Clash of the Codes (rugby)
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| Rugby League game | |||||||
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| Date | 8 May 1996 | ||||||
| Venue | Maine Road, Manchester | ||||||
| Referee | Russell Smith (England) | ||||||
| Attendance | 20,148 | ||||||
| Rugby Union game | |||||||
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| Date | 25 May 1996 | ||||||
| Venue | Twickenham Stadium, London | ||||||
| Referee | Brian Campsall (England) | ||||||
| Attendance | 42,000 | ||||||
Clash of the Codes was a special two match inter-code series between rugby union side Bath and rugby league side Wigan, played in May 1996. Other Clash of Codes games have also taken place.
Background
In 1895, most rugby clubs in the
100 years later in August 1995, the
The cross-code challenge met with lukewarm support from both the
The teams
Bath
Entering the new professional era,
Wigan
The beginning of the new Super League era in rugby league saw Wigan still at the top of rugby league. The team had just won the last winter RFL championship, their seventh consecutive title, while they had lost in the Challenge Cup for the first time in almost a decade, having won their eighth consecutive final in April 1995. As with Bath, Wigan provided a significant number of players to the Great Britain national team.
Rugby league game
Build-up
Five days prior to the rugby league game, Bath had won the
The game
Bath got off to a bad start from the kick-off, when Jon Callard failed to make his kick go the required 10 metres. Within 90 seconds of the kick-off, Martin Offiah touched down for Wigan, but was penalised for a foot in touch.[5] However, with only three minutes gone, Offiah scored the first of his six tries of the night. The difficulties that Bath had with coming to terms with the game led to further tries for Offiah (2), Henry Paul, Jason Robinson, Terry O'Connor, Andy Johnson, Craig Murdock and Scott Quinnell, with the score at half-time 52–0. The first half proved to be such a mismatch that it was more than fifteen minutes before Bath were able to get through a set of tackles without making an error.[6]
Bath were able to get into the game more after half-time and, following O'Connor's second try for Wigan, got on the scoresheet through Callard touching down and converting. This though led to a further period of sustained pressure from Wigan that led to a further six tries from the reigning champions and a final score of 82–6 in favour of Wigan.[7]
8 May 1996
20:00 BST |
| Wigan | 82 – 6 | Bath |
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| Tries: Offiah 6 Robinson 2 O'Connor 2 Johnson 2 Paul 1 Cassidy 1 Quinnell 1 Murdock 1 Goals: Hall 5 Farrell 4 |
Report |
Tries: 1 Callard Goals: 1 Callard |
Wigan
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Bath
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Rugby union game
Build-up
Wigan's dominance in the first game led to some suggesting that they would be able to complete a 'double' over Bath. However, Wigan captain Shaun Edwards related that, following the end of the first game, Bath forward
With Bath having won the league and cup double, and the domestic season concluded prior to the first game, they were able to concentrate on the preparation for the second encounter.
The game
Bath again kicked the game off, but this time, rather than conceding a penalty, Jon Callard's kick enabled Martin Haag to take and recycle the ball, allowing Bath's forwards an early opportunity to ruck and maul against opponents unused to this type of play, with Wigan failing to win any of the first twenty rucks.[6] Only a Bath knock-on during the drive prevented a repeat of the first game and an early try for the experts. What this meant though was the Wigan pack engaging in a union scrum early on, and coming to terms with the differences of this compared with a typically uncontested scrum in their own game. Indeed, it was through scrummaging inexperience that Wigan conceded their first try, a penalty try given through their repeated collapsing of the scrum. It was 18 minutes until Wigan handled the ball in the opposition half, with Bath gaining further tries through Adedayo Adebayo (2) and Jon Sleightholme prior to half-time, allowing the Courage League champions to build an unanswered 25-point lead at the break. Jonathan Davies, the dual-code international, made the observation that Wigan were suffering from constant infringements of "rules they didn't know existed".[6]
As in the first game, the second half followed a similar pattern to begin with, Mike Catt and Phil de Glanville scoring early, and the likelihood coming of a score of similar dimensions. However, as the second half progressed, Bath's players began to tire and allowed gaps to open up for Wigan to exploit. Craig Murdock scored a pair of tries that went the length of the field, while Va'aiga Tuigamala got a third before Ian Sanders got Bath's seventh with a pushover from the pack. Unlike the first game, the second half of the second game saw the visitors match the home side for points to leave a final score of 44–19 in Bath's favour.[9]
| 25 May 1996 15:00 Twickenham, London Attendance: 42,000 Referee: Brian Campsall |
    Bath
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Wigan
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Quotes
A lot quicker than it looks from the sidelines, this union business.
