WHEN WEMBLEY DREAMS TURN INTO NIGHTMARES

Sack Chris Chester. Ben Cockayne should have played full back instead of Kieran Dixon. James Green should have been on the bench instead of Dane Tilse or Mitch Allgood. Albert Kelly wasn’t fit. Dane Chisholm should have been on the bench.

These are just some of the things I have read or heard since Hull KR’s Wembley dream became a nightmare on Saturday afternoon against a rampant Leeds Rhinos side.

Certainly sacking Chester is a non-starter and I doubt that any of the other changes suggested, with the benefit of hindsight by our supporters, would have made too much of a difference against a Rhinos team brimming with experience and world class talent and totally on top of it’s game.

In the 4 weeks since the semi-finals the excitement in the east side of Hull had been steadily building. Match tickets, train tickets and merchandise had been bought, coaches and hotel rooms booked, a charity single recorded and the fitness of Albert Kelly had been the main subject of conversation such was his importance to the chance of Rovers winning the Cup for the first time since 1980.

Rover’s fans, many of whom had not been born at the time of our last visit to Wembley in 1986, were dreaming about what it would be like to visit the new Wembley Stadium and upset the odds and beat the Rhinos.

I had a dream that a red and white guardian angel had her arms held tightly around the Challenge Cup this year and had beaten off the black and amber guardian angel of the Bradford Bulls, withheld the might of the arrogant Wigan Warriors cherry and white angel, charged through the red and yellow Gallic angel from Catalans and cut a swathe through the shocked Primrose and Blue angel of the Warrington Wolves – I was hoping that she would be strong enough to withstand the mighty challenge of the guardian angel from Leeds decked out in blue and amber.

I travelled down on Saturday morning on coach with my 4 kids aged 6, 9, 12 and 13 – we all had team shirts (my 9 year old a Hull FC shirt) and we had bought scarves, flags and rosettes as well and my 6 year old boy had learnt the words to ‘A Little Respect’ and was constantly watching the video on YouTube.

Ready for the off!

It was going to be a long day – up before 6 a.m. for the coach to leave at 7a.m. and back home probably around midnight.

It would also be a day full of chat, friends, laughter, hope, heartache, emotion, pain, desperation, disappointment, inspiration, excitement and tiredness.

My 9 year old Hull FC supporting son (I still struggle with this) was the only non-Hull KR fan on our coach and was the subject of some gentle banter throughout the smooth and uneventful coach journey down to London.

We went into a bar near Wembley Stadium with a mixture of Rovers and Leeds Rhinos fans stood outside and a big guy in a Rovers training shirt came up to my son asking him what he was doing there in a Hull FC shirt – now Lleyton is a shy lad when he is in new company and was unsure how to respond. The Rovers fan took him by the hand and led him over to the Rovers fans that he was with. As Lleyton was looking back at me wondering what was going on the guy then slowly pulled off his Rovers shirt to reveal a Hull FC vest. He then put his arm around Lleyton’s shoulder and said ‘’you’re not alone son’’ and started singing ‘’Old Faithful’’ at the top of his voice with Lleyton joining in and laughing nervously alongside him. He was wearing the Rovers shirt because he had lost a bet.


Legends Statue

Although we just missed the unveiling it was awe-inspiring to view the new legends of rugby league sculpture that is located on the Wembley Stadium concourse. Saturday was exactly 120 years since the birth of the Greatest Game in the George Hotel in Huddersfield and Rugby League should be very proud that it is only the second sport, after football with the Bobby Moore statue, to have a permanent presence at the National Stadium.

The five iconic figures on the one ton bronze statue, wonderfully created by East Yorkshire sculptor Stephen Winterburn, are Gus Risman, Eric Ashton, Billy Boston MBE, Alex Murphy OBE and Martin Offiah MBE. These are true legends of the game – if some of you young one’s who happen to read this don’t know who they are then check out YouTube – you will find some fantastic footage and some Rugby League brilliance.

You can also watch a short film about the sculpture here: youtu.be/dCX-PBh0zFo      

Me and Stevo

The statue really is a fitting tribute to our sport and is worth a visit to the stadium alone. The three legends still with us – Boston, Murphy and Offiah – were all present along with Eric Ashton’s wife and Gus Risman’s son, Bev. Offiah in particular looked very snazzy and I managed to snaffle a photo with Stevo who had managed to get himself on the guest list.

Wembley Stadium

Me and the kids entered the stadium and took in the fantastic view after we had got our breath back after climbing to virtually the top of the stadium (my fault for purchasing the cheapest tickets!!) and were in time to watch the very impressive Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf school from South Wales defeat Wade Deacon school from Widnes 40-6 to win the Year 7 Champion Schools Final and take home the Steven Mullaney Memorial Trophy – they really did play some excellent rugby league and showed that Malet Lambert School from my home town from Hull were not far away from being the top school team in the country. Glantaf visited Hull in the quarter finals and trailed 10-6 to Malet Lambert before a very late converted try won them the game 12-10.

The kids.

As I mentioned earlier we were seated right at the top of the stadium and I can see how the height could be an issue with some people. We were sat enjoying the schools match when some elderly ladies approached us to get past to their seats – they were very nervous because of the height and would only shuffle past us with their backs to the stadium and holding onto each one of us as they passed – semi-rigid with fear. I must admit I could not stop laughing and I was in hysterics when they realised, after they had nervously got past us, that they were heading in the wrong direction and needed to get past us again to get to their seats – cue a repeat of the shuffling and the holding on and the apologising before they safely found their way to the right seats. My daughter chastised me for laughing so much but I just couldn’t help it.

