Were those the days Grandstand would show just one half of a match? I think just half of that match was shown

tunks had a good game that day too iirc

No, I ave the full game on video, just need a video player now!!!

What a great game it was. As a sixteen year old I remember thinking we were now the best team in the league. Sadly Saints edged us in the final. We had a number of false dawns in the 80s and 90s.

Thanks to doc-rhino for this, I was there but had forgotten the game. I have just watched the whole thing on YouTube. If you have amazon prime just ask alexa for you "you tube leeds v wigan 1988 John player semi final". Great memories, thanks doc.

Was the day Lee Crooks did his shoulder. He missed pretty much the entire rest of the season and "bulked up" considerably. Never got back to his best IMO.
I clearly appear in the video of that game.

As for the final.....DOUBLE MOVEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

again if iirc shane coper won the final with a one pointer and we seemed to have a few one point defeats where we never looked capable of kicking one - even with kev we seemed to scramble , gale seems the most certain since john holmes to correctly kick one

As i remember Doc we had chance after chance to kick a 1 pointer in that final and never took one. Typical Leeds at that time we fluffed it on the big stage. Jeez we had some dark days in 80s and 90s particularly in semis and finals and most of them seemed to happen at Central Park.

I remember travelling to Central Park, for a cup game which may have been in the same year. We lead 10 nil in front of a massive crowd and then they just blew us away. Still., when we finally started to win things the success was all the sweeter.

Yeah same season. Schoey and Medley scored early. Iro brothers killed us tho.

It's all coming back to me now, like Vietnam flashbacks. The next year Widnes walloped us in front of 25k at HQ. The Cup was massive back then. In some ways despite our lack of success I can't help but think that the late 80's early 90's were something of a golden age for the game. GB were certainly pushing the Aussies all the way. It's hard to see when that might happen again.

There’s a part of me that enjoyed those days more than the Golden decade. I know it’s because it was a certain time in my life as much as the rugby, but I do miss it a bit.

We are definitely closer to the Aussies then than almost any time since, and had a number of players that would not look out of place in their team.

I think the best move longer term would be to look to turn Walker into a half back. It would give him more opportunity to use his running game without taking the big hits. Although the trade off there is more defensive work but he would at least have support in that.

Agree with what others said earlier in the thread too about the NRL looking more physical and I think at least a part of that is the fact that the average NRL debut is at age 23 when SL is age 20 and if anything going down.

The NRL feeder system is far far superior to anything we have ever had over here. Ultimately, if we want to compete with the Aussies long term we need to replicate their systems.

Jack doesnt have the skills of a half.

They showed it all. I can be seen in a few of the crowd shots.