There are those - possibly the majority of Saints fans of an age similar to my own - who believe that the three seasons that Daniel Anderson coached the club between 2006-2008 are the greatest we’ve enjoyed.
Not me, obviously. Always one to go against the grain I am very much Team Millward. Between 2000-2005 watching Saints was everything I want from my team. An exciting style of play but with enough resilience to be able to win trophies. Millward led Saints to Super League Grand Final wins in 2000 and 2002 as well as Challenge Cup success in 2001 and 2004. Then there was the World Club Challenge title earned against Brisbane Broncos in 2001, although to be fair Anderson would match that achievement in 2007 against the same opponent.
The case for Anderson is strengthened by the dominance of the 2006 team. They lost just four out of 28 regular season games on their way to winning the treble of League Leaders Shield, Challenge Cup and Super League Grand Final. They were also named BBC Sports Team Of The Year at the Beeb’s annual review bash. Which if nothing else gave us all a break from the incessant bleating of the sort of fan who gets angry about the event. This happens when their favourites get pipped to the post by a team that has ‘only’ won an Ashes series or a Davis Cup, or gone far in a football World Cup or European Championship. And don’t get those people started when the New Year’s honours list is announced and a rugby league player has failed to be recognised for the 432nd year in a row. Like Strictly Come Dancing and marrying Princesses, Knighthoods are the preserve of exponents of the other code.
Anderson’s class of 2006 was packed with quality. It had both James Roby and Keiron Cunningham. It had Sean Long. Paul Sculthorpe. Jamie Lyon. James Graham.
Leon Pryce. Paul Wellens. Jason Cayless. Willie Talau. Hell, even the much maligned Francis Meli would stand out as a world class performer in the company of the Super League stars we will see in 2024. It was a serious team which was virtually untouchable in Anderson’s first year in the UK.
And yet. And yet there were arguably a couple of reasons for not being quite as in love with it and its 2007 and 2008 successors as with Millward’s teams. Style of play is one. Millward’s teams got themselves into what Blackadder might term ‘distinctly boring situations’ with some frequency. Situations from which defeat looked inevitable but which only served to inspire the side to come back from the brink with a commitment to keeping the ball alive and taking a chance. Anderson’s vintage were more machine-like. They played shuttle rugby off the back of their dual threat hookers and rugby league colossuses Cunningham and Roby. They rarely had to produce the exciting late rallies which characterised the Millward years because they were more ruthlessly efficient, particularly in 2006.
But for all that they only claimed one Super League crown in those three seasons. After that 2006 campaign was capped by victory over Hull FC at Old Trafford they would lose there to Leeds Rhinos in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Saints luck didn’t change after Anderson’s departure as they lost further title games to Wigan in 2010 and the Rhinos again in 2011. Five in a row. Yet it was in the Challenge Cup where Anderson and his men were supremely dominant.
Which brings us to his final season at the old Knowsley Road ground in 2008. Saints had knocked Warrington Wolves out of the competition in 2007 on their way to victory over Catalans Dragons in the first final to be played at the newly rebuilt Wembley. When the sides were drawn together again in the fifth round (last 16) in 2008 it looked ominous for Wire. They had only beaten Saints five times in 17 previous cup meetings and had not done so since a 4-2 success all the way back in 1969. The team of Kel Coslett, Cliff Watson, Eric Chisnall, Billy Benyon and Austin Rhodes.
Saints were coming into the 2008 tie on the back of a 57-16 shellacking of Wigan at the Cardiff Magic Weekend. Anderson made just one change to his 17-man squad with Maurie Fa’asavalu replacing Mike Bennett on the interchange bench. Wellens was entrenched at fullback, Meli and Ade Gardner occupied the wings with Matt Gidley and Willie Talau in the centres. The Pryce-Long combination remained in the halves. Up front Cunningham was still keeping Roby on the bench with Graham and Cayless at props. The back row comprised second rowers Lee Gilmour and Chris Flannery with future skipper and Sky Sports attention seeker Jon Wilkin at loose forward. Joining Fa’asavalu and Roby on the bench were Paul Clough and the ill-fated Bryn Hargreaves.
