Labour in power, Oasis selling out stadiums and now Wigan Warriors reigning supreme in rugby league. No, this is not the 1990s but 2024. And the glory days are well and truly back for the Cherry and Whites.
The great Wigan side of the 90s are sporting immortals, winning seven straight top-flight titles and eight successive Challenge Cup trophies. Yet on Saturday night Matt Peet’s Class of 24 accomplished something even that legendary team could not — winning all four major trophies in the same season.
By beating Hull KR in the Super League Grand Final at Old Trafford on Saturday, courtesy of Bevan French’s stunning solo try, they added to their World Club Challenge, Challenge Cup and League Leaders’ Shield successes. And their unprecedented quadruple makes it seven trophies in three seasons for the Warriors since the peerless Peet was installed as their head coach.
Wigan are now not only the dominant force in rugby league, but one of the most successful teams in any sport in Britain. And Peet is undoubtedly one of the country’s outstanding coaches.
He never played the game professionally, but stood on the Central Park terraces during Wigan’s golden era, then started working for his hometown team as a scholarship coach 16 years ago.
Wigan Warriors beat Hull Kingston Rovers 9-2 on Saturday to win Super League’s Grand Final
The player of the match was Wigan’s Bevan French, pictured (centre) running with the ball
Peet then worked his way up before being promoted to the top job ahead of the 2022 campaign. And boy, what a job he has done, winning the Challenge Cup in his first season in charge, before Grand Final glory 12 months ago and now this annus mirabilis.
As for Hull KR, their long wait for a trophy goes on. They had come to Old Trafford looking to claim their first Super League crown — and first top-flight title in 39 years — in their maiden Grand Final appearance.
Having finished bottom of Super League only four years ago, they have enjoyed a fairytale rise under coach Willie Peters. But they were not able to complete their Cinderella story, meaning their winger Ryan Hall — Super League’s record try scorer — also lost his first Grand Final in his seventh outing in his last match before re-joining Leeds Rhinos.
Alongside Hall in his six previous wins was Rob Burrow, who was remembered at Old Trafford on Saturday in the first Grand Final since he died from motor neurone disease aged 41 in June.
The Harry Sunderland Trophy for player of the match, which the Leeds Rhinos legend claimed twice, has been renamed the Rob Burrow Award and his three children carried it on to the pitch before the match.
His dad Geoff then handed it afterwards to the fitting winner French, whose mother died of MND in 2022 and whose try brought back memories of
Burrow’s legendary score here against St Helens in 2011. It has been quite some season for French, who was also man of the match when Wigan won the World Club Challenge in February and the Challenge Cup in June.
Saturday’s victory, though, was not just a triumph for Wigan’s attacking flair but their steely defence, only conceding to Mikey Lewis’s second-half penalty.
French scored the only try of the match with a spectacular solo effort in the 22nd minute
Australian French pictured after the match alongside Liam Farrell (left) and coach Matt Peet
In fact, since beating KR 24-20 at the start of last month to all but seal the League Leaders’ Shield, those two points are the only ones against them in the debit column, having defeated Leeds and Salford to nil at the end of the regular season, before dispatching Leigh 38-0 in last week’s play-off semi-final.
That remarkable run of clean sheets looked to have ended after only 10 minutes on Saturday, when Man of Steel Lewis, touched down for KR.
However, the video referee confirmed that Tyrone May had knocked on in the air in the build-up.
It was certainly a nervous start for defending champions Wigan, who were also dealt a scare when their influential forward Junior Nsemba appeared to be knocked out, only to later pass his head injury assessment to return to the pitch.
But in the 22nd minute came that moment of magic from French. The Aussie stand-off received the ball on the halfway line, then sold Lewis a dummy and brushed past Matt Parcell to race away, before rounding full back Niall Evalds and crossing for a try the 68,173 fans inside Old Trafford will always remember.
Wigan’s victory completed a famous quadruple after they had also won the World Club Challenge, Challenge Cup and League Leaders’ Shield this season
This was Wigan’s seventh Super League Grand Final victory – having also won it in 1998, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2018 and 2023
After Adam Keighran, who lost the Grand Final against Wigan last year with Catalans, converted, Liam Marshall thought he had Wigan’s second try, but it was ruled out for Luke Thompson being offside in the build-up.
The Warriors, though, extended their lead to 7-0 before the break thanks to a drop goal from Harry Smith. In the second half, that Lewis penalty gave the Robins hope, but Keighran soon replied with two points of his own following Lewis’s dangerous tackle.
The Warriors really should have wrapped the match up when Jai Field broke clear and played in Jake Wardle, only for him to lose control of the ball as he dived for the line after a late tackle by Hall.
Yet in an attritional final, French’s try proved enough to send Wigan into wonderland at the Theatre of Dreams.