BY JOHN DAVIDSON
Immortality. The chance to be in the history books, to be remembered forever.
It’s something that drives people in many different pursuits and professions, and sport is no different.
The likes of Muhummad Ali, Don Bradman, Babe Ruth, Pele, Michael Jordan, Rod Laver and others live on after their feats in the rings, courts and fields have long gone.
In terms of teams, Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, Ruth’s Yankees, the All Blacks, the West Indian cricket side, the Brazilian national football team of the 1970s, Lionel Messi’s Barcelona, to name but a few, continue to be remembered and honoured with the passage of time.
Today’s St Helens stand in special company.
Victory on Saturday, over Leeds, will give them four grand final wins in a row. No team in Super League history has ever done that before.
The Rhinos won three in a row, between 2007 and 2009, and then won grand finals in 2011 and 2012. They were a very, very very special team. But they never managed four consecutive crowns, a feat of amazing consistency that deserves enormous respect in a salary-capped competition.
If Saints win this weekend they will, in many eyes, deserve to be billed as Super League’s greatest-ever team.
But how do they compare with other sides in St Helens’ history, and to others throughout English rugby league since 1895?
Saints had great teams in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Under Jim Sullivan they claimed league titles in 1952–53 and 1958–59, won the Challenge Cup in 1955-56 and 1960-1961, and the Lancashire League in 1952–53 and 1959–60.
Then came the Alex Murphy ‘golden era’ and they won league titles in 1965–66, 1969–70, the Lancashire League in 1964–65, 1965–66, 1966–67 and 1968–69, and the Challenge Cup in 1965-66.
The 70s was also a special time, under first Jim Challinor and then Eric Ashton, with league crowns in 1970–71 and 1974–75, and Challenge Cup wins in 1971–72 and 1975–76.
But no Saints team in their 149-year has ever done a four-peat. And you can add two League Leader’s Shields and a Challenge Cup to the haul of metal already garnered by Justin Holbrook and Kristian Woolf’s outfit.
The Red V are approaching territory as one of the greatest-ever rugby league teams in the UK.
Two teams stand out from the pack – the all-conquering Wigan side of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and Huddersfield’s XIII between 1911 and 1915.
Comparing teams from different periods is notoriously difficult and open to endless debate.
Wigan had no salary cap and were full-time against mostly part-time opponents. One hundred and 10 years on, rugby league is vastly different now to what it was in 1912 when Huddersfield were in their pomp.
But you can only compete under the current circumstances and parameters, against the opposition in front of you.
“It’s almost impossible to compare eras because of significant social and economic conditions and rule changes between them,” Phil Caplan, Forty-20 magazine editor, explains.
“But like Leeds – who won five grand finals in six seasons – this St Helens side, if they can make it four titles in a row, would deserve to be talked about alongside the Huddersfield ‘team of all talents’ from the First World War period and Wigan, who dominated the sport in the mid 1980s-90s, when they were the first full-time team.
“What makes the achievements of that Leeds side and this St Helens one stand out is that they have done it in a salary capped era which is supposed to level out the competition.
“To be truly dominant in those circumstances, and with changing personnel, is quite exceptional.”
Like Harold Wagstaff and Albert Rosenfeld, and Ellery Hanley, Shaun Edwards and Andy Farrell, the likes of James Roby and Jonny Lomax will live on in memories and the history books for decades to come.
Looking at the other side of the globe, in the NRL-era the Sydney Roosters and Melbourne Storm are worthy of a mention.
Before the NRL kicked off, teams such as Souths won five premierships in a row between 1925 and 1929, winning two more in 1931 and 1932, and then notched five titles in six years in the 1950s when they were led by Clive Churchill.
But the standard bearer in the Australian game remains St George between 1956 and 1966. The ‘other’ Red V was unbeaten over 11 grand final years, an insane achievement, even today.
Reg Gasnier, Johnny Raper, Norm Provan and co will never be forgotten.
No one since, not even Jack Gibson’s Parramatta in the 1980s, has come close.
All of which makes this modern St Helens team something to savour, regardless of your club allegiances.
Winning is the aim of every player and every team that ever picks up a Steeden, and Saints have made it into an artform in the top flight since 2019. To win a title is something special, but to back up and do it again, and again and again, takes something great.
If victory is secured at Old Trafford on September 24, immortality is assured.