Warrington - under the tutelage of then Head Coach and current RFL disciplinary committee lightning rod Paul Cullen - had edged out Huddersfield Giants 36-34 at Magic. Yet they would be without the services of former Saint Martin Gleeson for this one after he picked up a virus on the morning of the game. Gleeson has exited Saints under a cloud in 2004 when he and Long - knowing that then coach Millward was resting most of his first team after the Easter weekend and before a Challenge Cup semi-final with Huddersfield - placed bets on Bradford Bulls to beat Saints in a Super League fixture. The Bulls won 54-8. Both were find £7,500 and ordered to pay over £2,000 in costs. Long was suspended for three months and Gleeson for four. While the indispensable Long remained at Saints for another five years Gleeson never wore the red vee again, joining Warrington for £200,000 soon after the punishments were handed down.
Ex-Wigan three-quarter Paul Johnson took his place at centre alongside NRL import Matt King. Prolific goal-kicking winger Chris Hicks partnered the speedy but eccentric Kevin Penny on the wings in front of fullback Stuart Reardon. Another ex-Saint - Lee Briers - schemed in midfield alongside Michael Monaghan. Chris Bridge had been out since February after rupturing his achilles in a 30-22 defeat to Saints three months prior to this cup clash. The injury kept him out until the opening night of the following season - another defeat to Saints - this time by a score of 26-14. It’s little wonder they don’t like us over that way. Every bad thing that happens to them seems to link back to Saints somehow.
The Wire pack boasted one of the all-time greats in the shape of Adrian Morley. The former Leeds Rhino was back in the UK after a stellar spell with Sydney Roosters in the NRL. He was partnered in the front row by former Newcastle Knights, Canterbury Bulldogs and North Queensland Cowboys man Paul Rauhihi. Gleeson’s brother Mark was the starting hooker with Louis Anderson and Bennie Westwood in the second row. There were more family connections at loose forward where Anderson’s brother Vinnie (not cousin, sadly) operated. Vinnie Anderson had joined the Wolves from Saints a year earlier having made 49 appearances in the red vee. Yet none of those were the 2006 Challenge Cup final victory over Huddersfield or that Grand Final success against Hull FC. Vinnie Anderson’s last game for Saints was against…you guessed it…Warrington.
Cullen’s bench comprised utility back Chris Riley as well as forwards Simon Grix, Ben Harrison and Andy Bracek who had also represented Saints, making two appearances at the start of his career in 2004.
Warrington were on their way to another mediocre season in the league. Their interest in the Grand Final would end when they were thrashed 46-8 by Catalans Dragons in the elimination playoff. At the time of this cup tie they had won seven and lost six of their opening 13 league matches. That came after they had won six of their first eight. It was all very Warrington.
Meanwhile Saints - aside from that glorious pasting of Wigan in Cardiff - had been similarly inconsistent. They had already suffered five league defeats with all of Hull KR, Catalans, Huddersfield, Leeds and Castleford getting the better of Daniel Anderson’s side. They had also squeaked past Hull FC by one point, winning 30-29 in early March. A week prior to that they had been pushed all the way by Wakefield at Knowsley Road - escaping with a 34-30 win.
Their most convincing results had been against Wigan - a 46-10 triumph at home in March had preceded the Magic Weekend rout - and the London sides. Then known as Harlequins RL, the club we know again now as London Broncos were hammered 58-12 in April while London Skolars were swatted aside 56-0 in the previous round of the Challenge Cup. Kyle Eastmond was one of five teenagers in the Saints 17 that day alongside Ste Tyrer, Gareth Frodsham, Gary Wheeler and Sam Thompson.
If Warrington went in to clashes with Saints believing they were always dealt a smelly hand their suspicions would not have been lowered by the early loss of Stuart Reardon. He had won the Harry Sunderland Trophy as Man Of The Match in Bradford Bulls’ 2003 Grand Final win over Wigan and had been a Great Britain international when the Wolves picked him up in 2005. He’d also won a World Club Challenge with the Bulls. His proven quality was a significant loss to Wire when he limped off after just six minutes.
