St Helens’s title win was a great spectacle, but this season’s real legacy might be securing the sport’s long-term futureThe final few seconds of the Super League Grand Final will for ever stand as one of the most memorable moments in rugby league history. But the legacy of 2020 and the long-term impact this season will have on the sport runs far deeper.It was undoubtedly the most dramatic Grand Final in history and perhaps it was only right that a season that hung precariously in the balance for so long throughout the summer was settled by such fine margins. The Saints secured back-to-back titles when Jack Welsby reacted quickest to Tommy Makinson’s drop goal hitting a post with the scores...
If a rugby league club suffers its town can often suffer with it and the coronavirus crisis is hitting the sport hardThis is going to sound like the setup to a surreal joke, but nevertheless: last week, a young man from St Helens called Harry Roberts was lying in bed when he looked up and saw the comedian Johnny Vegas standing at his bedroom window, bearing a box of face masks.As it turned out, Roberts – a 19-year-old St Helens fan who suffers from cerebral palsy and quadriplegia – had been the unwitting beneficiary of a visit from the Steve Prescott Foundation, the charity set up by the late Saints player, which over the last decade has become one of...
The two codes need to show greater leadership and ask why so many of its number are suffering from brain injuriesYou may not have heard of the former professional baseball player Pete Frates but you may just be familiar with his work. Five years ago, a Facebook video in which Frates upended a bucket of ice-cold water over his head in order to raise money for motor neurone disease – or ALS, as it is known in the United States – swiftly went viral. Within weeks, something that became known as the Ice Bucket Challenge was on the way to becoming a global sensation, raising almost £100m in that initial summer alone.A couple of weeks ago, Frates died peacefully at...
Warrington will bid to end a dismal run in finals since 2012. Saints are looking to step up in what could be a famous seasonThere is a certain sense of irony that in what has been the most unpredictable Super League season in living memory, the lineup for this year’s Challenge Cup final has an air of inevitability to it. St Helens and Warrington have led the way for most of 2019, so to some, it will be no surprise to see them competing for the year’s first piece of silverware next month at Wembley.However, with just three trophies between them in the past decade, the first-ever meeting in a major final between two towns separated by just nine miles...
Hull KR’s win over Hull left the club who once dominated Super League contemplating the unthinkableIn 1974 Manchester United – six years on from winning the European Cup – were said to be too good to go down, a statement of hubris that turned out to be wildly wrongheaded. Folk from Leeds and Manchester are not too fond of being compared but 45 years on, across the other side of the Pennines, another sporting dynasty is likewise in grave danger of enduring the unthinkable.Leeds Rhinos, Super League champions eight times in 14 seasons between 2004 and 2017, are bottom of the table with 10 games remaining and at serious risk of relegation. “We’ve got a 10‑game shootout with a number...