennis Moran’s errant pass and scorched away untouched as Saints hit the half century. There were still 17 minutes left when Edmondson bagged his second after good work down the left channel by Anderson and Sculthorpe. Not long after Wilkin skipped around a bedraggled Wigan defence to find Edmondson on his inside to complete his hat-trick and take Saints through the 60-point barrier.
As shambolic as Wigan were on the day this was surreal. And Anderson’s side wasn’t done yet. Next to score was Ade Gardner. Playing on the left wing rather than the right wing he would become more familiar with, the ex-Barrow man dribbled through the Warriors edge defenders like Ryan Giggs toying with a group of under 10s at a summer soccer school. The last word went to a 19-year-old substitute prop by the name of James Graham. He darted over in the left corner after James Roby’s strong half-break had sent Mike Bennett on a marauding run downfield. The extras made the final score line a whopping 75-0 and left Saints one step from another final appearance.
Saints would go on to routinely win the League Leaders Shield but it all fell apart in the Challenge Cup and the Super League playoffs. Long suffered a season ending injury in a 38-12 win at Wigan just before the end of the regular campaign. Saints couldn’t repeat their heroics without him and slipped to playoff defeats to Bradford Bulls and Leeds Rhinos who would both go on to contest the Grand Final. The 34-8 Challenge Cup semi-final loss to Hull FC at Huddersfield was a much greater shock. The Airlie Birds lifted the cup with a thrilling final victory over Leeds.
Saints would win it all in 2006. The League Leaders Shield, the Super League Grand Final and the Challenge Cup and the BBC’s Sports Review Of The Year Team Of The Year Award. Possibly even Big Brother and one of Dale Winton’s National Lottery game shows. It is thought by many that the 2006 side is one of Saints best ever and certainly one of the best to be found anywhere in the Super League era. Yet it’s doubtful that they ever produced a performance as powerful and ruthless as the 2005 drubbing of Ian Millward’s Wigan.
There. Wasn’t that more fun than the news?
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