As Australia and England prepare to commemorate the
legendary 1914 Rorke’s Drift Test Match with both sides wearing specially
designed commemorative jersey’s on Sunday it is also a good opportunity to look
back at the last time Great Britain (as England then played) won a match in
Melbourne, the venue of Sunday’s Four Nation’s encounter.
On the morning of Friday 26th June 1992 I sat
down in the living room in my parent’s house, having taken half a day off work,
to watch the Second Test Match of the Ashes series live on Sky Sports.
It was the first time an Ashes Test Match had been taken to
the Victorian out post of Melbourne – a state renowned for it’s love of
Australian Rules Football above all other sports.
1992 was the last of the great Lions tours and took in club
games and Test Matches in Papua New Guinea (2 club games and 1 Test Match)
before hitting Australian shores (7 club games and 3 Test Matches) and carrying
on into New Zealand (2 club matches and 2 Test Matches).
It was the shortest ever itinerary of 17 fixtures but
included a record 5 matches against Australian Winfield Cup club sides –
Canberra Raiders, Illawarra Steelers, Parramatta Eels, Newcastle Knights and
Gold Coast Seagulls.
Great Britain had gone into this series on the back of much
better performances in the 1988 and 1990 Ashes Series and had improved greatly
since former Castleford coach Malcolm Reilly took charge in 1987.
The Lions selected a strong 32 man squad which included a
record contingent of 13 players from the powerful Wigan club and, despite the
late withdrawals of Bobbie Goulding through suspension and Jonathan Davies through
injury, there was a real sense that Britain had a chance of regaining the Ashes,
especially after going so close in the 1990 home series.
Britain went into the 1st Test Match in Sydney
two weeks earlier on the back of 6 consecutive victory’s on Tour – 3 in Papua
New Guinea including a tight 20-14 Test win in Port Moresby thanks to two late
Martin Offiah tries and 3 warm up games in Australia against Queensland
Residents, Canberra Raiders and Illawarra Steelers.
The results bred confidence going into the 1st
Test but the Australians came out on top 22-6 thanks to two tries from Mal
Meninga and efforts from Michael Hancock and Paul Sironen with only Joe Lydon
getting across the line for GB. The Lions started well in the first quarter but
the size of the Australian pack eventually took it’s toll.
This result meant that Great Britain needed to win the 2nd
Test to keep the Ashes series alive going into the 3rd Test Match
for the second consecutive series.
In the 2 weeks since the 1st Test the Lions had had
3 tough fixtures – beating NSW Country 24-6, losing to Parramatta Eels 22-16
before ramping things up with a 22-0 defeat of Newcastle Knights.
Injury’s were becoming a problem though – Tour Captain
Ellery Hanley only played 9 minutes of the match against the Knights, his first
match of any kind since tearing his hamstring playing for Leeds in the
Premiership Trophy on April 26th. He had also been suffering from a
fractured foot and his tour was declared officially over after the Newcastle
game.
 |
| Ellery Hanley |
Andy Gregory, Neil Cowie, Ian Lucas, Paul Loughlin and Les Holliday all suffered tour ending injury’s before the start of the Second Test and had to return home.
For the second test, Hull’s goalkicking winger Paul Eastwood
came onto the right wing with Paul Newlove moving into the centre for the
injured Loughlin.
Scrum half Gregory was replaced by fellow Wigan half back
Shaun Edwards who would make his first start in a Test Match against Australia
in his 24th Test Match
Castleford prop forward Lee Crooks lost his place with Andy
Platt moving up from second row – his position was taken, surprisingly, by
Wigan back rower Billy McGinty – meaning that the Wigan club provided the
complete starting pack – the first time ever one club had supplied all six
forwards.
The full line up’s were as follows:
AUSTRALIA GREAT
BRITAIN
Andrew Ettingshausen FULL
BACK Graham
Steadman
Rod Wishart RIGHT
WING Paul
Eastwood
Laurie Daley RIGHT
CENTRE Paul
Newlove
Mal Meninga © LEFT
CENTRE Daryl
Powell
Michael Hancock LEFT
WING Martin
Offiah
Peter Jackson STAND
OFF Garry
Schofield ©
Allan Langer SCRUM
HALF Shaun
Edwards
David Gillespie PROP Kelvin
Skerrett
Steve Walters HOOKER Martin
Dermott
Paul Harragan PROP Andy
Platt
Paul Sironen SECOND ROW Denis Betts
Bob Lindner SECOND
ROW Billy
McGinty
Bradley Clyde LOOSE
FORWARD Phil
Clarke
Brad Mackay SUBSTITUTE Gary
Connolly
Glenn Lazarus SUBSTITUTE Joe Lydon
Chris Johns SUBSTITUTE Paul
Hulme
Kevin Walters SUBSTITUTE Karl
Harrison
The Australian team was full of great players and subsequently,
some of them, became legends of the game.
Ettingshausen, Daley, Meninga, Langer, Sironen, Lindner,
Clyde and Lazarus are players that are still revered to this day.
The Australian captain Meninga was making his 36th
Test appearance, equalling the legendary Reg Gasnier’s record number of Test appearances
for Australia and no doubt he would have been expecting to celebrate his 6th
consecutive Ashes series victory.
