LONG READ 'Two groups of dancing bears': The cross-code clash making a comeback for charity

John Kirkpatrick laughs at the memory, painful though it was. The St Helens winger was filling in as a back-row forward in rugby’s last clash of the codes when he found himself on the wrong side of a ruck.

“I heard this Wigan voice say to me: ‘You can’t be there, son’ and I thought, ‘isn’t that nice of him?’” Kirkpatrick remembered. “Then a few moments later – wallop, I get studs going all the way down me from the top of my neck down to the bottom of my back. Pete Anglesea gave me a very good shoeing.”

Anglesea, part of the Sale back row that day, chuckles too.

“Back in the day we could still ruck so I stamped all over him. I keep telling him to this day it was an accident!” said Anglesea.

Workmates now on the Sale coaching team, the hatchet has been long since buried. The cross-code contest at Headingley on Sunday in support of motor neurone disease charities has, though, taken them back to that night at Knowsley Road 21 years ago.

Their shared recollections were of a contest which captured the imagination. Kick-off had to be delayed by 15 minutes because of the size of the crowd.

“The level of interest in the game was huge. I guess it was a bit of a novelty,” said Kirkpatrick.

Chris Joynt got into an unbelievable position on the ball at one lineout just as I landed. I knew Chris and I said to him, ‘You’re not allowed to go there Chris’ so he got out of the way!

“We definitely wanted to win and we thought if we could play a more open game of rugby union we’d have a chance but Sale knew what they were doing and weren’t interested in playing that sort of game.”

Afterwards Saints coach Ian Millward complained Sale’s deployment of a tight mauling game had left him needing to set his alarm clock because it was so boring. Anglesea explained it was a necessity if they were to have any hope of going the distance.

“We had Jason Robinson who had played for Wigan and Apollo Perelini who’d played for St Helens and they coached us some rugby league and what we found was that we couldn’t get up 10m, back 10m when we practised it,” he said.

“So we went into the office to our coaches Jim Mallinder and Steve Diamond and told them we were going to have to play rugby union, union-style to try to tire their legs and slow them down for the league half.

“We couldn’t scrummage them properly because of the safety aspect but we tried to keep the ball in the scrum for a while and put a little bit of a squeeze on. Then we mauled them. We mauled them about 30 yards at one point.”

St Helens weren’t totally familiar with the laws – and Sale craftily played on that.

“Chris Joynt got into an unbelievable position on the ball at one lineout just as I landed. I knew Chris and I said to him, ‘You’re not allowed to go there Chris’ so he got out of the way!” said Anglesea.

The Saints fans weren’t impressed at the up-the-jumper tactics and Anglesea was on the receiving end of their ire.

“I got called a southern Jessie by someone in the crowd. I had to remind the bloke I was from Wigan!” he said.

Sale opened up a 41-0 lead playing union at half time, scoring seven tries, at which point the ball, the referee and the game was changed. The second half was a different story.

Ian had got under the Sale lads’ skins and at the end there were a few words exchanged. Somebody got hold of him around the neck and gave him a mild throttling!

“When we played the rugby league half the rugby union lads really struggled getting back the 10m. It does drain you and they just weren’t used to that,” said Kirkpatrick.

The tries began to mount up for St Helens.

“The only time we could defend well was on our own try line with the ruck quite close because that felt a bit more normal to us,” said Anglesea.  “The rest of the time we were in trouble.”

With time almost up, Saints went over for their seventh try to reach 39 points. Had Sean Long kicked the final goal the scores would have been level – and there would no doubt have been allegations of a fix – but he missed it. When the hooter sounded, Sale were 41-39 winners.

That wasn’t the end of the story, however.

“There was some controversy at the end because rugby league finished at 80 minutes and we played injury time,” said Anglesea. “Ian Millward came on and said there was added time still to play but our coaches said the game had finished. We were like: ‘Sod this, we’re getting off the field.”

Kirkpatrick added: “Ian was never shy in causing controversy. The week leading up to the game he had come out and said rugby union was kick and clap, trying to goad Sale into playing a bit more. He had got under the Sale lads’ skins and at the end there were a few words exchanged. Somebody got hold of Ian around the neck and gave him a mild throttling!

“That all got swept under the carpet but there was a bit of needle in it, I do remember.”

Anglesea looks back fondly at the occasion but reflects that it demonstrated how far apart the codes had diverged since the great schism of 1895.

“Nobody scored a point playing the opposition’s game which just showed how different the games are,” he said.

“It was good to try it but if I’m honest it did feel like we were two groups of dancing bears entertaining the crowd.  It was almost like we were putting on a show.”

Kirkpatrick agreed.

“It was a great experience to be part of but it was really weird as well. It showed just how alien both games were to each other,” said Kirkpatrick.

“The Sale lads mauled us to death at rugby union and we ran the legs off them at rugby league.”

And so, all these years on, the two codes prepare to go at each other again – this time for 80 minutes under hybrid rules. The game was the brainchild of Ed Slater and Rob Burrow who, together, came up with the blended game before Burrow’s sad passing. Their creation probably looks a little more like league than union from distance.

It is 13-a-side with unlimited interchanges off the bench and a play-the-ball as opposed to union rucks and mauls with a five-metre offside line. But one-on-one steals are allowed before the tackle is complete and there will be lineouts and scrums – albeit uncontested.

Teams will have unlimited tackles in their own half but six tackles once the attacking team passes halfway. The scoring system is five points for a try, two for a drop goal, penalty and conversion with a specialist kicker brought on solely for the place kicks.

Both men are fascinated to see how the game plays out.

“I think it will be much more competitive than our game was with the rules as they are,” said Fitzpatrick.

“It will be interesting to see how it goes but I’d expect it to be a great spectacle because they’ve got some fantastic players involved.”

Slater has put together a union side featuring ex-England internationals Danny Cipriani, Tom Wood and Tom Youngs while the league team contains former stars such as Adrian Morley, Keith Senior and Gary Connolly.

There will be bragging rights at stake for both codes but the real winners will be the MND communities supported by the fundraiser.

“It’s very sad with the situation that has affected guys like Rob and Ed but it is good to see both codes coming together to put on a show to raise some money towards a brilliant cause,” said Anglesea.