Contrasting events, but both important

Wednesday 10th March 2010

Two recent games both shown on live television, just a few days apart, could hardly have been more contrasting events for Rugby League - but both were of particular interest to me as they revived memories of being involved in their earliest formative stages.

The World Club Challenge between Leeds and Melbourne, followed soon after by the Varsity match between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, might be miles apart on the richter-scale of Rugby League playing standards, but both have an important role to play in the promotion of the game. And both have now built up a formidable history over the decades they have been part of the Rugby League calendar.

The World Club Challenge was born in the U.K. in 1987 when Wigan played Manly-Warringah on a never-to-be-forgotten night at Central Park. (Earlier, in 1975, St.Helens had travelled to Sydney where they were soundly beaten by an Eastern Suburbs side captained by Arthur Beetson.)

I can vividly remember, in the years leading up to that Wigan-Manly game in 1987, working hard behind the scenes with my then colleague at "Open Rugby" and now much missed friend, the late Peter Deakin, to push the idea of a top Australian club coming over to England to play our leading teams.

In the aftermath of the 1982 Kangaroo tour, we thought it would be a magnificent promotion for the game in the U.K. to have a stellar team like Parramatta or Canterbury come over and play here. In particular, we had intense conversations with the "Godfather" of the Canterbury club, Peter Moore, and managed to sow the seeds of interest with Wigan via their board members Jack Robinson and Maurice Lindsay.

We were absolutely convinced that the British public and media would support the concept, but the Rugby Football League themselves chose not to back the idea. Eventually, the timing was just right so Maurice Lindsay went to Australia and more or less challenged the Manly-Warringah supremo, Ken Arthurson, to take part in a winner-takes-all showdown.

Wigan asked Peter Deakin and myself to get involved in promoting this pioneering fixture, and the rest is history as a capacity crowd of almost 38,000 squeezed into Central Park to see an epic encounter. The sponsors, Fosters lager, provided prize money of £50,000 which Manly confidently expected to pick up - only to be foiled by an all-British Wigan team.

Meanwhile, the Varsity match had somewhat humbler beginnings, as the very genesis of the Oxford team began with a meeting in the college rooms of under-graduate Mark Newbrook in late 1975. I attended that meeting, along with Andrew Cudberston who had earlier founded the very first Student Rugby League team at Leeds University.

Soon, an Oxford amateur team was up and running, which eventually metamorphosised into the Oxford University club. They took part in the first Varsity match with Cambridge in 1980 (the first game being staged at Fulham's Craven Cottage) and it does seem quite remarkable that time has flown so much that this year's was the 30th Varsity match.

For years I tried to make a case for the Varsity match to be given a big stage, even though it always had its critics (and still does) among people who just don't seem to understand the value of the prestige Rugby League receives by having these two most famous institutions play the game.

The Oxford-Cambridge encounter now enjoys its highest ever profile thanks to live coverage on Sky Sports, and I enjoyed this year's match very much. It was a delight to see a game based on ball handling rather than physical power, with teams lying deep as they tried to spread the ball rather than playing flat-attack. There were no forward passes at dummy-half , no ritual cynicism around the play-the-ball, and no signs of petulance from any player. In fact, it came as a breath of fresh air after all the controversies created in the World Club Challenge match.

After Leeds had been beaten by Melbourne, Rugby League found itself - yet again - obsessed by arguments over the refereeing, just as it did in last year's Four Nations tournament. It really is a ridiculous situation that we have created a game where paranoia reigns about the speed of the play-the-ball, to the point where so much focus is on the referee rather than the skills of the players.

Personally, I thought referee Richard Silverwood did a pretty good job and the game was hugely more enjoyable than it would have been had there been a succession of penalities around the so-called "ruck area" with Melbourne having a stream of players going to the sin-bin. I can only imagine the pantomime the game might have become had Steve Ganson been the man in the middle.

Read more Rugby League debate and learn more about its history in the latest issue of "Rugby League Journal."

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