When Wembley dreams turn into nightmares

Sack Chris Chester. Ben Cockayne should have played fullback instead of Kieran Dixon. James Green should have been on the bench instead of Dane Tilse or Mitch Allgood. These are just some on the things I’ve read or heard since Hull KR’s Wembley dream became a nightmare.

The English club collapsed against a rampant Leeds Rhinos last Saturday afternoon in the Challenge Cup final, losing 50-0.

Certainly sacking head coach Chester is a non-starter and I doubt that any of the other changes suggested, with the benefit of hindsight by our supporters, would have made too much of a difference against a Rhinos team brimming with experience and world class talent.

In the four weeks since the epic semi-final win over Warrington Wolves the excitement in the east side of Hull had been steadily building.

Match tickets, train tickets and merchandise had been bought, coaches and hotel rooms booked and a charity single recorded. The fitness of Albert Kelly had been the main subject of conversation such was his importance to the chance of Rovers winning the Challenge Cup for the first time since 1980.

Rovers’ fans, many of whom had not been born at the time of our last visit to Wembley in 1986, were dreaming about what it would be like to visit the new Wembley Stadium and upset the odds and beat the Rhinos.

I had a dream that a red and white guardian angel had her arms held tightly around the Challenge Cup this year and had beaten off the black and amber guardian angel of the Bradford Bulls, withheld the might of the arrogant Wigan Warriors cherry and white angel, charged through the red and yellow Gallic angel from Catalans and cut a swathe through the shocked Primrose and Blue angel of the Warrington Wolves.

I was hoping that she would be strong enough to withstand the mighty challenge of the guardian angel from Leeds decked out in blue and amber.

I travelled down on Saturday morning on coach with my four kids – aged 6, 9, 12 and 13. We all had team shirts (my nine-year-old a Hull FC shirt) and we had bought scarves, flags and rosettes as well and my six-year-old boy had learnt the words to “A Little Respect”, our charity single.

It was going to be a long day – up before 6am for the coach to leave at 7am and back home probably around midnight. It would also be a day full of chat, friends, laughter, hope, heartache, emotion, pain, desperation, disappointment, inspiration, excitement and tiredness.

My nine-year-old Hull FC supporting son (I still struggle with this) was the only non-Hull KR fan on our coach and was the subject of some gentle banter throughout the smooth and uneventful coach journey down to London.

We went into a bar near Wembley Stadium with a mixture of Rovers and Leeds Rhinos fans standing outside and a big guy in a Hull KR shirt came up to my son asking him what he was doing there in a Hull FC shirt – now Lleyton is a shy lad when he is in new company and was unsure how to respond.

The Rovers fan took him by the hand and led him over to the fans that he was with. As Lleyton was looking back at me wondering what was going on the guy then slowly pulled off his Rovers shirt to reveal a Hull FC vest. He put his arm around Lleyton’s shoulder and said “you’re not alone son” and started singing “Old Faithful” at the top of his voice with Lleyton joining in and laughing nervously alongside him.

He was wearing the Rovers shirt because he had lost a bet.

Although we just missed the unveiling it was awe-inspiring to view the new legends of rugby league sculpture that is located on the Wembley Stadium concourse.

Saturday was exactly 120 years since the birth of the greatest game in the George Hotel in Huddersfield and rugby league should be very proud that it is only the second sport, after football with the Bobby Moore statue, to have a permanent presence at the national stadium.

The five iconic figures on the one-ton bronze statue, wonderfully created by East Yorkshire sculptor Stephen Winterburn, are Gus Risman, Eric Ashton, Billy Boston MBE, Alex Murphy OBE and Martin Offiah MBE.

These are true legends of our game – if some of you younger fans don’t know who they are then check out YouTube, you will find some fantastic footage and some rugby league brilliance.

The statue really is a fitting tribute to our sport and is worth a visit to the stadium alone. The three legends still with us – Boston, Murphy and Offiah – were all present along with Eric Ashton’s wife and Gus Risman’s son, Bev.

Offiah in particular looked very snazzy and I managed to snaffle a photo with the former Dewsbury, Penrith and Great Britain hooker Mike ‘Stevo’ Stephenson who had managed to get himself on the guest list.

Me and the kids entered the stadium and took in the fantastic view after we had got our breath back after climbing to virtually the top of the structure (my fault for purchasing the cheapest tickets!).

I can see how the height could be an issue with some people as the stands are quite steep. Some elderly ladies approached us to get past to their seats – they were very nervous because of the height and would only shuffle past us with their backs to the stadium and holding onto each one of us as they passed – semi-rigid with fear.

I must admit I could not stop laughing and I was in hysterics when they realised, after they had nervously got past us, that they were heading in the wrong direction and needed to get past us again to get to their seats. Cue a repeat of the shuffling and the holding on and the apologising before they safely found their way to the right seats. My daughter chastised me for laughing so much but I just couldn’t help it.

