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The recent news that
St. Helen’s legend Sean Long attempted suicide in January after a private
battle with depression was shocking and brought back stark memories of the
tragic death of his former international team mate Terry Newton back in 2010.
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| Terry Newton |
Thankfully for Sean and his family his suicide attempt was
unsuccessful and, now that he has made his problems public, he has a lot more
support from the game and his immediate family and can plan the next stage of
his life.
This battle with depression, brought on after his premature
retirement from the game through injury, may go some way to explaining why Long
has been unable to hold down any of the coaching jobs he has been handed since
his retirement.
Long has always been something of an enigma. He has polarised
opinions throughout his career and has regularly courted controversy.
From the highs of a record breaking 3 Lance Todd Trophy’s, a
Man of Steel Award and multiple Grand Final and Challenge Cup winners medals to
the lows of a 3 month suspension for betting against his own team to walking
out on a Great Britain tour, long’s Rugby League career was never boring.
The first 3-4 years of Long’s professional rugby league
career showed nothing that would suggest that he would become one of the
greatest talents of the Super League era.
Long signed for all conquering Wigan, his hometown club,
from local amateur side Wigan St. Judes in 1994 but went on to make just 12
appearances for the Cherry and Whites in 3 years before he was released and
signed by Widnes in 1997.
In just 9 lower division matches for Widnes, Long made a big
impression and St. Helens were impressed enough to lay out a fee of £80,000 for
him – the fee rose to £100,000 after 30 first team appearances.
He found his true home at Knowsley Road and the seeds of a
Super League legend were quickly sown.At that time St. Helens had a team of formidable talent and, under Shaun McRae, had won the inaugural 1996 Super League title and the Challenge Cup in both 1996 and 1997 – however, they were on the lookout for a long term replacement for Bobbie Goulding and Long fitted the bill perfectly.
Signed midway through the 1997 season, Long made his debut
in the ill-fated World Club Challenge competition in 48-8 home defeat to
Cronulla Sharks.
For the rest of the season Long switched between both half
back positions before making the scrum half position his own in 1998.
For the next 11 seasons he became the fulcrum of the
St.Helens team forming superb half back partnerships with Tommy Martyn and then
Leon Pryce.
He played huge parts in 4 Super League title winning sides –
who will forget his last minute drop goal in the 2002 Grand Final to give the
Saints a 19-18 victory over Bradford Bulls – five Challenge Cup final victory’s
and 2 World Club Challenge wins.  |
| Long with Paul Sculthorpe |
Add in the 2000 Man of Steel award and a record three Lance
Todd Trophy’s for being awarded the man of the match in the Challenge Cup final
along with 164 tries, 1023 goals and 23 drop goals for points total of 2725 –
second only in Saints history to Kel Coslett, and you can see why he is held in
such high regard.
As we all know, there were negative sides to the Sean Long
legend – not least the 2004 ban he received, alongside Martin Gleeson, for
betting on his own team to lose in a Super League game against the Bradford
Bulls at Odsal.
Long did not play in the game as Saints had a very
inexperienced team out that day, but Gleeson did. Both players were fined £7500 each and ordered to pay costs of £2205 each with Gleeson suspended for 4 months and Long for 3 months.
Two years later and Long was the man of the match as Great
Britain beat Australia 23-12 in Sydney in the Tri-Nations tournament – 9 days
later, after a test defeat in New Zealand, he decided to leave the touring
party early and head home to his pregnant wife. This was on the back of reports
that GB officials were unhappy with Long’s behaviour on the plane back from New
Zealand and after the team’s arrival back at their Sydney hotel.
The Great Britain players were reported to be on a drinking
ban but reports suggested that Long was heavily intoxicated both before the
flight out of New Zealand and upon arrival at Sydney Airport.  |
| Long was MoM against Australia in 2006 |
Long never played international rugby league again but he
went on to captain the Saints to a World Club Challenge victory over the
Brisbane Broncos in early 2007 and enjoyed a successful testimonial year which
included another Challenge Cup Final victory, this time against Catalans
Dragons, and a Grand Final defeat to Leeds Rhinos.
At the end of 2009 Long’s Saints career came to a close and
he joined Hull FC on a 2 year contract, a major signing for the East Yorkshire
club. Unfortunately, injury’s curtailed his time and limited his effectiveness
for the club and he officially retired from playing on 10th August
2011.
It appears that this is where the wheel’s started to fall
off.
After over a decade of unparalleled success in a team
environment, the question was what to do next?
A stint playing low level rugby union for Preston
Grasshoppers did not last long.
Neither did a number of coaching positions with Long leaving
posts at Salford Red Devils, Wigan and London Broncos far a variety of reasons.
Most recently, the London Broncos released a statement
stating that ‘’Sean’s performance as an assistant coach did not meet the professional
levels expected.’’
To be fair Long has rejected this statement and insisted
that he left because the Broncos wanted to make his role part time.
In July of last year, Long left his position at the Wigan
Warriors after just 3 months with the club stating that ‘’Whilst it remains clear to the Wigan staff
that Sean is a highly skilled and competent coach, he has found it difficult as
a new staff member to integrate into the disciplined and already
high-performing culture at the Wigan club.’’ |
| Long is now back at Salford |
His first coaching
position in the professional game did last 18 months before he moved onto Wigan
after Brian Noble took over at Salford City Reds.
In the last week it
has been announced that Long has re-joined the Salford coaching staff as a
consultant to Brian Noble – let’s hope that this new role give’s Sean the structure
he obviously needs to put his life back on track – no one want’s to see another
Rugby League tragedy.
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