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Wakefield Wildcats v Les Catalans Dragons
It feels like barely two minutes have passed since we spoke to Ollie Elima about his thoughts on the Catalans Dragons, and here we are again. For this weeks programme we look a little deeper into the past and, with a little more tenuous link, we spoke to Francis Stephenson about his recollections of the ‘Treize Tournoi’, which took place at the end of the famous ’98 season. The tournament involved 3 English and 3 French sides in a mini-league followed by a final, which was eventually won by Lancashire Lynx. Wakefield’s efforts in that tournament were nothing to savour, but for ‘Franny’ the memories will live forever.
“You’ve got an interesting story actually ‘cause I’d arranged to get married at the end of ’98. I remember Gary Lord – I used to tell him after every game we won, you’d get your winning bonus ‘that’s paid for the flowers today, that’s paid for the car, that’s paid for the dress’, so it was good that year ‘cause we were winning and the bonus’ paid for the wedding. Then there was this Treize Tournoi, but we’d won the competition and we weren’t interested, to be honest we weren’t that bothered, we’d got into Super League and it was like an end of season trip in some respect. Actually the Rugby League – and I never got the opportunity to thank them – they paid for two stag do’s, so all the Wakefield players who went to France it was my unofficial stag parties – twice, so we went to Villeneuve – played there, Carcassonne, so we had a great time, Sonny Whakarau, Roy Southernwood, all those people who came over – it was good. I think we won a couple, lost a couple, Sironen – I think played for Villeneuve at the time, there was another team (St Esteve) and Featherstone and Lancashire Lynx were the other clubs. I think it was kind of a good format – a fore-runner for them taking part in the Challenge Cup , and also the Catalans, so the seeds were sown back then. The day before we played Limoux at Belle Vue was my wedding, so all the squad was at my wedding the day before and I think we ended up beating them so that was testament to the players – I don’t know what time I went to bed so I know some were professional – I know some weren’t – but it didn’t matter, we’d won the league and we were still in celebration mode, I think I did 20 minutes and then came off – that was me done! I don’t think it’s something you could get away with nowadays but it was possible back then because it was division 1 and we’d been successful. The Rugby League paid for everything – we had the best stag do’s ever – I’d recommend it!”
Now we’ve got that story out of the way, let’s talk a little about your career, beginning with how you started at Wakefield “I was 17 or 18 I think when I signed in ’93 and I think I played academy and reserve games that year. I think it was ’94 when I made my debut – I can’t actually remember which game it was strangely enough, I think it was Salford at Belle Vue, but I’m not sure, my memory doesn’t serve me that well – it is 14 years ago! My biggest memory back then was when I played Featherstone at Featherstone, same year, might have been the week after, Billy Conway needed an injection in his ankle to play, had it – was fine – kicked off and decided it wasn’t going to be alright, so the process of kicking off must have disrupted it and he had to come straight off. It was me and David Hobbs and David looked at me and said ‘I’m not going on there’, so me being a young prop they got me on and I played 79 minutes, so that was my real memory. We ended up getting beat I think but it was a full Post Office Road, packed, very noisy – I’d never experienced noise like it, quite hostile but it was a good atmosphere and it’s stayed in my memory, it wasn’t an intimidating atmosphere but it was exciting.”
Having then been at the club during the change from winter rugby to summer rugby, and the subsequent ‘relegation’ of Trinity, Franny was very much a part of the clubs re-birth, and eventual promotion to Super League. In Francis’ view the process began with Mitch Brennan. “Mitch Brennan was here around the 96, 97 season, brought in by Peter Tunks, he wanted to change the club from the old ways and he tried to modernise the practices. His ideas were good, they were good coaching philosophies, but sometimes you’ve got to recognise what your personnel are, what your workforce is, and some people were just not happy to change – the human animal doesn’t like change, but he started the change – although he’s probably not recognised for it – and Andy Kelly continued that. Mitch brought in the principles and practices, Andy moved them on, but was able to work with the personnel as well as he had the good man-management as well. He also had a long association with the club and it was a good marriage.”
And so, the job having been started, Andy was given the task to take the club to the next level and bring Trinity out of division 1. “He had an affiliation with the club, he knew how to motivate his ‘cattle’ – so to speak, he took the best bits of what Mitch had to bring and adapted them and he made 2 astute signings in my opinion, Garen Casey and Matt Fuller and those were the catalyst for that season. Garen was very good for that division that year and also a great goal-kicker which won us 4 or 5 games that maybe we shouldn’t have won and that’s what I think got us to where we were. Then we had people who wanted to work hard, we had a good sprinkling of young players who had come through the system and been there for 2 or 3 years and wanted to get on and do well for themselves, you know, Wayne Macdonald, players like that and I think that’s what got us through. Matt Fuller had obviously been at the club before around ’94, he knew the club and he brought experience and leadership to the side.”
Now enjoying life between running his own IT business and being part of the coaching staff at Hull KR, Franny remembers well the problems his current club caused during that ’98 season. “We got hammered by them over at Craven Park, it was a very narrow pitch until it was altered two years ago, and we just couldn’t beat them, but we managed to turn it round in the semi-final. Roy Southernwood was instrumental in that game, he got the better of his opposite number Mike Dixon very early on in the game and that’s what turned it for us and I think we won 19-16. I was shattered in that game – it was 80 minutes of just hard work. ‘Relief’ is probably the right word ‘cause we got a week off to recover, lick us wounds and make sure we were all fit ahead of the final against Featherstone. Hull KR couldn’t back up that game and Featherstone were on a roll. The Hull KR game was a Titanic struggle, I was glad to get through it – that was harder than the final, as much as the final was a tough game, the semi-final was harder I think.”
And so to the final itself – does that rate as the proudest moment in a long Wakefield career? “Definitely – yes. It was very good, we dominated the opening encounters – the first twenty minutes – Josh Bostock just crashed over for two tries early on and that set the game up for us. I played the first 40 if I remember, which is unusual, then Featherstone rallied a little bit - got a bit of luck – scored some tries (it was probably good from a spectators point of view – if you were a neutral – not if you were a Featherstone or Wakefield fan), and we were behind for 20 minutes going into the last 10 minutes and we’ve managed to score one with 5, 6 minutes to go. It was unusual for me – I wasn’t a try scorer, I‘d just come off the bench to try and change things and I was just hanging about there, passing and probing, and I just got it and managed to get the ball over the line.”
I hope that readers of this article will forgive us for straying a little off-topic this week. For the record we have now played the Dragons 3 times, with two home victories and one defeat in France. Perhaps though, we wouldn’t be playing a French side had it not been for that experimental tournament 9 years ago – regardless of the other distractions at the time!
Many thanks to Francis Stephenson for his time in helping to put this article together. A more in depth interview can be seen at www.wildcatsrl.com in the near future.
Phil Townsend
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