The 1984–85
Rugby Football League
The Rugby Football League (RFL) is the governing body for rugby league in England. Founded in 1895 as the Northern Rugby Football Union following 22 clubs resigning from the Rugby Football Union, it changed its name in 1922 to the Rugby Footb ...
season was the 90th ever season of professional
rugby league
Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...
football in Britain. Sixteen teams played each other from August 1984 until May 1985 for the
Slalom Lager Championship. Also these 16 teams plus several more competed for the
Challenge Cup
The Rugby Football League Challenge Cup, commonly known just as the Challenge Cup is a Single-elimination tournament, knockout rugby league cup competition organised by the Rugby Football League, held annually since 1896, it is the world's old ...
.
Season summary
*Slalom Lager League Champions:
Hull Kingston Rovers
Hull Kingston Rovers (often abbreviated to Hull KR) are a professional rugby league club based in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, England. The club play home games at Craven Park, Hull, Craven Park and compete in Super League, the top tier of B ...
*Silk Cut Challenge Cup Winners:
Wigan
Wigan ( ) is a town in Greater Manchester, England. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its ad ...
(8 – 28–24 v
Hull
Hull may refer to:
Structures
* The hull of an armored fighting vehicle, housing the chassis
* Fuselage, of an aircraft
* Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds
* Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a sea-going craft
* Submarine hull
Ma ...
)
*Slalom Lager
Premiership Trophy Winners:
St. Helens (36–16 v
Hull Kingston Rovers
Hull Kingston Rovers (often abbreviated to Hull KR) are a professional rugby league club based in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, England. The club play home games at Craven Park, Hull, Craven Park and compete in Super League, the top tier of B ...
at
Elland Road
Elland Road, or Elland Road Stadium, is a football stadium in Beeston, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, which has been the Home (sports), home of Leeds United F.C., Leeds United since the club's formation in 1919. The stadium is the List of foot ...
,
Leeds
Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...
)
**
Harry Sunderland Trophy
The Harry Sunderland Trophy was awarded annually to the man of the match in the Super League Grand Final and its predecessors, the RFL First Division Final and the Premiership Final, between 1965 and 2023. Named after Harry Sunderland, who w ...
:
Harry Pinner
Harold Pinner (born 26 September 1956) is an English former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1970s and 1980s. He played at representative level for Great Britain and England, and at club level for St. Helens, Widnes, Lei ...
*
John Player Special Trophy Winners:
Hull Kingston Rovers
Hull Kingston Rovers (often abbreviated to Hull KR) are a professional rugby league club based in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, England. The club play home games at Craven Park, Hull, Craven Park and compete in Super League, the top tier of B ...
(12–0 v
Hull F.C. at
Boothferry Park
Boothferry Park was a Association football, football stadium in Kingston upon Hull, Hull, England, which was home to Hull City A.F.C. from 1946 until 2002, when they moved to the MKM Stadium, KC Stadium (now the MKM Stadium).
In later years, ...
,
Hull
Hull may refer to:
Structures
* The hull of an armored fighting vehicle, housing the chassis
* Fuselage, of an aircraft
* Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds
* Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a sea-going craft
* Submarine hull
Ma ...
)
*Burtonwood Brewery
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...
County Cup Winners:
St. Helens (26–18 v
Wigan
Wigan ( ) is a town in Greater Manchester, England. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its ad ...
at
Central Park
Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...
,
Wigan
Wigan ( ) is a town in Greater Manchester, England. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its ad ...
)
*2nd Division Champions:
Swinton
Aside from retaining the Championship
Hull Kingston Rovers
Hull Kingston Rovers (often abbreviated to Hull KR) are a professional rugby league club based in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, England. The club play home games at Craven Park, Hull, Craven Park and compete in Super League, the top tier of B ...
won the
John Player Special Trophy and reached the finals of both the
Premiership and
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...
Cup, they were beaten in the Semi-Final of the
Challenge Cup
The Rugby Football League Challenge Cup, commonly known just as the Challenge Cup is a Single-elimination tournament, knockout rugby league cup competition organised by the Rugby Football League, held annually since 1896, it is the world's old ...
meaning they played in every possible game of the season bar one.
On 21 October 1984
Peter Wood kicked a record-equalling five
drop goal
A drop goal, field goal, or dropped goal is a method of scoring points in rugby union and rugby league and also, rarely, in American football and Canadian football.
A drop goal is scored by drop kicking the ball (dropping the ball and then kick ...
s for
Runcorn Highfield in a match against
Batley
Batley is a market town in the Kirklees district, in West Yorkshire, England, south-west of Leeds, north-west of Wakefield and Dewsbury, south-east of Bradford and north-east of Huddersfield, in the Heavy Woollen District. In 2011, the popu ...
. On 28 October, two tries by
Mal Meninga
Malcolm Norman Meninga (; born 8 July 1960) is an Australian professional rugby league coach and a former professional rugby league footballer. Meninga is widely regarded as one of the finest players in the game's history. He enjoyed a long ca ...
inspire
St. Helens, to beat
Wigan
Wigan ( ) is a town in Greater Manchester, England. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its ad ...
26–18, and win the
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...
County Cup for the first time in 16 years.