Within two minutes his replacement - Riley - faced his first real alarm. Meli took possession on the left wing and - running out of real estate - lobbed the ball up into the in-goal before giving chase to it. He took possession of it and grounded it too, only to be penalised on review for a foul on the defender while the ball was in the air. It’s a fair assumption that there were those among the Saints faithful vociferously bemoaning this missed opportunity. Meli was a player who attracted a lot of criticism from fans who by now were getting more and more used to some very high standards. It was perceived that Meli - who had joined from New Zealand Warriors in 2005 - was a liability under the high ball. Here he was seemingly proving their point, fluffing his lines and spurning the chance to put his side in front,
Yet history should be rather kinder to Meli. He scored 145 tries for Saints in 224 appearances. Only 16 men have crossed the whitewash more often in the red vee. Or whichever can of lager/pair of curtains/cross-bred cat coloured away shirt the players have been sent out to play in.
From believing that they had their noses in front Saints saw things swing wildly against them just a couple of minutes after Meli’s effort. Saints were caught offside to give up field position from where Morley benefited from Monaghan’s inside crash ball. Hicks had no trouble adding on the extras for a 6-0 lead. It could have been worse for Saints had Vinnie Anderson been able to control brother Louis’ pass and go over for Wire’s second try. Instead he put it down, but moments later the Wolves were gifted an opportunity to stretch the lead to eight points when Wilkin was guilty of holding down after making a tackle. Hicks accepted the present. With almost a quarter of the game gone Saints found themselves two scores down at home to Cullen’s men at 8-0, which was prettier much unchartered territory.
When immediate action was required Daniel Anderson’s Saints invariably provided it. That was the case again when Talau dragged them back into the game. Long set Wire defenders’ hearts fluttering with a run across their line before finding Pryce whose pinpoint pass put Talau over. Long’s conversion brought Saints back to within two points at 8-6, and also gave the halfback his 2232nd and 2233rd points for the club in this his 290th appearance. A year later he would depart for Hull FC after 12 glorious years in which he not only won four Super League Grand Finals, five Challenge Cups and two World Club Challenges but also landed second on Saints’ all-time points scorers list. He finished his time at the club with 2625 points in 312 appearances. Only Kel Coslett has more and he wore the Saints colours over 200 times more often than Long.
It seems no matter the era the TV execs will always insist on having some injured or unselected player on one side or another provide some special comments. This time the Beeb were busy getting Wire prop Mike Cooper’s take on events so far when Saints hit the front. Cunningham found Wellens whose quick hands allowed Flannery to storm onto the ball and slice through the Warrington defence.
Not one to stand back and just admire his work Wellens set off in support of Flannery as he hurtled towards the line. A return ball inside to the fullback would probably have been the right play as it would have seen him cross under the posts and made Long’s conversion a formality. Instead Flannery used the present Head Coach as a foil and crossed for the try.
He had scored a double in the win over the Skolars in the previous round and would add another try in the semi-final victory over Leeds come July. A more difficult kick did not phase Long who duly booted Saints into a 12-8 lead. Cooper didn’t know it then but he would wait another 11 years to win a Challenge Cup winners’ medal. Astonishingly given their abject inability to win these fixtures it came against Saints at Wembley. Lachlan Coote’s one bad game in 66, Rob Hicks’ unshakable self belief, Eamonn’s strongly worded open letter and all.
Though history was overwhelmingly against them Warrington weren’t yet ready to go quietly. They got back into it when Johnson went from dummy half close to the line before producing a nicely executed flick pass for Hicks to go in at the right hand corner. It was his 13th try in 15 appearances in primrose and blue to that point. By the time he left the club in 2010 he’d racked up 71 four-pointers in 82 games. He also slotted over 119 goals before playing out the final season of his career at Parramatta. One of those 119 was the conversion to this try which put Cullen’s men back into the lead at 14-12.
Good job Saints had Meli in the ranks, then. Having been denied earlier he still managed to have the last word before the break. Saints gained possession when Monaghan lost it under pressure from Flannery and their chief playmakers wasted no time. Roby, Long and Pryce combined to find Wellens whose long ball missed out Talau and instead landed plum on the chest of Meli. The winger barely broke stride as he plucked it out of the air and ran over Riley to score Saints’ third try of the afternoon. Another Long goal saw Anderson’s men turn around with a four point lead at 18-14. Replays suggested Wellens’ cut-out ball might have been a shade forward but thankfully - and unlike in some other sports we could mention - video reviews in rugby league have always had a better grasp on their limitations meaning that forward passes have never been subjected to the scrutiny afforded to other types of infringement.
