Yes. And it only came after something like 8 minutes of injury time.

Those who forget that Test series can only be doing it out of convenience for their own argument.

It was a classic trio of matches.

The Aussies knew they'd almost met their match. It was the same a couple of years later at Wembley in the World Club Final, when only Steve Renouf (and referee Dennis Hale) were the difference between the two teams.

How those days seem to have flown.

Edited for accuracy

PS

I seem to remember there being 60/70k + at Wembley, and then 50k at O/T with 40k+ at Elland road?

We didn't do too bad in 92 & 94 & the 95 World cup were we pushed the Aussies close in the series and then close in the World cup (Beating them once and narrowly losing in the 2 x World cup finals).
All in front of pretty Healthy crowds of 40k plus arenas and 70k crowds at Wembley for the WC Finals?
I also seem to remember 35k against Fiji at Central Park in a very profitable World Cup?

But I guess none of the above will fit in with the "Everything is rosey in the Garden Brigade?"

It was the 2nd test at OT with GB 1-0 up. We were drawing at the time, Maninga scored and we got gubbed in the 3rd at Elland Rd.

You can have that one - it helped to set off the 5,250 and 4,193 that attended GB's last two home qualifiers before the final.

I see that lots pf people's memories are rather misty about events relating to test series. It took Wigan / Leeds Andy to actually post the truth of that series - the Aussies won the last game 14 - 0 in front of a crowd that was less than 5% more than attended the 2009 game between the same teams at the same ground; hardly earth shattering difference in attendance.

I see nobody has cared to comment upon the sub- 10,000 attendance for an Ashes game at Wembley - any thoughts on that?

Yep. It all comes back to me now!

Don't recall the 1973 game (too young) and don't have any stats to hand. If you're choice of that game is as selective as your choice of the dead season prior to SL (I thought something was up with your figures, even the most ardent Wigan fan wouldn't suggest Saints supporter base was really that low in the 90s!!) then I'm sure there's some other explanation.

I don't think thought that anyone doubts that certainly from the mid 70s through to the mid 80s the game was in a poor state in this country.

From the late 80s onwards with the emergence of Wigan (and Widnes to be fair, everyone forgets just what a class side they were) the game was dragged into the modern era, a number of clubs (not just Wigan!) went fully professional and the game kicked on to a level where we could challenge the Aussies without fear of embarassment.

The head in the sand/flat earth brigade would be happy to see us return to being a third rate sport with semi-pro sides. In the 70s and 80s with less competition from other sports and leisure activities RL could just about survive. It won't be able to do so in a 21st century world. We will be lucky to sustain a French style competition. Quote random selective facts all you want but the issue you can't get away from is the inability for RL clubs to keep pace with wage inflation. If this continues the future of professional RL is bleak.

Finally, I am amused by your argument that an SC would have stopped Halifax from having financial problems. Just like the SC stopped the GatesHull fiasco, or London's financial difficulties, or the financial problems at Bradford, or Sheffield Eagles' demise, or the repeated crises at London, or the recent Crusaders mess, or Wakefield's problems.... I can't believe you have suggested that the SC is a means of stopping clubs going bust. It is an utter failure as a financial control measure!

what's this???????

Rugby Union soon to be the only Rugby?????????

Just after Loughlin scored the try to get us level I was planning the biggest night out in history - then Eastwood missed his easiest kick of the day and the rest is history.

Why are people commenting on RL today v RL of yester year? There are too many factors to consider with the state of society etc which makes the two issues irrelevant.

Regardless of an improvement or drop the issue of where RL stands TODAY in comparison to RU is the main issue. I watched Boot and All this week to hear a discussion of the development of RL against RU, the international game was pin-pointed as a major issue-something I agree with.

This however is harder to correct, because we are discussing worldwide development in our sport, otherwise even if we developed a quality English team, England v Ireland would still be a farce as the Irish team is no match!

The impact of this is even more of an issue when we see English players playing for Ireland only to defect from the team to join English in preparation for the WC!

What a royal mess.

I have only one more comment to add on this. That which states it's more expensive to build and run a modern stadium.

This has been proven to not be the case. The cost of maintaining Wilderspool and keeping it safe enough for people to go there every other weekend without the corrugated steel falling on them were crippling the Warrington club. Also the state of the ground meant it simply wasn't an attractive prospect to sell hospitality packages (like it or not, prawn sandwich bridgade people are an important revenue stream) to people with more money than the average punter. It's for those same reasons that Wigan moved out of Central Park, why Huddersfield are now in the Galpharm, why Widnes redevloped Naughton park, why Halifax were attempting to do the same before financially things went awry, why Saints are moving to a new stadium, and the same for Salford too (apologies to people who's clubs I've missed out of the list).

This has nothing to do with "putting more importance on the fans than on the players", and absolutely everything to do with trying to make the sport and it's surroundings better equiped, cheaper to maintain year-on-year than a crumbling falling down old cow shed, and a more attractive place to visit for businesses on both match-days AND other days (renting conference suites, etc).

Every expanding business makes sure its foundations are strong before attacking new opportunities which are high risk.
The RFL strategy is to look for the two in the bush before considering the one in the hand.
The advent of franchising has only impacted on a few clubs, namely Widnes, Fax and Leigh. Less so on Fev, Haven and Oldham.
The stadia at Widnes, Fax and Leigh are better than many in SL. The pool of players is bigger than many, but fans want to see their team at the highest level denying them the right to win that will kill the clubs.
SL needs 2 divisions of 10 FT clubs. It makes all games competitive, expands the player pool, creates an achievable goal for ambitious clubs not in the 20 and allows expansion in France where we have a player pool and history.
Let the RFL continue to develop the grassroots in London/SEast/Wales etc and when they develop semi pro they have foundations in place for SL.