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Inside RL: Why we must all get behind Leeds Rhinos
READY FOR BATTLE: Manly coach Geoff Toovey supervises his players at Weetwood as they prepare for the World Club Challenge with Leeds Rhinos.
It probably is exaggerating a bit to describe tomorrow’s game as the biggest ever staged at Headingley Carnegie.
There are cynics – on terraces and in press boxes – who regard the Heinz Big Soup World Club Challenge between Leeds Rhinos and Manly Sea Eagles as nothing more than a glorified friendly.
That’s unfair and disrespectful to everybody involved, but it’s not difficult to recall games staged on the famous old ground which have had more riding on them.
Headingley has hosted 13 Challenge Cup finals, including the first two, as well as seven Championship deciders, the equivalent of the modern Grand Final.
It has also staged 46 Yorkshire Cup finals, six Regal Trophy showpieces, 31 Test matches, 16 other internationals and seven World Cup ties, including the 1970 final.
The last time Great Britain won a home Ashes series, more than half a century ago, the home nation squared the series with a dramatic triumph at Headingley before victory in a decider at Central Park, Wigan.
Drama
So the stadium has got form as the venue for very big games.
For example, the 1938 Championship semi-final against Swinton. Hunslet had already beaten Barrow, so a win for the Loiners – duly secured through an Eric Harris wonder try – would ensure an all-Leeds final.
There was similar drama in 1961 when St Helens were defeated in another Championship semi-final, with the “flying dentist” Wilf Rosenberg scoring a couple of spectacular tries. Leeds went on to win their first Championship that year.
more recently, how about the play-offs final eliminator in 2004? Rhinos – known as the sport’s great under-achievers – dominated Super League that year, but lost at home to Bradford Bulls in the qualifying semi-final.
Had Rhinos’ season ended for a second successive year in defeat in a Headingley final eliminator they would have been a league-wide laughing stock and it’s possible that all the success achieved since then would never have happened.
Given a choice between winning tomorrow and retaining the Super League title or claiming the Challenge Cup for the first time since 1999, most Leeds fans would probably wave goodbye to the World Club Challenge without a second glance.
But tomorrow will be the first time Headingley has staged a meeting between the European and Australian champions and never will Leeds have a better chance of regaining the title they last won in 2008.
In international competition the northern hemisphere has had little to celebrate over the last few years. Australia and New Zealand are now firmly established as the best two Test teams and at club level the Aussies have won the last three World Club Challenges.
Rhinos have a great opportunity to redress the balance, particularly after their defeat to the same opposition at Elland Road three years ago. Manly won a mean-spirited match 28-20 and Rhinos were widely – and unfairly – ridiculed for their performance.
The following season they lost by an eight-point margin again, 18-10 to Melbourne Storm at the same venue, shortly before the Aussie club were exposed as salary cap cheats.
In reality, the home team are on a hiding to nothing. They are at home, in conditions they are – relatively – used to.
They have had two competitive games already this year and are virtually injury free. Manly are still in pre-season, haven’t had time to acclimatise, didn’t play a warm-up game in this country and will find the conditions difficult to deal with.
They have also had a disrupted off-season, which saw Geoff Toovey take over as coach after Des Hasler unexpectedly stepped down.
If Rhinos win, they will get very little credit, for the reasons outlined above. Should they lose, it will be more evidence that the NRL is at a different level to its European cousin.
All the pressure is on Leeds and after three successive defeats for Super League clubs, it is important for the credibility of the competition that Rhinos get the prize tomorrow.
Quality
The eyes of the rugby league world will be on the game, which BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra has now decided to cover in full.
Manly have the quality to overcome all the obstacles in front of them.
A team including the likes of Brett Stewart, Jamie Lyon, Steve Matai, Daly Cherry-Evans, Brent Kite, Anthony Watmough and Ben Farrar is going to be a threat to any opposition, under any circumstances.
It’s a one-off and anything can happen. It will be a major surprise if Manly don’t play well, so Leeds – even with conditions and home ground advantage – will need to be much better than they were at Wigan last weekend.
If it’s close late on perhaps Leeds’ greater match fitness will tell, but, make no mistake, this is going to be a serious contest against a very good side.
A full house at Headingley Carnegie, under floodlights, is a fine stage, but Rhinos were keen to have played the game in Australia and it is time that happened if the competition is going to continue.
Since the WCC was introduced as an annual event in 2000, the game has always been played in this country.
Rhinos’ management made it clear last autumn that they would be keen to play the WCC in Sydney. The Australians are perhaps beginning to come round to that idea, but they would need to guarantee a big crowd to make it worthwhile and the concern this time was that fans of other clubs would not turn up to watch Manly who – rather like Rhinos – are the team they all love to hate.
There’s no doubt the event would have more credibility if it was staged in Australia, at least on an occasional basis, preferably in alternate years.
Warrington’s successful pre-season camp in Sydney, culminating in victory in a trial game against Souths, may have blazed a trail for that.
There would also be a good opportunity to promote the sport to a wider audience by playing it on a neutral venue, for example in Dubai, the United States or South Africa.
It is now 15 years since the ill-fated World Club Championship, when all the European Super League clubs took on Aussie teams home and away.
That was a disaster for the northern hemisphere, with Super League clubs picking up only a handful of wins. maybe it is time to revive that sort of contest, though, even now, the bottom half of Super League would not be strong enough to compete.
An idea being floated is for the top three in each hemisphere to square off over one weekend – the two champions going head to head, plus second versus second and third versus third.
Logistically, a lot of work would need to be done, but it has some merit and – in an ideal world – it could be expanded year on year as the British game gets stronger.
That would raise ruby league’s profile on an international scale. It’s not going to happen until Super League sides prove they can compete, which is why everyone involved in the sport over here should be cheering for a Rhinos win.
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