At this point - playing against a star studded powerhouse and given their dismal record in St Helens - Wire could have been forgiven for losing a bit of belief. Yet it was the Wolves who made the first impression on the scoreboard in the second half. Briers found Johnson whose quick hands released Hicks down Warrington’s right flank. He streaked away to score his second of the game and tie the scores up at 18-18. He couldn’t convert his effort so the scores remained level five minutes into the second half.
Briers was starting to pull some strings now. The presence of Long in the Saints team meant that we would never quite fully regret allowing Briers to join Wire, but he was no doubt still motivated to show his former employers at his home town club what he could do. Briers made just six first team appearances for Saints, all in 1997 after Bobbie Goulding was suspended for a memorably reckless high shot on flat track bully Neil Cowie in an even more memorable cup win over Wigan earlier that year. The story goes that having played a key role in getting Saints to Wembley, having to step aside for the returning Goulding for the final against Bradford was all too much for Briers who promptly left. Had that not happened we may not have seen Long in the red vee. So Lee - proud of you though we are as a home grown Super League great - I would still like to thank you personally for buggering off.
Despite Briers’ increasing influence it was the home side who struck next. Half an hour remained when Gardner broke the deadlock. Cunningham set it up with a trademark dart from dummy half. He’d lost more than a yard of pace by 2008, but catching Cunningham and bringing him to the ground were two different and often unrelated things. He could still trample over most Super League defenders. On this occasion there was no need. Instead he found Long who moved it on to Pryce. The ex-Bradford man spotted that Penny had drifted in-field a little too much, spinning the ball out wide to Gardner who had all the room he needed to put Saints back in front. Long missed with the boot for the first time so the gap remained four points at 22-18.
Being caught out of position was not untypical of Penny. His defensive frailties were one of the key reasons why he only made 43 appearances for Wire in five seasons. Yet he managed to cross for 29 tries in those 43 appearances. He had quite ridiculous pace, demonstrated soon after Gardner’s try. Long put a low kick into the Warrington in-goal area where it was gathered up by Monaghan. He handed it on to Hicks. He saw a chance to combine with his fellow winger, finding Penny in space on the Wire left.
He had the best part of 95 metres to travel but Penny’s final destination was never in doubt. Only Long got anywhere near him, and that’s quite a generous description of the legendary halfback’s flailing attempt to ankle tap Penny in full flight. Without seeming to slow down noticeably Penny nonchalantly stepped inside Long’s dive before cruising the rest of the way to the Saints try-line. The extra two points from Hicks swung things back in favour of Cullen’s men who now led 24–22. There were less than 25 minutes left.
The next 10 minutes were error strewn as nerves frayed, jangled and did whatever else nerves do in tense situations, Even Long and Roby weren’t immune while Johnson’s mistake cost the Wolves an opportunity close to the Saints line. When the next score came it was Daniel Anderson’s side who claimed it. Pryce was again involved, bringing Talau back on the inside to enable the centre to go over unopposed. Yet it wasn’t only Pryce who helped clear the way for Saints’ ex-Canterbury man. Gilmour would no doubt have been deemed to have obstructed the defensive line in today’s game having made contact with a defender and failed to run through the line as a dummy runner. At some point after 2008 this type of action started to be forensically analysed by video referees who now invariably take a dim view of it. Yet nobody seemed to mind much 16 years ago, which allowed Talau to register his 58th try in 135 games for Saints. He would leave for Salford at the end of the season having registered 66 tries in 152 appearances. Another Long conversion edged the Saints lead out a little further to 28-24.
It was the beginning of the end for Wire. They found themselves on the end of one of those dazzling five minute spells for which Saints used to be famous. Before The Grind and hammering the wingers with early carries in ‘yardage sets’. I think I might have just vomited a little after using that phrase. Only three minutes after Talau’s effort the hosts were in again through Clough. The wound was self inflicted by Warrington in the perfect demonstration of Penny’s unreliability.
