Warrington Wolves • Re: Winter Rugby
easyWire wrote:
Nostalgia is great, but the reality is often different than the memory. Poor crowds, no atmosphere unless a local derby, and mostly mud bath penalty shootouts rather than quality attacking rugby. I do miss that smell of wintergreen from the tunnel though.
In a few years I think I’ll actually remember the 2000s more fondly for entertainment value. Those Saints and Bradford teams were making me breathless at times, and could be enjoyed (if that’s acceptable) with beer and sunshine on a Saturday evening. Shame we were so rubbish until this decade!
In the decade before SL came in, Wigan carried the game to an extent, a bit like the early Tiger Woods carried the sport of golf. Their dominance gave the game a profile in the media and some recognisable faces to the average Grandstand viewer, but also created a great prize of a dynasty to overthrow. I don't know if anyone else felt like this, but for me there was always a secondary interest every season beyond supporting Wire, which was hoping whoever was challenging Wigan at the time would topple them. I used to watch cup finals or the run in at the end of a league season and genuinely be supporting Wigan's opponents. These days if it's a Wigan v Leeds final or whatever I just watch the game and hope to be entertained by the rugby but I couldn't care who wins, but in the early 1990s if it was Wigan v Leeds at Wembley I'd be nervous/excited from the morning of the game as though I was a pseudo-Leeds fan. I remember being made up when Cas beat Wigan in a Regal Trophy final, with Nikau in their team. I even remember being quite pleased when Widnes took a couple of league titles off them! But maybe this is just how it is as a kid, because I used to get a bit like that with sports: I badly wanted Ivan Lendl to win Wimbledon and was gutted whenever he went out.
I think the sport has had two 'peaks' since I've been a fan, first from around 1992 to 1994 and secondly in the mid 2000s probably from around 2003 to 2006. The first peak was because of the quality of players around, both here and in Australia you had a set of all time legends who were mature and in their peak days. That was the high mark of the GB v Australia rivalry, with proper Ashes tours, GB being competitive and taking Tests off the Kangaroos, and a World Cup final at Wembley in 1992 which actually gathered prime media attention and had giant billboards of Martin Offiah advertising it.
When Super League came in the game went through a traumatic period where the game was split by rival organisations, the Aussie national side was not full strength, and in the UK there was a dramatic decline in the quality of players. The greats retired, and that Wigan dynasty finally crumbled, but it didn't feel like it had been replaced by an equal dynasty, there was just a giant vacuum. Bradford went through a league season winning nearly every game with a side that seemed fairly average, and got smashed by Auckland Warriors in the World Club Challenge, who were bottom placed in Aus. Embarrassing. Then in the late 90s/early 2000s, things were improving but the top sides seemed to have a handful of real stars mixing with some very average players. But in the mid 2000s the top teams were really good: Noble's Bradford, TS Leeds and late Millward/especially Daniel Anderson Saints. And I think the quality and professionalism, and especially the defensive organisation of a lot of sides improved in that time. Since the late 2000s there has been a decline in the calibre of player in SL.
Statistics: Posted by sally cinnamon — Thu Jun 21, 2018 10:17 pm