And the King's older brother in action too

Geoff Pimblett, as good as I remember

Okay, so I'm a young 'un (my first match was some time in 1984 as a baby), but I'm watching the 1978 Challenge Cup Final and I'm staggered at the amount of handling errors. Defensively, both sides look naive when going into contact, and - despite Wembley having quite a large pitch - the players look tiny. Based on this, I would argue that any side in Super League currently would absolutely murder either the Leeds or Saints teams.

What do you guys reckon?

Amateur and Professional!

Say no more!

PS What a knock-on from Noonan!!

Everything was very nieve then, in many respects vintage games remind me more of those matches seen now at half time between kids.
Made for a very open exciting game though.

Hope people appreciated the beauty(sic) of competitive scrums.

Some things to note were the inability of players to spin pass the ball.
The lack of defensive lines, people just ran in on the tackler. This made it relatively easy to draw a man and put a runner in space.
The lack of offensive moves, with people running angles off the ball, including i may add blocking runs. It was all off the cuff.
The complete absence of flat (eg forward) passing.
Hookers that could actually hook
The poor quality of the tactical kicking games. Pimblett was a master kicker of his day, but his drop out only went 30 metres. Big kickers these days hoof the ball 50+ metres.
Similarly at kickoffs the ball tended to get picked up between the goal line and 20 metre line. Players just didnt have the strength to kick the ball deep down to the goal line.
Up and unders were feable things with hardly any height compared to the towering hang time bombs of today.
The appalling standard of refereeing. Billy T missed loads of knock ons, messing around at the play the ball, high tackles, including grapple tackles, feeding at the scrum,foot up at the crum, players standing offside. etc etc.

Off the pitch i noted that Saints fans outnumbered Leeds. We brought 25k to 30k to Wembley, Leeds only 20k. This was per Eddie Waring.
Saints fans sang "You will never Walk alone. They also sang ST.HELENS in a manner more like "LIVERPOOL" used to chant.
The YARKSHIRE chant was only heard when Leeds took the lead, and sounded different than it does today.

Nice to see both teams with proper rugby shirts. The redvee of Saints was really striking to see.

Eddie also referred to the rugby as FOOTBALL a number of times, and talked about SOCCER being played at Wembley
This is something you dont hear now, as SOCCER has completely taken ownership of the word FOOTBALL in this country, while trying to deny the very old use of the term SOCCER for the game of Association football.

somethings never change though..leeds getting a try in an important match off a mile forward pass..(atkinson)..

A couple of things came to mind when watching the game. I was surprised how relentless it was, we are fooled into thinking that the modern game is quick but there are much more stoppages now adays which means the players can play at a higher intensity and a quicker pace.

Just how good was Mel James....an animal with a massive engine. Played at 100% for 80mins and dished out a bit of biff. Lol

The annoying thing was I always knew when there was a try coming because I could recognise the commentary from the '101 Top Rugby League Tries' video.

I was exactly the same! In fact, I kept nipping out of the room but knew when to come back as I recogised the commentary.

I actually enjoyed the game (except the result). Was interesting to see how the game was played before my time. Whilst the structures were lacking, watching some of the passing and interplay was really enjoyable.

Good to see Les Jones in all his tonsorial elegance

I absolutely agree with everything, bar the kicking - or at least the place kicking. I can't recall the name of the Leeds player who took the shots at goal, but when he had to convert from the touchline, he took the ball back almost 35 metres. Yes, it made the angle of the kick more manageable, but you have to really hoof the thing to pop it over from there!

Don't forget that the ball is a lot lighter these days.

Also, in another 4 years the Invincibles will come over and teach everyone a harsh lesson.

The balls are and were ther same weight as today. Such things are defined in the rules of the game

The very old balls got heavy in the rain due to not having waterproof membrane. As this match was played in dry weather, that would not have been an issue.
I can also attest to fact that as someone who owns one of those Mitre balls, that they are not much different from todays balls, except for fact todays balls are dimpled to aid grip.

I was just enjoying the dodgy barnets and even dodgier taches. Explains why my old man had a similar tache/hair combo in the 80s.

I'll bow to your superior knowledge, I thought there would have been changes like there has in Association Football.