The Hardest Test by Scott Quinnell

Author:Scott Quinnell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Accent Press
Published: 2008-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

It was a midweek fixture away at Doncaster which brought about my full first team debut.

It was hard to believe I was lining up at second row in the same side as Andy Farrell, Dennis Betts, Martin Offiah and Jason Robinson – true legends of the game!

I lasted about five minutes. Perhaps the occasion was all too much for me, or I clumsily ran into the elbow of an opposition player! Either way, I soon found myself dazed on the ground after being hit once, getting up and playing the ball the wrong way, and collapsing again. The next thing I knew I was at the side of the pitch in the arms of the physio who was busily attending to my broken nose.

At half time Wigan coach Graham West came to see how I was doing, which I thought was very kind of him. Groggily I told him I was feeling a little better and that at least my nose had stopped bleeding. “Great,” he said. “Get back on for the second half.”

That’s the difference in the two games: in rugby union the bang on the head would have sidelined me for three weeks by law. Here, I found myself back on the field before I knew it, even though I felt like I’d been run over by a bus. It was certainly a test of character.

I don’t know if the Doncaster boys had a pot on me that day, but, like the Furnace boys before them, they too would have walked away frustrated and out of pocket. Even though playing on wasn’t my choice this time!

Later that season I was asked by Wales rugby league boss, Clive Griffiths, to attend a training session and later to watch the forthcoming international against Australia. The Welsh team that day featured the likes of Allan Bateman, Dai Young, Rowland Phillips and Paul Moriarty – players I was already familiar with. If I had any doubts about the physicality of league, this game was to well and truly get rid of them.

You could almost feel the big hits from where you sat. As a measure of the sheer brutality of the match, John Devereaux got taken off with a broken jaw. But if any one thing stood out for me that day it was the performance of the colossal Mal Meninga. What a player – he had the sublime skills to match his sheer force. If he represented rugby league at its best, I knew I had my work cut out!

I have lots of great memories of my time at Wigan. I got the call to represent Wales rugby league at the 1995 World Cup. We had one particularly brutal encounter against Samoa at the Vetch, Swansea. The game had to be delayed because of the massive crowds – many people had to be locked out. As you can imagine, the atmosphere was electric. Samoa were so physical that if you gave less than 100% commitment, you could be sure not to last the eighty minutes in one piece.

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