Rugby ‘rebels’ have no regrets

Press, 26 April 1989, Page 38

Rugby ‘rebels’ have no regrets

PETER CORRIGAN, of “The Observer,” meets the latest rugby union men converted to “the most gifted ball team in Britain.”

The promising if painful pastures of rugby league have never looked so inviting. At least half a dozen British rugby union stars are thinking hard about adding their names to the list of converts whose reputations have risen even faster than their bank balances. The arrival of Paul Moriarty at Widnes brought forth a rash of rumours, and since Widnes was just one of four clubs anxious to sign him there is obviously a strong interest in players capable of making the changeover as successfully as Martin Offiah, Jonathan Davies, Alan Tait and the New Zea-land-domiciled Tongan Emosi Koloto.

These have obviously benefited from joining a Widnes team talented and flexible enough to absorb and adapt their alien skills, but there have been others like Peter Williams of Salford and Gary Pearce at Hull who have proved this season that the transition need not be the daunting process it once appeared. There is every indicatin that players of the calibre of Mark Jones, Tony Clement, Jonathan Griffiths and two of the centres about to accompany the British Lions to Australia, John Devereux and Brendan Mullin, are under the sort of siege from which men emerge with their hands out rather than up. But money is no longer the chief motive for the move and the rugby unions, the Welsh particularly, had better soon realise that their game is being upstaged in its appeal and challenge, despite its privileged position in our society and the priorities granted to it by the. media. The rebel counties of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cumbria and the top bit of Cheshire are becoming more than just the land of the rugby beleaguered, a bolt-hole for the disgruntled and disaffected. Rugby league is losing its

national image as sport’s version of the French Foreign Legion, a refuge for outcasts.

The presence of Widnes’ famous five undoubtedly owes much to the eloquence with which coach Doug Laughton sells the game. “I told each of them that league is a much better, more satisfying game than union,” said Laughton last week, “and they each looked at me like I was a double-glazing salesman. But it hasn’t taken long for them to agree.” Moriarty was inclined to agree after his first 15-minute experience as a substitute against Castleford.

“In that time I made seven tackles, got tackled half a dozen times, retrieved the ball twice and generally found as much action as I would get in two union matches. It’s hard, but I know I’m going to enjoy it. The money’s good but it’s the game I came for.” Like Davies before him, Moriarty was not delighted with the state of the union in Wales but insists that this affected only the timing of the decision. And the integrity of that decision is emphasised by the extremely comfortable life he has left behind.

He had a good job as a representative for a

brick company, he was married four months ago to Suzanne, who is a graduate with a promising job in- the Civil Service, and although he narrowly missed out on selection for the Lions he was in great demand as a Sevens player, a game at which he excels. He was selected for Wales in the recent Sydney Sevens, the Irish Wolfhounds in Bermuda the other week and for the Barbarians in the Hong Kong Sevens. It was an exotic package to give up in favour of examining the friendly natures of the Castleford pack on a wet night in Widnes, but he has no regrets.

“It has been firmly fixed in my mind for some time now that I was going to be a rugby league player. The WRU, hastened my departure by leaving me out of the Welsh team without a word of explanation after I had won 21 caps. “Coach John Ryan never even spoke to me at squad sessions, never even said hello. He just dropped me. I didn’t want to be treated like a star, a human being would have done. When I was selected for the sevens team for Sydney I pulled out because Ryan was in charge of it. Once I didn’t make the Lions there was nothing to keep me,” said Moriarty.

“Swansea were shocked. ‘Don’t do anything when you’re in a rage,’ they said. I said I never felt more calm in my life. Since then everyone’s been terrific. They can see that it was what I had to do. “Swansea were knocked out of the Cup last November and, if you’re not going to get into the Welsh team, that’s the season as good as over as a challenge. So it is genuinely not just the money I’ve moved for, it Is the satisfaction of playing top-class competitive rugby every week,” he said. Moriarty is banking on his ability as a quick learner to help him make an early impact on rugby league. He didn’t start playing rugby until he was 17. He went to an all-rugby school in Swansea but played only twice, and he was forced into those as a punishment for cheating in Welsh lesson. He was more Interested in soccer, and was on Swansea’s books as a boy. Moriarty will be helped in his adaptation by the experience of his former Welsh colleague Jonathan Davies, whose league career is not yet three months old but who

has been accepted as an outstanding prospect. He was introduced slowly at first, but recently completed his fifth game in 15 days. It has been a rugged and exhausting baptism, but 51 points in three games made up for certain physical inconveniences. He is also happy with his tackling statistics — which are very important, as Moriarty will find.

During a recent close study of the game I have been haunted by the impression that they would rather see a good tackle than a try and have idly wondered if, when there are no games, they go down the M 6 to watch the smashes. But I have no doubts that this is a game with much to offer to those who have yet to pay it close attention. I also believe Widnes to be the most gifted and attractive ball team in Britain and certainly there can be no sight in British sport to equal that of Martin Offiah in full flight for the line. The success of Davies, Offiah and the others may have deflected attention from the quality of the rest of the Widnes squad (whose captain, David Hulme, is probably the league’s player of the season) and from the fact that the club can produce top players as well as buy them, as teenager David Myers has shown. But the sacrifice will be worth it for the emerging image of a game whose rewards are not all aimed at the pocket

Widnes, captained by Kurt Sorensen and with two other New Zealanders, Koloto and Joe Grima, in the pack, has retained the British first division championship. But on Sunday (NX time) it has the spotlight diverted from it when two other perennially powerful clubs, Wigan and St Helens, dispute the Challenge Cup at Wembley stadium in London.