1999 Bradford 6 l. St Helens 8

9th October 1999
Old Trafford, Manchester
Attendance: 50,717
Referee: Stuart Cummings (Widnes)
Harry Sunderland Trophy: Henry Paul (Bradford)

Bradford
Tries: Henry Paul
Goals: Henry Paul

St Helens
Tries: Kevin Iro
Goals: Sean Long (2)

Bradford: Stuart Spruce, Tevita Vaikona, Scott Naylor, Michael Withers, Leon Pryce, Henry Paul, Robbie Paul, Paul Anderson, James Lowes, Stuart Fielden, David Boyle, Bernard Dwyer, Steve Mcnamara. Subs: Paul Deacon, Nathan Mcavoy, Mike Forshaw, Brian Mcdermott

St Helens: Paul Atcheson, Chris Smith, Kevin Iro, Paul Newlove, Anthony Sullivan, Paul Sculthorpe, Tommy Martyn, Apollo Perelini, Keiron Cunningham, Julian O'neill, Fereti Tuilagi, Sonny Nickle, Chris Joynt. Subs: Paul Wellens, Sean Long, Sean Hoppe, Vila Matautia

It still staggers me to this day the lack of weight on our bench that night. Considering Matautia didnt play that many minutes the starting pack played most of the game against a formidable Bradford pack. Makes that night even more of a achievement.

To be fair, Bradford had a half-back and a 3/4 on the bench too - we hadn't quite reached the "bench-full of barge" rotation era then yet. Those were the days...

Those were also the days when we used to "do a Leeds" by being gash for most of the year and then just turning up for the playoffs - 1999 was a particularly fine example of the breed. I miss them...

I just wish we still had half that team

Just look at that side though.



Compare them with their present day counterparts and the results are interesting. I'd offer the following team with positions compared like for like with Saints' current lineup :

Wellens
Meli
Iro
Newlove
Sullivan
Sculthorpe
Martyn
Perelini
Cunningham
Puletua
Tuilagi
Nickle
Joynt

Soliola
Long
Hoppe
Matautia

I'm not saying Meli, Puletua, Soliola and Wellens are the best players we have, just that they're marginally better players than their equivalents back in '99.

What pains me is that in 1999, we have no fewer than four possible halves - Martyn, Long, Sculthorpe and Hoppe, all of whom are better than anything we have today !

All in my humble opinion, of course.

How good would it be to see someone like Newlove or Iro in a Saints shirt again....

I would go for

Wellens
Meli
Iro
Newlove
Sullivan
Martyn
Long
Perelini
Cunningham
Puletua
Joynt (c)
Soliola
Sculthorpe

Bench

Hoppe
Tuilagi
Matautia
Nickle

There are simply no halves remotely in the same class as Long and Sculthorpe playing anywhere in the northern hemisphere anymore - players of that standard belong to a bygone age now.

And the "best of" team (assuming I can reorder the starters from that game and I'm picking a "modern" 4 forward bench) would be:

Wellens (2012 version)
Hoppe
Iro
Newlove
Sullivan
Martyn
Long
Perelini
Cunningham
TP
Soliola
Joynt
Sculthorpe

Roby
LMS
Manu
Nickle

Overall I think our modern pack stacks up quite well with '99, but the gulf in quality in the backs now and then.... It makes for very depressing reading frankly just how far the talent in our game has declined in just the last decade.

We have never replaced Patch, he was a great player, the safest man under a high ball I have ever seen. I only remember him dropping the ball once and it was an illegal challenge.

The size of Bradfords pack was their strength and weakness. We had the ball players to run around them. Having six interchanges helped also as Bradfords big men had to play most of the game. Allowing teams to put props on for a short spell of time has not helped the game. There is too much put on size these days.

Interesting comments, I didn't see the game, only the scoreline. I'd always imagined it must have been a straightforward battle between the packs rather than a game won by speed and handling.

A very good and very unfairly maligned player for me (he never had a chance being a Wiganer sandwiched between Wello and Preckie), but you could still never pick him over Wellens.

I would.

To be fair you'd happily pick a snowman instead of Wellens, so not exactly a revelation.