At this time we were still really looking forward to the match and had a strong belief that our boys could bring the Challenge Cup home. The players came out to a huge cheer as they warmed up and we had already seen on social media that Albert Kelly was fit and that Kieran Dixon would start at full back – the surprise was that local lad James Green, after a monumental semi-final performance, had been discarded in preference to the recently returned Mitch Allgood – not a game changer as far as I am concerned but I thought Green deserved a place on the bench.

Both sets of supporters were in really good voice and the Rovers fans gave a great rendition of Erasure’s ‘A Little Respect’ which has been adopted by the club since the semi-final.

The real emotion of the day was saved for ‘Abide With Me’ which was sang beautifully and brilliantly by Lizzie Jones, the widow of Keighley Cougars Danny who so tragically died at a match earlier this year. I knew this would be emotional and I knew that she would receive a huge and wonderful reception from everyone in the stadium and there were one or two tears rolling down my cheeks as she sang – but what really set me off was the photograph on the big screens of her and Danny looking at each other with their children – such a beautiful photograph and such a sad time – those few minutes will stay with me for a long time and I am really honoured that I was there to see her perform and very proud to say that she is part of the Rugby League family – she has done her husband and family proud.

Fetch the tissues and watch Lizzie’s brilliant performance again here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpQQW9WQDvE

As Lizzie left the field the two teams entered and it was fantastic to see my team walk onto the Wembley pitch. I was excited to have my children with me to see this, they don’t realise where this club of ours has come from in the last 10 years and only know Super League – they don’t know about the 12 years outside of the top flight, the National Leagues, the heartache of playing at home in front of 1100 fans when you had been used to seeing the club play in major finals at the old Wembley Stadium, Elland Road, Headingley or Boothferry Park in front of thousands, playing in the third tier of the sport, going into administration and wondering if we would have a club left to support.

Kids are all about the here and now and to have them there with me was brilliant and I hope it is not the last time they get to see their team at Wembley. I knew how tough this game would be but I was hoping that the guardian angel I mentioned earlier was going to be on her game. As everyone knows it was not to be – this article is not a match report so I’m not going to go into the where’s and why fore’s and who scored how many tries and who made the most errors.

When you get beaten 50-0 you can’t have any complaints – the harsh fact is that we were nowhere near good enough and were blown away by as good a team performance as I have seen in a long time.

Leeds Rhinos shut us down completely and there defensive performance was even more impressive than the wonderful tries that they scored – believe me this Hull KR side can score tries and it has some dangerous attacking players – but they could not make the slightest dent in the Leeds Rhinos armour. The forwards in particular could not break the iron grip that enveloped them every time they took the ball up.

Ironically, Kieran Dixon was our main attacking threat and probably tried to do too much himself at times as he attempted to make up for the errors that cost us so much on the day – I hope he has the support of all at the club because he is a massive talent.  

The first 20 minutes of the first half showed what a tough job we had on our hands. Rovers could not get out of their own half to gain decent field position and were constantly either having to defend or take the ball out from within 10 yards of their line – the Rhinos were also cleverly attacking the short side which caused constant problems.

16-0 down after 20 minutes was not good but the boys showed some spirit in the second quarter to keep Leeds out for the rest of the half.

It was clear that we would have to score first in the second half but Tom Briscoe’s break away try from an attacking kick just broke our hearts and it was clear that the rest of the half would be about keeping the score down and trying to get across the line ourselves – we certainly wouldn’t be taking the Cup back to East Hull.

As everyone knows, we didn’t keep the score down and didn’t manage to get across the whitewash and I sank deeper and deeper into my seat as the half went on – particularly in the last 10 minutes when the Rhinos cut loose and scored three converted tries.

After the score got to 44-0 I said to my eldest boy that we HAD to keep the score below 50 – in the same breath Briscoe scored his record 5th try and Sinfield converted to get make the score 50-0. It wasn’t really until that final 10 minutes that we had a couple of real opportunities to score ourselves but we bombed them – it was the story of our day.

Now when your team gets beaten by 50 points you are usually pretty angry with your players but I had to stay right to the end and see the boys come over to us because I know that they will be just as gutted as us supporters – if not more so.

They certainly didn’t wake up on Saturday morning with the intention of getting hammered and to be fair they put in a huge amount of effort and determination but it just wasn’t enough – the team didn’t play well enough and the players just weren’t good enough – the difference in class was quite embarrassing at times but Leeds can do that to anyone on their day – it just happened that they did it to my team on our biggest day for 29 years.

As we left the stadium there was no ballyhoo or particular excitement from the Leeds fans – they have seen it all before and it was probably a little bit too boring and predictable for them and I guess they would have welcomed a real battle to win the Cup rather than just be handed it on a plate.

The coach journey home to Hull was subdued and tiring and we eventually got home around 1130pm – I had to have a couple of glasses of wine to help cheer me up and put me to sleep.

I had a lie in on Sunday morning and managed to resist watching the match on TV when I eventually dragged myself out of bed – I really don’t think I will be able to do that ever. We decided to go to Pizza Hut later in the afternoon and would you believe it that on the table right behind us was a family of Leeds Rhinos fans!!!!

That just summed up my weekend really.