The St Helens chairman, Eamonn McManus, believes that victory for the reigning Super League champions against the NRL’s Sydney Roosters in Saturday’s World Club Challenge would represent the greatest achievement by a British side in the competition’s history. The Roosters arrive in England heavy favourites for the annual clash of rugby league’s two major champions and are looking to become the first team to win the event on successive occasions.
That, and a number of injuries to key St Helens players in the run-up to the game, has left McManus in no doubt about the scale of what St Helens could achieve this weekend in front of a sellout crowd. “I think it would be at the top for British teams,” he said. “By definition this is the most successful team in the NRL, given the fact they’ve gone back-to-back there and are favourites to go on and get the treble. They’re probably the best team we’ve seen in the NRL for a while.
“They have the cream of Australia, New Zealand and Polynesia to pick from, and we’re a little town of 120,000 people or so, with most of the players produced here by our academy. You don’t get match-ups like that in any other sport.”
The Saints are aiming to win the World Club Challenge for the first time since 2007, having suffered a heavy defeat against the South Sydney Rabbitohs in 2015, and McManus admitted: “Our non-performance against the Rabbitohs still stings. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
The St Helens captain, James Roby, is expected to make his first appearance since October’s Grand Final after recovering from groin surgery. The hooker said: “I was determined to be back for this game, this was the best-case scenario. We’re expecting the best Roosters and we’ll hopefully be the best St Helens team we can be.”
The future of the World Club Challenge is again up for debate after the Sydney coach, Trent Robinson, called on the NRL to mirror Super League’s commitment to the competition. McManus, as one of the prominent club owners in the British game, echoed that sentiment – but said there is a sure-fire way to spark Australian interest in the event.
“The one thing they do not like is losing,” he said. “The Roosters have rightly come over and take it seriously, and you wonder if they lose, will more people back there perhaps take it seriously?
“They’re the benchmark in the NRL and the contact between the competitions has to improve. The more contact there is, the better the standards will get. Nothing will capture attention on both sides of the world more than an English team beating an Australian one, be that at club or international level. For whatever reason, this game is unnecessarily and wrongly understated each year. It’s the meeting of the two best clubs sides in the world, so it definitely matters.”
