Rugby league historian Mike Latham looks at the Challenge Cup pedigree of tomorrow’s men’s finalists...
‘WEMBLEIGH 1971’ was all about player-coach Alex Murphy and his team of underdogs that upset the form book to claim the Challenge Cup on the game’s biggest stage.
Fifty years earlier, a bandy-legged miner from Hindsford, scrum-half and captain Walter Mooney, had been instrumental on Leigh’s only previous cup final appearance, paving the way for a 13-0 win over fancied Halifax at Broughton Rangers’ ground at The Cliff, later taken over by Manchester United as a training base.
From Wembley staging its first final in 1929 Leigh had gone close three times during the 1950s, but failed to clear the semi-final hurdle, before another inspirational scrum-half in Murphy finally led them to the Twin Towers. Twice a Wembley winner with hometown St Helens in the 1960s, and later with Warrington in 1974, Murphy reckoned his achievements with Leigh were the high spots of his illustrious career. He had carefully assembled a side that contained few star names, but whose work rate, passion and will-to-win was rarely surpassed.
Leigh emerged through quarter-final and semi-final wins over Hull and Huddersfield respectively without scoring a single try, relying on the brilliant goal kicking of Welshman Stuart Ferguson and the opportunism of several drop goal experts, including Murphy himself. “We’ll play our rugby at Wembley,” Murphy said - and they did.
Few gave Leigh a chance in the build-up, especially up against a Leeds side packed with internationals. But Murphy had other ideas. Hooker Kevin Ashcroft played alongside him in the Leigh side whose 24-7 victory caused one of the greatest upsets in Rugby League history, player-coach Murphy winning the Lance Todd Trophy.
“The most competitive man I’ve ever met in my life,” Ashcroft told me. “We used to play dominoes on the team bus going to away games. We were only playing for toffees, but he played like his life depended on it. The most competitive man but also the worst loser I’ve ever met. Lose isn’t in his vocabulary. He can’t stick losers.
“From getting up at 6am to going to bed at midnight nothing stood in his way. He was a winner. And there was no way we were going to lose that game. All the bookies and the journalists had Leeds as red-hot favourites and it was almost as if they only had to step on the field to win.
“But Murph had the ability to strip a game down to basics and put the words across so effectively to his players. They understood exactly what he wanted, what he demanded of them. His team talks were brilliant. And as a player he’s the finest rugby league player God ever put on this earth. End of chat. There’s one born in every sport, Georgie Best in football, Lester Piggott in horse racing. Alex was the one in rugby league.”
Leigh, who broke Wembley tradition by having Kevin’s four-year-old son Gary as mascot, dominated from the start and Ferguson gave one of the best kicking displays seen at the famous stadium, ending with five goals, several from long distance. Murphy kicked two drop goals, an essential part of Leigh’s strategy especially as they were then worth two points apiece, with Jimmy Fiddler and Dave Eckersley adding others, while Stan Dorrington and Eckersley each scored a try, the latter’s a fine individual effort.
Leeds were down to 12 men, Syd Hynes becoming the first man to be sent off in a Wembley Challenge Cup Final for an alleged late hit on Murphy 15 minutes from the end, before they were awarded a late obstruction try.
Ashcroft, later Leigh’s coach on two separate occasions, had arguably an even bigger part to play in shaping the club’s fortunes. While engaged as commercial manager at Hilton Park in the early 2000s he approached a young entrepreneur, ironically born in 1971, who was developing a business locally.
Never short of a persuasive or inspiring word, Ashcroft convinced him that taking out advertising and sponsorship with the town’s rugby league club would benefit his business and build its profile. So, the businessman began his involvement in rugby league. That man was Derek Beaumont, without whose investment, drive, vision, and dedication Leigh Leopards would not be appearing in the final this afternoon.
While Leigh boast a 100 percent record from their only two cup final appearances, Rovers have won just one in seven. Having twice experienced defeat in finals at Headingley, at Warrington’s hands in 1905, and against Oldham in 1925, it was 1964 before Rovers, under long-serving coach Colin Hutton, made their first appearance at Wembley, against Hutton's former club Widnes.
Widnes fullback Bob Randall kicked a penalty to separate the teams at the end of an attritional first half, and his side then seized the initiative with two tries in four minutes through Alan Briers and Frank Myler. Rovers’ scrum-half Arthur Bunting, later to coach both Hull clubs and take the Black and Whites to Wembley in 1980 and 1982, sparked a revival, creating a try for teenager Alan Burwell, converted by Cyril Kellett from the touchline.
Cornish born winger Graham Paul twice went close for Rovers before Frank Collier, Lance Todd Trophy winner for his mighty performance in the Chemics’ pack, sealed his side’s 13-5 win, bulldozing his way over with two minutes remaining.
Bunting had switched his allegiances 16 years later, coaching Hull FC to the final, an all-Humberside affair against the Robins which divided the city. Rovers’ player coach was the brilliant halfback Roger Millward, who at 32 still had never won a Challenge Cup winner’s medal despite enjoying a stellar playing career. And on the Rovers’ left wing was 37-year-old Clive Sullivan, Great Britain’s 1972 World Cup-winning captain, and a Boulevard legend, now playing out his career in the east of the city, also searching for that elusive winner’s medal.
