1994 World Club Challenge
| 1994 World Club Challenge | |||||||||||||
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 Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre hosted the match | |||||||||||||
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| Date | 1 June 1994 | ||||||||||||
| Stadium | Peter Sterling (Nine) | ||||||||||||
The 1994
Television coverage was provided by Australia's
Background
Brisbane Broncos
The 1993
Wigan RLFC
The 1993–94
Teams
         Brisbane Broncos
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     Wigan
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Match details
The match was played at Brisbane's ANZ Stadium on 1 June, in the middle of the 1994 NSWRL season. A crowd of 54,220,[3] which set the record attendance for a World Club Challenge (which still stands as of 2017), turned out for the game, which was refereed by Greg McCallum. Wigan's chances didn't look good against a star-studded Broncos side because both of their first-choice test props, Kelvin Skerrett (broken jaw) and Andy Platt had been ruled out as injured. In addition their coach John Dorahy had been sacked just weeks previously, so they went into the match under a caretaker coach: former Wigan captain and New Zealand international Graeme West.
With the Broncos not being the dominant force they had been in the previous two seasons (though still going well enough to be a top-five team in the
Wednesday 1 June
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Brisbane Broncos 
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14 – 20 |  Wigan
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| Tries: Wendell Sailor Michael Hancock Julian O'Neill Goals: Julian O'Neill (1/3) |
[4] |
Tries: Denis Betts Barrie-Jon Mather Jason Robinson Goals: Frano Botica (4/4) |
First half
The match was played under international rules, meaning that when a player was substituted he could not return. Brisbane suffered early from this with the loss of five-eighth Kevin Walters in the fifth minute with an ankle injury. Wigan then opened the scoring in the seventh minute, when Denis Betts pounced on a high ball from Shaun Edwards and ran in for a try.[5] The British champions added to this with another try in the sixteenth minute from Barrie-Jon Mather, bringing the unlikely score of 12–0 in favour of the visitors. In the twenty-seventh minute, Wendell Sailor opened the scoring for Brisbane when he beat Martin Offiah on the wing to put the ball down in the corner. The failed conversion meant a half-time lead for Wigan of 12–4.[6]
The first 20 minutes saw a number of on-field positional changes for the Broncos. With Walters off injured, John Plath came on with Julian O'Neill moved to five-eighth. Also, after originally starting with Willie Carne at fullback and Wendell Sailor on the wing, the two swapped positions following the Denis Betts try, while after Mather's try O'Neill dropped back to fullback when the Broncos were defending with Sailor moving into the front line.
Second half
Just three minutes into the second half, a defining moment in the game took place when Michael Hancock knocked on and Jason Robinson picked up the ball and sped away, beating Sailor to score Wigan's third try. Frano Botica made it three from three with the boot when he kicked the conversion, bringing the score to 18–4. Brisbane staged a comeback, with Hancock making amends for his knock-on with a try on forty-six minutes and Julian O'Neill getting a try on fifty-nine minutes. Wigan's lead was reduced to four points, but their defence kept the Broncos out for the remainder of the game. A sixty-sixth-minute penalty by Botica meant a perfect night with the boot for him and a final score of 14–20.[7]
Post-match
Wigan's captain Shaun Edwards was named man-of-the-match and his team reclaimed the WCC trophy, going home with the $400,000 of prize money. With the Super League war looming, this was to be the last WCC match until the 1997 World Club Championship which included all Super League-aligned clubs from the European competition and the Australasian Telstra Cup teams playing in a home-and-away-type championship. It was also the last time the British and Australian champions faced off until the year 2000, and as of the 2013 World Club Challenge this was also the last time the single-game format was played in Australia. The game returned there in 2014, with Sydney Roosters hosting Wigan at Allianz Stadium.
References
- ^ 1994 World Club Challenge at wigan.rlfans.com
- ^ Pramberg, Bernie (26 September 2006). "Broncos beat critics". The Courier-Mail. Australia: Queensland Newspapers. Retrieved 12 December 2009.
- ^ 1994 World Club Challenge Archived 2008-05-02 at the Wayback Machine at superleague.co.uk
- ^ 1994 WCC - Brisbane vs Wigan
- ^ de la Rivière, Richard (2005). "1994 Brisbane Broncos V Wigan, WCC". Thirteen. Archived from the original on 8 January 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
- ^ "Wigan win World Club final". New Straits Times. Malaysia. 2 June 1994. p. 45. Retrieved 4 October 2010.
- ^ 1994 World Club Challenge at rugbyleagueproject.com