Wigan gave Union their wake-up call

It’s 25 years ago this Tuesday that a curious triptych of cross-code rugby encounters came to an end when Bath, playing Union laws, defeated Wigan Warriors 42-19 in front of 42,000 fans at Twickenham.

- BRENDAN GALLAGHER

Earlier that month, on March 6, the Rugby League tyros had crushed Bath 82-6 in front of a healthy enough 20,000 crowd attendance at old Maine Road playing the 13-man version of the game and it was five days after that encounter that we witnessed possibly the most relevant action of all. On that occasion, Wigan won the Middlesex Sevens defeating a Lawrence Dallaglio-skippered Wasps in the final.

Other than that splendid Sevens victory I haven’t given these games much thought in the intervening years but what does the long lens of history now show?

Their raison d’etre was for Union and League to kiss and make up after decades of ridiculous suspicion and animosity – an unfathomable hatred given all concerned essentially shared the same rugby DNA.

I place the blame squarely on Union for the standoff – we erected all the barriers – and the Union authorities caused much agonizing and squirming among less well-heeled Union players who needed to earn a living wage and were faced with being sent to Coventry if they “went north”.

At that ‘détente’ level the games worked well, a bit of fun. Post-match beers were necked and the occasions were decent earners save for the Sevens event. The Sevens has always been a charity and Wigan contested it for free along with all the Union teams who were just coming to the end of the Union moratorium which prevented players from being paid in the 1995-96 season after the game went open in August 1995.