Hull had incurred the wrath of the Wembley officials in the previous day’s captain’s run on the pitch, smuggling in a ball for ace marksman Sammy Lloyd to practice a few kicks, which was against the protocol. But it was a ruse that didn’t work. Normally an unerring marksman, Lloyd missed four of his five attempts at goal as nerves seemed to affect him and many of the players in what proved an error-strewn encounter that Rovers won 10-5.
Rovers got off to a great start, winger Steve Hubbard scoring after fastening onto prop Brian Lockwood’s brilliant short, delayed pass. Hubbard then added two penalties, the first awarded for a brutal high tackle that left Millward lying prone on the Wembley turf nursing a broken jaw.
Somehow the Rovers’ hero played through the pain barrier so determined was he to lead his men to the cup. Tim Wilby’s try got Hull FC on the scoreboard before Millward’s drop-goal right on half-time gave his side a hard earned 8-3 advantage.
The second half was even more tight and tense, Lloyd reducing the arrears with a penalty ten minutes after the restart. Just five minutes remained when Hubbard kicked his third penalty goal before being carried off with an ankle injury.
Millward and Sullivan fulfilled their dream, as they proudly made their way to the Royal Box to receive the cup and those long-cherished medals from HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Lockwood, a veteran of two previous finals with Castleford, won the Lance Todd Trophy for his performance in the pack.
Rovers were back at Wembley a year later, up against a Widnes side whose propensity for gathering silverware earned the nickname of ‘Cup kings.’ Moreover, they faced old team-mate Lockwood, now a key member of the Chemics pack.
Widnes had the game’s star players in fullback Mick Burke and impudent, 20-year-old scrum-half Andy Gregory. Lance Todd Trophy winner Burke scored an early try and kicked four goals and Gregory scored an outstanding try within two minutes of the re-start to build on his side’s 11-4 half-time lead.
Chris Burton scored Rovers’ only try and Hubbard’s third goal reduced the deficit to 18-9 but Widnes never looked like losing. Millward, now taking a watching brief as Rovers’ touchline coach, may well have affected the outcome in his heyday.
In 1986 Rovers faced Castleford in a final that went down to the wire. Just as Wembley produces heroes and moments of great joy, big games can also be remembered for heroic failures. So, it was for Rovers’ Australian John Dorahy, charged with kicking what would have been the match-winning conversion from the touchline.
Rovers’ substitute John Lydiat scored near the corner in the last minute of normal time and had Dorahy been successful his name would have gone down in folklore as the match winner. Instead Dorahy’s kick went to the left of the posts and Cas held on through four minutes of added time to claim the cup by 15-14.
Rovers’ coach Millward saw his preparation hampered by injury and illness with Australian star Gavin Miller far from fit with a pulled hamstring and fullback George Fairbairn struggling with a knee injury while forwards Chris Burton and Phil Hogan were ruled out with broken arms. Other players, including the flu-hit Dorahy, were laid low in the build-up with illness.
Cas had the game’s star players in player-of-the-match and scrum-half Bob Beardmore, GB centre Tony Marchant and Australian winger Jamie Sandy, whose 40-yard try gave his side a 15-6 lead midway through the second half. Nothing if not resilient, Rovers fought back with Gary Prohm’s second try before Lydiat almost snatched the game out of the fire.
Then in the second tier, Rovers returned to Wembley in 1997 as finalists in the inaugural Silk Cut Plate, a competition for those clubs defeated in the early rounds. They beat Leigh at Hilton Park in the semi-final along the way and were up against third tier Hunslet Hawks, who had beaten three first division sides en route to the final. Awaiting redevelopment, Wembley was looking tired and lacked facilities, such that both teams were forced to use temporary buildings on the Wembley car park as changing rooms.
Played as a curtain raiser to the epic Saints-Bradford final, the game had a surreal feel, with only committed fans of both clubs and a few neutrals in attendance at kick-off time, which was delayed for 35 minutes due to a security alert. Papua New Guinean star Stanley Gene was the talisman as Rovers’ pace and power proved all too much for Hunslet as they ran in 11 tries on their way to a 60-14 win.
Gene scored a second half hat-trick as his side, 22-10 ahead at the break, dominated after the restart. Other Rovers heroes included captain Mike Fletcher, who kicked eight goals, and two-try second row Paul Fletcher while Des Harrison, the only survivor of the ’86 cup final team, assuaged the memory of his Wembley loss. The Plate was discontinued after that one season.
In 2015 Rovers returned to Wembley, underdogs against a Leeds Rhinos team at the peak of their powers. The timing of the final was hardly ideal for Rovers, interrupting their campaign to preserve their Super League status in the Qualifiers, and they rarely posed a threat at any stage.
Rhinos, 16-0 ahead at the break, went on to score six second half tries in a record-breaking 50-0 win. Rhinos’ winger Tom Briscoe, a former Hull FC player, won the Lance Todd Trophy by scoring five tries.
Chris Chester was the Rovers coach and nine months or so ago, in his current role as head of rugby for the rebranded Leigh Leopards, set about building a squad for Super League following promotion. Just to show there was no animosity he made Briscoe one of his first signings and the former international winger, nearing the incredible landmark of 400 career games, has proved a key player in the Leopards Den, his five-try, five-star display from eight years ago a big talking point in the build-up to today.