The 1985
Man of Steel Award
The Steve Prescott Man of Steel Awards is an end-of-season awards dinner for the Super League rugby league competition. The event's name is taken from the main award presented, the Man of Steel award for the rugby league footballer of the year. I ...
went to
Bradford Northern
The Bradford Bulls are a professional rugby league club in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, and compete in the Championship, the second tier of British rugby league.
The club have won the League Championship six times, the Challenge Cup f ...
utility
back
The human back, also called the dorsum (: dorsa), is the large posterior area of the human body, rising from the top of the buttocks to the back of the neck. It is the surface of the body opposite from the chest and the abdomen. The vertebral c ...
,
Ellery Hanley
Cuthwyn Ellery Hanley (born 27 March 1961) is an English former rugby league player and coach. Over a nineteen-year professional career (1978–1997), he played for Bradford Northern, Wigan, Balmain, Western Suburbs and Leeds. He won 36 ca ...
. He also became the first man to score more than 50 tries in a season since
Billy Boston
Sir William John Boston (born 6 August 1934) is a Welsh former professional rugby league player who played as a or . Born and raised in Cardiff, Wales, Boston started his career as a rugby union player before joining Wigan in 1953. Regarded a ...
, and the first non-winger to reach this figure for 70 years.
The increase of the Second Division to 20 teams meant that it would have taken 38 rounds to play out a full double
round robin, which was considered too many matches, so a complicated fixture formula was used to reduce it to 28. For this season,
Huyton
Huyton ( ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley, Merseyside, England. Part of the Liverpool Urban Area, Liverpool Built-up Area, it borders the Liverpool suburbs of Dovecot, Merseyside, Dovecot, Knotty Ash and Netherley, Liverpool, ...
relocated and were renamed Runcorn Highfield,
Cardiff City Blue Dragons
Cardiff City Blue Dragons were a rugby league team formed in 1981. Their home ground was initially Ninian Park, which was also used by Cardiff City F.C. The club spent three seasons in Cardiff before relocating to Bridgend in 1984 as the Brid ...
relocated and were renamed
Bridgend Blue Dragons, and
Kent Invicta
Kent Invicta is a defunct rugby league team that were based in Maidstone, Kent and later Southend in Essex.
History Kent Invicta RLFC and Southend Invicta RLFC
''Kent Invicta RLFC'' was formed by a local businessman, Paul Faires, and Jim Thompso ...
relocated and were renamed were
Southend Invicta,
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confl ...
were renamed
Huddersfield Barracudas, and
Mansfield Marksman
Mansfield Marksman was a rugby league team based at various times in Mansfield, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Alfreton and ultimately Nottingham. The club changed its name to Nottingham City in 1989, and folded in 1994 a year after exiting the Rugby Foot ...
, and
Sheffield Eagles
The Sheffield Eagles are a professional rugby league club based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. They play home games at the Olympic Legacy Park and compete in the Championship, the second tier of British rugby league.
Sheffield's on ...
joined the Second Division. As of 2017, 11th in the Second Division is the lowest position that
Wakefield Trinity
Wakefield Trinity is a professional rugby league club in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. The club play their home fixtures at the DIY Kitchen Stadium, Belle Vue (Wakefield), Belle Vue and currently compete in the Super League, the top tier o ...
have ever finished.
St. Helens beat
Wigan
Wigan ( ) is a town in Greater Manchester, England. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its ad ...
26–18 to win the
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...
County Cup, and
Hull F.C. beat
Hull Kingston Rovers
Hull Kingston Rovers (often abbreviated to Hull KR) are a professional rugby league club based in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, England. The club play home games at Craven Park, Hull, Craven Park and compete in Super League, the top tier of B ...
29–12 to win the
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...
County Cup.
Championship
Hull Kingston Rovers finished on top of the First Division table to claim their fifth championship.
Championship final Standings
Second Division Final Standings
Challenge Cup
The 1984–85
Silk Cut
Silk Cut is a British brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by Gallaher Group. The packaging is characterised by a distinctive stark white packet with the brand name in a purple, blue, red, silver, white or green square.
History ...
Challenge Cup
The Rugby Football League Challenge Cup, commonly known just as the Challenge Cup is a Single-elimination tournament, knockout rugby league cup competition organised by the Rugby Football League, held annually since 1896, it is the world's old ...
was won by
Wigan
Wigan ( ) is a town in Greater Manchester, England. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its ad ...
after defeating
Hull F.C. in the final.
The Final was played on 4 May at
Wembley
Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in the London Borou ...
before a crowd of 99,801 and is arguably the greatest ever in Challenge Cup history. Just after half-time Hull were 22 – 8 down before staging a fight back, but Wigan held on to win 28–24, ushering in an era of dominance for the club.
John Player Special Trophy
Premiership
References
Sources
1984–85 Rugby Football League season at rlhalloffame.org.uk1984–85 Rugby Football League season at wigan.rlfans.com1985 Challenge Cup Final at wigan.rlfans.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rugby Football League Season, 1984-85
1984 in English rugby league
1985 in English rugby league
Rugby Football League seasons
1984 in Welsh rugby league
1985 in Welsh rugby league