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.

How some people have a 'dream team' choice with two teams and manage to come up with Matautia on the bench I'll never know.

Also, my memory isn't the greatest, but I don't recall Sean Hoppe ever playing in the halves.

That game was all down to defence. Bradford in 1999 were all about being bigger than you and running over you. Chances are your opposite number when playing Bradford was 4-5 stone heavier than you. They did have some real craft with Lowes and the Pauls but in the end Bradford had "Plan A" which was run over you. Saints that day manned up in defense and Bradford didn't know what to do no one had been able to tackle them out all season.

Saints tackled 1-17 heroicly, if it had been a "straightforward battle between the packs" we would have lost by 50. The 1999 grand final was our greatest hour, not 75-0 not the 1996 cup final not anything in 2006.

Sounds pretty special, you've convinced me I should track down the dvd

He was big and constantly up for biff in the 5 minutes he was on the pitch before being sent off basically so everyone thought he was great. It's a bit like pace being the only property most numpties are capable of being able to appreciate a back for - if a winger is quick he's good, otherwise he's rubbish. If a forward is aggressive and starts fights he's good etc. etc. FWIW I always thought overall he was more of a liability than anything else.

Jesus, Patch makes Wellens look like Usain Bolt!

Leave him be in his delusions - he's happy, bless him

Patch was average tbh. I loved him but Jeez ...

That's harsh on Matautia. He was a very aggressive man, to be sure, butI'll bet he didn't give away as many penalties as, say, Scott Moore or Ben Westwood. Also, as a guy who didn't much bother with the whole footwork-before-the-line approach of most modern forwards, he really battered the opposition tacklers, as well as putting in a few bellringers himself.

In any case, I'd never put him in an overall dream team ahead of the likes of Fairleigh or Ward, but I was just comparing him to his counterparts in today's squad. I'd have him ahead of any of our identikit not-very-big-not-very-fast-not-very-skilful bench forwards. Or indeed ahead of a starter like Perry.

Probably not, but that was largely down to the fact that we very rarely dared play him for more than 10 minutes a game...



Well, I'd rather have 40 minutes of consistent work and yardage from a Clough than 15 minutes peering through my fingers waiting for Vila to put a high-shot in... He was an awesome specimen physically and put the fear of God into me watching him in the stands never mind the poor sods who had to tackle him, but he was still very largely a temperamental liability and his contribution to the team in most games was severely limited by the simple fact that we could only ever risk playing him in short impact bursts. His red cards cost us big in more than a few games...

People do get a bit misty eyed about some of our pre-2007 players. Vila was scary to look at, and on his day he was hard to handle. As NS has said, though, he was a liability in terms of discipline. I'll add to that the weekly brain fart he would have whilst in possession and the fact that he had to be in the mood to really make an impact. He was a good player, and a fun one to watch, but he wasn't any better than, say, LMS.

He was immense when we signed him despite the draw backs, but not long after, full time professionalism took hold and he didn't have quite the same physical advantage over his opposition.
A goodish player, he'd get a game now off the bench. He was generally a little lazy in defence and gave away plenty of penalties.
He didn't take any , which is often stated as something we miss in our pack.
I've plenty of fond memeroires of him - trampling Lee Penny in a game at KR on the way to the line before injuring himself diving over.
Does anyone remeber that game in the sun at KR against halifax in 95? He had a stormer.

Can you name the games he was sent off in??? I only remember him being dismissed in two games, one at Whitehaven in the Challenge Cup in 2001(which we won) and another somewhere or another cant quite remember.

I remeber he got sent off at home for leading with the elbow when it was quite inocuous. He got sending of suffcient for that.

I found this, looking through t'internet


I've seen it written that he got sent off at Whitehaven in the cup and at Oldham, once.

The two worst ones I remember were on Jamie Peacock at odsal and Graham Mackay at headingly. Neith of which he got sent off for, but banned at a later date.