At this time we were still really looking forward to the match and had a strong belief that our boys could bring the Challenge Cup home. The players came out to a huge cheer as they warmed up and we had already seen on social media that Albert Kelly was fit and that Kieran Dixon would start at fullback – the surprise was that local lad James Green, after a monumental semi-final performance, had been discarded in preference to the recently returned Mitch Allgood.

Both sets of supporters were in really good voice and the Rovers fans gave a great rendition of Erasure’s “A Little Respect” which has been adopted by the club since the semi-final.

The real emotion of the day was saved for “Abide With Me” which was sang beautifully and brilliantly by Lizzie Jones, the widow of Keighley Cougars’ Danny, who so tragically died at a match earlier this year. I knew this would be emotional and I knew that she would receive a huge and wonderful reception from everyone in the stadium and there were one or two tears rolling down my cheeks as she sang.

But what really set me off was the photograph on the big screens of her and Danny looking at each other with their children – such a beautiful photograph and such a sad time. Those few minutes will stay with me for a long time and I am really honoured that I was there to see her perform and very proud to say that she is part of the rugby league family – she has done her husband and family proud.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpQQW9WQDvE

As Lizzie left the field the two teams entered and it was fantastic to see my team walk onto the Wembley pitch. I was excited to have my children with me to see this, they don’t realise where this club of ours has come from in the last 10 years and only know Super League.

They don’t know about the 12 years outside of the top flight, the national leagues, the heartache of playing at home in front of 1100 fans, playing in the third tier of the sport, going into administration and wondering if we would have a club left to support.

Kids are all about the here and now and to have them there with me was brilliant and I hope it is not the last time they get to see their team at Wembley.

I knew how tough this game would be but I was hoping that the guardian angel I mentioned earlier was going to be on her game. As everyone knows it was not to be.

When you get beaten 50-0 you can’t have any complaints – the harsh fact is that we were nowhere near good enough and were blown away by a fantastic team.

Leeds Rhinos shut us down completely and their defensive performance was even more impressive than the wonderful tries that they scored – believe me this Hull KR side can score tries and it has some dangerous attacking players.

The forwards in particular could not break the iron grip that enveloped them every time they took the ball up.

Ironically, Kieran Dixon was our main attacking threat and probably tried to do too much himself at times as he attempted to make up for the errors that cost us so much on the day. I hope he has the support of all at the club because he is a massive talent.

The first 20 minutes of the first half showed what a tough job we had on our hands.

Rovers could not get out of their own half to gain decent field position and were constantly either having to defend or take the ball out from within 10 yards of their line – the Rhinos were also cleverly attacking the short side which caused constant problems.

After 20 minutes we were 16-0 down, but the boys showed some spirit in the second quarter to keep Leeds out for the rest of the half.

It was clear that we would have to score first in the second half but Tom Briscoe’s breakaway try from an attacking kick broke our hearts. It was clear that the rest of the half would be about keeping the score down and trying to get across the line ourselves – we certainly wouldn’t be taking the Challenge Cup back to East Hull.

As everyone knows, we didn’t keep the score down and didn’t manage to get across the whitewash and I sank deeper and deeper into my seat as the half went on, particularly in the last 10 minutes when the Rhinos cut loose and scored three converted tries.

After the score got to 44-0 I said to my eldest boy that we had to keep the score below 50 – in the same breath Briscoe scored his record fifth try and Kevin Sinfield converted to get make the score 50-0. It wasn’t really until that final 10 minutes that we had a couple of real opportunities to score ourselves but we bombed them – it was the story of our day.

Now when your team gets beaten by 50 points you are usually pretty angry with your players but I had to stay right to the end and see the boys come over to us. I know that they will be just as gutted as us supporters – if not more so.

They certainly didn’t wake up on Saturday morning with the intention of getting hammered and to be fair they put in a huge amount of effort and determination but it just wasn’t enough. The team didn’t play well enough and the players just weren’t good enough.

The difference in class was quite embarrassing at times but Leeds can do that to anyone on their day, it just happened that they did it to my team on our biggest day for 29 years.

As we left the stadium there was no ballyhoo or particular excitement from the Leeds fans – they have seen it all before and it was probably a little bit too boring and predictable for them.

The coach journey home to Hull was subdued and tiring and we eventually got home around 11.30pm – I had to have a couple of glasses of wine to help cheer me up and put me to sleep.

I had a lie in on Sunday morning and managed to resist watching the match on TV when I eventually dragged myself out of bed. We decided to go to Pizza Hut later in the afternoon and would you believe it that on the table right behind us was a family of Leeds Rhinos fans.

That just summed up my weekend really.