Australia made minor changes to the first test team with
props Glen Lazarus and David Gillespie swapping from the starting line up to
the bench and vice versa with Chris Johns coming onto the bench for the injured
Brad Fittler.
What happened over the next 90 minutes as I sat in my living
room in Hull was unexpected, sensational, exciting, riveting and beautiful to
watch – I had never seen a Lions Rugby League team roar so loud and rip the
guts out of their foe as they did on that night in Melbourne – particularly in
a barnstorming opening half that saw Great Britain lead 22-0 at half time.
Yes, you read that right – Australia 0 – 22 Great Britain.
I remember calling a fellow Hull KR fan and friend at work
and telling him the score and there were a few choice words from him before he
believed me.
It was a cool and wet night in Melbourne and the conditions
were more like a winters night at Watershedding’s than a summers evening in
Melbourne and it suited the Britain team down to a tee.
The first half was all one way traffic – the Australian’s
did not get a look in.
A couple of converted penalty goals from Eastwood inside the
first 10 minutes settled any nerves – although it was difficult to see any such
was the confidence the team played with – before loose forward Phil Clarke
powered his way through Paul Harragan and Paul Sironen from 20 yards to score
the first try which was converted by Eastwood.
On the half hour mark Edwards made a break and kicked over
the Australian full back Ettingshausen’s head – Offiah used all his pace to out
strip the Aussie defence but he over-ran the ball – fortunately Paul Newlove
was hot on his heels and he touched down.
Five minutes later it was fellow half back Schofield who kicked
beyond a despondent Ettingshausen – the full back turned and desperately chased
the ball but it span away from him on the wet surface and Schofield followed up
his kick to score yet another international try. |
| Garry Schofield is mobbed after his try. |
You certainly thought so when Schofield kicked a drop goal
on 49 minutes to extend the lead but the Australians stormed back in the next
10 minutes.
Second row Bob Lindner used brute force and strength to
force his way over before substitute Chris Johns, on for the injured winger Rod
Wishart, burst onto a beautiful pass from fellow substitute Kevin Walters 20
yards out to score the second Aussie try.
Meninga could only convert Lindner’s try and with 20 minutes
left it was 23-10. The Australians were now exerting considerable pressure and
Britain started making errors – it was squeaky bum time back on my settee in
Hull.
Fortunately the British defence held firm with Andy Platt,
Martin Dermott, Billy McGinty and Clarke tireless in defence and they started to
force errors from the ever more desperate Australians.
In the end it was British flair that won the day and the
game was put to bed by a Graham Steadman try when he showed Ettingshausen a
clean pair of heels down the left hand touchline, it was brilliantly converted
from the touchline by Eastwood, before the pace of Martin Offiah finished the
job completely.
Skipper Schofield chipped over the defence in the middle of
the field, collected the kick and headed left knowing Offiah would be hunting
with him – a suspiciously forward looking pass found the flying winger and he
heaped further embarrassment on Ettingshausen by outpacing him and diving in at
the same left hand corner as Steadman had a few minutes earlier. It really was
a torrid night for Ettingshausen.
In a crowd of over 30,000 it was estimated that at least
half were British fans on tour or expats living in New Zealand or Australia –
it certainly sounded like a home Test Match at somewhere like a full Elland
Road with the amount of noise the British fans made.
 |
| Dermot, Lydon and Eastwood celebrate victory. |
I was one happy fan who was jumping up and down on his
settee in Hull before setting off for an afternoon’s work and a few beers later
that night.
The mauling of the Australians was the Lion’s best victory
against their arch rivals since the Third Test of the 1958 Ashes series when
they 40-17 at the Sydney Cricket Ground in front of nearly 70,000 fans – that
win completed a 3-0 series win for the Lions and there was real excitement that
the Class of ’92 could follow up this extraordinary win in Melbourne to clinch
the Ashes for the first time since 1970.
I was back on my settee 7 days later with massive amounts of
expectation but it was not to be.
The Australians controlled the game far better in the final
test at Lang Park in Brisbane and even though they won the match 16-10 and it
sound’s fairly close, Britain did not cross the line until the final few
minutes and the final score flattered Great Britain.
The Melbourne victory cannot be taken away from us and, 22
years later, it still sticks in my mind as the greatest Great Britain
performance of my lifetime.Our record in Melbourne is not good since that damp and cold night at the old Princes Park, losing 52-4 in a World Cup match at the Dockland Stadium in 2008 and 34-14 at the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium in the 2010 Four Nations tournament.
It can only be hoped that the inspiration of the Rorke’s
Drift Test, which Great Britain won in Sydney in 1914 when finishing the match
with only 9 players, the memories of that extraordinary 1992 Test victory,
England coach Steve McNamara was a non playing member of the tour party sat in
the stands that night, and the fact that Australia are missing a host of world
class players in this tournament and face elimination if they lose this match
can add the necessary fuel and desire to the undoubted ability that this
England squad has.
I will be sat on my settee in a different house in Hull with
my eldest rugby league loving son beside me hopefully cheering this England
side to another famous win in Melbourne and a place in the 4 Nations final the
following week.
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