Key events
Get in touch!
Kick off in just over half an hour, in the meantime you can let me know all your thoughts, or question my view of rugby history on the email. I look forward to hearing from you.
Teams
Warrington Wolves:
Josh Thewlis; Matty Ashton, Toby King, Arron Lindop, Albert Hopoate; George Williams, Ewan Irwin; James Harrison, Danny Walker, Liam Byrne, James Bentley, Sam Stone, Ben Currie.
Interchange: Sam Powell, Joe Philbin, Kelepi Tanginoa, Luke Yates.
Wakefield Trinity:
Max Jowitt; Lachlan Walmsley, Corey Hall, Cameron Scott, Tom Johnstone; Jake Trueman, Jack Sinfield; Mike McMeeken, Tyson Smoothy, Ky Rodwell, Zac Lipowicz, Isaiah Vagana, Jazz Tevaga.
Interchange: Jay Pitts, Caleb Hamlin-Uele, Caius Faatili, Mason Lino.
Why not read about the respective journeys to the final here…
Preamble
Sport and history at their best are about the stories. Rugby league feels the weight of history more than any other football code in this land and has the best story.
Ask most rugby union or soccer fans when their game was founded and their response will be an “Errr?” followed by a quick Google, but put the same question to RL followers and “1895” is the immediate response. The year of the Great Split, 21 clubs in the George Hotel, the canary issue of broken-time payments and a clear throwing off of the rugby, and therefore society’s, establishment. A move that same establishment never forgave, as demonstrated by their active and relentless ignoring at best and persecution at worst of RL over the next century: league wasn’t allowed to be played in the armed forces until 1994, the sport didn’t get it’s first Knight until Sir Billy Boston in 2025, and don’t even get me started on what they did to RL in France.
It’s hard to thrive when everyone in power would rather you didn’t exist. Yet heritage through this adversity is a hell of a story and one that tonight’s teams know plenty about.
The oppressive heft of the past is something Warrington & Wakefield have grappled with to a greater extent that most clubs. Two sides from two of the largest human settlements in England that do not possess a professional team of any other code – there is only the Wire and Trinity in these places – so how difficult it has been for their fans to not win a league championship for over half a century of deindustialisation, Thatcher and all that this brought. At least when the government abandoned Liverpool in the 80s their soccer teams were hammering everyone.
Warrington’s lack of a title since 1955 is the regular subject of opposition terrace chant mockery (told you, league fans know their history), while Wakefield’s legendary team of 1968 featuring Neil & Don Fox (‘the poor lad’) and Harold Poynton were the last to hoist the trophy high in their city.
One of these teams has to win the Championship again over the coming hours and etch some history in real time. Both as a name on the trophy and into the culture and tales of their community. What an event it will be down by the Mersey or in West Yorkshire when a victorious team is welcomed back after so many decades, writing another story for this brilliant sport.
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