Leeds Rhinos nostalgia remembering when Roy Powell led Headingley exodus to Bradford Bulls

Dewsbury-born forward Powell made his debut for Leeds in 1983 and made more than 200 appearances for the club before a shock move to neighbours Bradford Northern nine years later. He went on to have spells with Featherstone Rovers and Batley Bulldogs and was on the coaching staff at Rochdale Hornets when he suffered a fatal heart attack at a pre-season training session on December 27, 1998.

Powell was only 33 when he died and it was a tragedy which threw the entire rugby league community, but especially the West Yorkshire corner of it, into mourning. Strong and powerful, with a high work rate, Powell was one of the most respected and popular players in the game.

Capped 19 times, he played in the famous third Test in Sydney in 1988 when Great Britain beat Australia for the first time in a decade. He was also part of the team which repeated the feat at Wembley in the first match of a home series two years later.

Having begun his career in the second-row, he had moved up to prop by the time Bradford visited Headingley on January 15, 1995. And he was part of a Northern pack with strong Leeds connections. Four of the visitors’ six starting forwards - Powell, hooker Trevor Clark and second-rowers Paul Dixon and Paul Medley - had previously played for Leeds. At loose-forward that afternoon was Brian McDermott who, a decade and a half later, went on to become the most successful coach in Leeds’ history and another ex-Loiner, Dave Heron, was on Bradford’s bench.

Northern’s coach that day was Peter Fox, who had a brief spell in charge of Leeds in the early days of Powell’s career. When Fox left Bradford later in 1995 he was replaced by Brian Smith, father of current Rhinos coach Rohan Smith, who also had a stint at the Bulls’ helm. On the opposite side, Leeds’ Gary Mercer and Ellery Hanley were both ex-Bradford men and the home side’s hooker James Lowes became an Odsal icon in the early years of Super League, after the club became the Bulls.

A crowd of 14,058, around 2,000 more than that season’s average, watched Leeds retain top spot in the table with a 46-30 victory. Hanley scored a hat-trick for the hosts - and kicked a rare goal - while Garry Schofield bagged a brace for Doug Laughton’s side and Richie Eyres, Craig Innes and Mercer also touched down. Graham Holroyd landed six goals.

Northern also had a hat-trick scorer in David Myers. Paul Dixon and Dave Watson grabbed their other tries and Deryck Fox landed five goals.

That was the first of four meetings between the sides in the 1994-94 season, Leeds winning them all. They triumphed 31-16 at Headingley in front of a 16,000 crowd in a Challenge Cup tie almost a month later, 30-10 at Odsal in March and 50-30 at home in the first round of May’s Premiership play-offs. That was Bradford’s final game as Northern and the end of Powell’s career there.