Given the incredible scale of fundraising efforts in his name, it has been easy to forget that Rob Burrow achieved plenty as a rugby league player. On the pitch arguably his greatest feat was his integral role in the Leeds Rhinos side who won the domestic treble in 2015, only the third team to do so this century.
Perhaps, therefore, it is fitting that on the day rugby league comes together to celebrate the life of Burrow at Saturday’s Challenge Cup final, the two teams vying for Wembley glory will consider themselves genuine contenders to emulate the heroics of that Leeds side in which Burrow featured so prominently nine years ago.
Wigan and Warrington will each believe they have the capabilities to do that, with both a credible threat to sweep the board this year. There are subplots everywhere you look this weekend, not least that the two sides have not met in this fixture since 1990. Appropriately, the focus will be on Burrow pre-match, with the kick-off pushed back to 3.07pm and a minute’s applause planned in the seventh minute of both the men’s and women’s cup finals.
Thousands of supporters are expected to lay tributes outside the rugby league statue at Wembley Stadium pre-match too, meaning it will an emotionally charged occasion that Matt Peet and Sam Burgess will be tasked with controlling when the men’s final kicks off. The expectation is that we may well be in for a Wembley classic that befits the occasion too.
Alongside St Helens, Wigan and Warrington have been two of the standout trio in Super League this year. For Warrington a first trophy since 2019 is within reach, only 10 months after Burgess assumed control at the Halliwell Jones Stadium. Few knew how he would fare in his first job as a head coach but he has made the transition as seamlessly as he did when he burst on to the playing scene as a teenage superstar.
“It’s our first shot at silverware together and I’m aware it’s been a few years for this club,” he admits. “Two of the best teams, playing in one of the best stadiums, it’s the perfect game for people to come and savour.” But standing in their way is a team who can capture a piece of genuine rugby league history.
Warrington Dufty; Thewlis, Tai, King, Ashton; Drinkwater, Williams; Harrison, Walker, Vaughan, Nicholson, Fitzgibbon, Currie. Interchange Musgrove, Powell, Wood, Bullock.
Wigan Field; Miski, Eckersley, Wardle, Marshall; French, Smith; Byrne, O’Neill, Thompson, Nsemba, Farrell, Ellis. Interchange Mago, Leeming, Havard, Walters.
Since rugby league switched to summer in 1996, only Bradford in 2004 and St Helens in 2007 have held all four major trophies – the Super League title, the League Leaders’ Shield, the World Club Challenge and the cup – at the same time. If Wigan are the victors on Saturday afternoon, they will join that exclusive club and confirm this squad among the modern greats.
“It sounds very special to potentially do, and we’re one win away from it,” their captain, Liam Farrell, says. “This is a very special patch for this club and if we do it, I think that will speak for itself.” Wigan are synonymous with this competition but, incredibly, they have not won at Wembley since 2013, with their last cup triumph in 2022 coming at Tottenham.
“It’s too long a gap for a club like this. In 2017 we went there and lost, but it’s a long time since we went and did at Wembley – and Wigan as a town expects something special at Wembley,” Farrell says. The Warrington side they will face on Saturday includes five former Wigan players including the current England captain – and best player in Super League – George Williams.
For Williams, a boyhood Wigan fan who won the Super League and the World Club Challenge with the Warriors, the cup was the one that eluded his grasp. But there will be no split loyalties this weekend. “It was my dream to play for Wigan as a young boy and now the dream has changed – I’m looking to win trophies for Warrington,” he says. “It does make it a bit more special that it’s against Wigan, though.”
The preparation for both sides has been slightly different this year; with England’s football team facing Iceland at Wembley on Friday evening, Wigan and Warrington had to do their usual eve-of-final familiarisation on Thursday, with their final training sessions taking place elsewhere. And there will certainly be a different feel to finals day given the tragic news of Burrow’s death last weekend.
Fittingly, there will be a Leeds presence on finals day, with the Rhinos’ women taking on St Helens in the cup final at lunchtime in a repeat of last year’s final, which the Saints won. “Rob will massively be in our minds,” Leeds’s Shona Hoyle says. “I’m a parent myself and it’s really tough. We want to do it for the Leeds family and we’ll be extra aggressive and extra resourceful in our positivity to go out and get the end result.”
But whatever the result in both finals, you suspect rugby league will put on an occasion that Burrow and his family would be proud of.
