Warrington Wolves • Warrington 2020's vs Wigan 1980's
sally cinnamon wrote:
I agree with duckie on this. The era of rugby league which I remember most fondly coincided with the era Wigan dominated. Usual thinking is that you want an even and competitive league to create interest with some changing of the guard at the top, but sometimes the existence of a benchmark team can lift a whole sport. International cricket has had more changing of the guard at the top in the past decade, following a long period where of dominance by first the West Indies and then Australia, but I think it was better back then.
Wigan winning everything got tiresome at times and Maurice's smugness used to grate but they had players back then that took the sport to a new level: guys like Hanley, Edwards, Offiah were sporting icons that were familiar outside rugby league in a way that the leading players of more recent times have not been able to become. Also they dragged standards in the rest of the sport upwards as well - yes people sometimes try to disparage Wigan's successes by saying they were full time professional and other teams were only semi pro in those days...but there is being full time professional and there is being Hanley/Edwards/Bell type of professional, which is in a different universe from just being paid to train full time, it was a level of dedication to winning that was unparalleled, which is why I never have a problem with them being Wiganers and winning, you just had to accept that guys like that deserved what they got.
But duckie lets have a reality check about this comparison. I would be very happy if we won a Grand Final in the 2020s. We haven't won one yet. Those Wigan teams would have dominated Super League in the 2020s too, we are nowhere near that.
I'm sure this thread will give some good entertainment for any Wiganers or even fans of other clubs who stumble on here.
In other news, Tom Lineham had a good season last year, could he go on to dominate in the 2020s in the same way that Bevan did in the 1950s....?
They were all great players but had they played for a variety of clubs we would have had a more vibrant competition. When Wigan poached Andy Gregory from Wire I still recall the report by The Guardian RL correspondent at the time when he stated What do Wigan want with Gregory as they already have Shaun Edwards? In the 1980s there was still a good deal of RL on terrestrial TV which also helped to put Wigan and their players in front of a wider audience. In the long run the most important factor in any sport is competition, and dominance by anyone destroys that. Sally appears to have a passing interest in NFL and they go to great lengths with 'the draft' to even up the teams every year. I believe that most US sports still 'pool' revenue and divide most of it up evenly between the teams. That's another policy to avoid domination by one side.
Statistics: Posted by Asgardian13 — Mon Jan 21, 2019 9:23 am — Replies 34 — Views 1651