There appeared to be little danger when he fielded a Pryce kick close to his own line, but that was before Penny contrived to spill the ball straight into the grateful arms of Gidley after being halted by Gardner. A player with the vision and awareness of Gidley was never going to miss the opportunity and so it proved as he turned it inside to Clough to allow him to fall over the line. Long was on target again and suddenly Saints led by 10 with only a little over 10 minutes left.
Warrington’s misery didn’t last that long. Just a couple of minutes after Clough’s eighth try of the season - he had scored a hat-trick in the 30-22 win over Wire just a fortnight earlier - Gilmour finished the job. Hargreaves’ pass was an ugly one, hitting the deck near halfway. It was up for grabs until the Saints back rower stormed onto it at pace, breaking through the line before the Wolves defenders reacted. With that advantage and a handy turn of pace in his armoury Gilmour was able to outrun the cover and score the try that surely would seal the win. When Long potted over another conversion Saints led 40-24.
Yet even under Daniel Anderson things were not always that simple. This was still Saints after all. The visitors raged against the dying of their Challenge Cup light twice inside the final six minutes. Gaining possession after Pryce’s pass to Wilkin was deemed forward they got the ball into the hands of Briers who found Westwood. He was able to cut inside Pryce and Graham while neither Wellens nor Wilkin could stop his progress to the line. Hicks goaled to give us a tennis score at 40-30.
There was still time for things to get squeaky again for Saints. Two minutes from the end Grix capitalised on the inability of both Meli (twice) and Pryce to pick up a loose ball, beating Graham, Pryce and Wellens to score. There weren’t many missed tackles in this game but then to register a missed tackle you have to at least get a hand on your opponent. There wasn’t an awful lot of defence being played and this was another example of that. Hicks failed with the conversion but if Warrington could get the ball back a converted try would level the scores at 40-40. Deuce. What the deuce? This game had been over five minutes earlier.
And they had a chance. But unfortunately for them they also had Penny. Louis Anderson, King and Monaghan carved out some space for the winger but he only got as far as the Saints 10 metre line before the ball parted company with him. With it went Warrington’s last chance.
Saints’ third consecutive Challenge Cup win duly arrived in August. They had won 24-18 at Hull KR in the quarter-final before coming through that epic semi-final with Leeds at Huddersfield 26-16. Wembley opponents Hull FC had never won at the national stadium. Their 2005 win over Leeds came at Cardiff during the Wembley rebuild, while their 1982 success was earned in a replay against Widnes at Elland Road in Leeds. In 1914 they had beaten Wakefield at Thrum Hall, Halifax. They would have to wait until 2016 to end their Wembley hoodoo, when again it was Wire who were the nearly men as FC won 12-10. In 2008 they succumbed to a Meli double and further scores from Pryce, Gidley and Wilkin as Long landed four goals.
Yet Saints couldn’t complete the double, suffering a third consecutive Grand Final loss and the second of those three in a row inflicted by the Rhinos. Tries by the G-Force of Graham, Gidley and Gardner were not enough as a Danny McGuire double was added to by Lee Smith and Ryan Hall for the side then coached by Daniel Anderson’s New Zealand compatriot Brian McClennan, son of former Saints boss Mike McClennan.
Wire’s interest in trophy hunting in 2008 did at least extend to the playoffs as they scraped into the reckoning in sixth place. Then came that 46-8 humbling by the Catalans Dragons, leaving Wire to again plan for the following season. They must have done something right that off-season as they bagged their first Challenge Cup since 1974 when they beat Huddersfield in the 2009 final. Perhaps that something they got right was replacing Cullen as Head Coach with former Leeds Rhinos Grand Final winner Tony Smith.
Despite being the subject of rumours of a return more often than Mal Meninga Daniel Anderson did not return to Saints after leaving at the end of 2008. He is unlikely to ever do so now after suffering life changing injuries in a surfing accident in December 2022. Meanwhile Hargreaves an even grizzlier fate. After moving to the United States following his retirement from rugby league he was reported missing in January 2022. A little over a year later, in March 2023, it was announced that his body had been found.
Which is a sad note on which to end. Yet both will be forever linked to one of the most formidable teams - if not the most decorated outside of the Challenge Cup - that the British game has ever seen.