Craig Murdock, Wigan
Aftermath
Although played in some quarters as the start of a great coming together of the two codes, most people saw the "cross-code challenge" as primarily a commercial exercise.[10] Wigan, having lost out on the income generated by a run in the Challenge Cup, were looking for ways to regain that, while Bath were in the process of making the transition into a fully professional outfit. That being said, the series did allow Bath to be exposed to a professional rugby team, with all of the consequences for fitness, strength and pace in rugby union.[11]
Although Bath were evidently outmatched in the first game, they were able to take some positives; Phil de Glanville made the most tackles of any back on either side, while de Glanville, Steve Ojomoh, Jon Callard and Adedayo Adebayo all impressed watching league experts.[10] Similarly, in the second game, as Bath tired, Wigan were able to exploit both their superior fitness and their superior running game to gain a foothold during the second half.[12] However, one of Bath's star players at the time, England centre Jeremy Guscott, refused to play in the series, as he felt that there was a lack of balance between the two games - the only alteration that took place in the league fixture came at half-time when Bath requested unlimited substitutions (rather than the fixed number of ten interchanges normally permitted); apart from this, the match was played as a standard, full intensity game of rugby league.[6] In the union fixture however, although there was a greater intensity to the scrummaging than league players would normally experience, the scrums were not fully contested, as scrummaging in rugby union is highly technical, particularly in the front row. Had the scrums been fully contested, Guscott stated that it was likely a number of the Wigan forwards could have been seriously injured. But, this meant that Wigan were able to gain more of a foothold in the union fixture than Bath had been able to do in the league fixture.[13]
Following the transition of rugby union to professionalism, and the ending of the ban on players that had played rugby league from playing the game, a number of notable rugby league players chose to take up short-term contracts with clubs in the
The cross-code challenge occurred while both Bath and Wigan were in the twilight of their time at the top of their respective
The two match series was the beginning of a thaw in relations between rugby union and rugby league. The success of Wigan's two visits to
Further games
See also
References
- ^ a b Steve Bale (27 January 1996). "Bath and Wigan contest the clash of the codes". The Independent. Retrieved 4 March 2011.
- ^ Steve Bale (4 May 1996). "Double-chasers to give and receive no quarter". The Independent. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
- ^ a b "Moment in Time – the Cross Code Challenges of 1996". The Rugby Paper. 5 September 2014. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
- ^ "Wigan RL History - 1996 Season". Cherry & White.co.uk. Archived from the original on 15 July 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
- ^ "WIGAN XIII VS BATH XV le défi (part 3) 8 mai 1996". Youtube. 16 June 2009. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
- ^ a b c d e Richards, Huw (25 August 2017). "Bath and Wigan collide for rugby's Mayweather-McGregor moment". ESPN. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
- ^ Dave Hadfield (9 May 1996). "Bath feel full force of Wigan might". The Independent. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
- ^ "Wigan magnificent in sevens". The Bolton News. 13 May 1996. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
- ^ a b Chris Hewett (26 May 1996). "The union empire strikes back". The Independent. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
- ^ a b Peter Corrigan (12 May 1996). "Rugby's parallel lions at cross purposes". The Independent. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
- ^ Jonathan Davies (26 May 1996). "Bath will feel the benefit". The Independent. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
- ^ Steve Bale (27 May 1996). "Related attractions". The Independent. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
- ^ "Jeremy Guscott Q&A". BBC Sport. BBC. 4 September 2012. Archived from the original on 24 March 2019. Retrieved 24 March 2019.
- ^ "Premiership Rugby Hall of Fame: Jason Robinson". Premiership Rugby. 12 October 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
- ^ "Leeds Rugby Ltd". Leeds Champions. Archived from the original on 21 June 2010. Retrieved 9 March 2011.