Blast from the Past: On this day 1989 Warrington and Wigan faced eachother in the first ever game of British Rugby League played on American soil, at County Baseball Stadium, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was the brainchild of former New York Jets American Footballer Michael J Mayer who fell in love with Rugby League having watched This Sporting Life and it triggering a fascination for this distant sport. In 1976 he established The United States Rugby League Inc. in his bid to kickstart RL in the US. Four British clubs were signed up to the USRL Inc consortium, Wire, Wigan, Hull KR and Barrow. Keith Macklin is amongst the commentators and was a good choice to give an insight into the game for American viewers and it is, I believe, the first appearance of Eddie Hemmings presenting Rugby League. All part of several days build up for both clubs with the residents of Milwaukee.
On the pitch Wire had ended the injury hit 88-89 season with four defeats from the final five games including the heatbreaking Maine Road semi final to Wigan in March. Only thirteen players managed to play 20 games or more in the 38 game season, with players signed and youngsters promoted just to fill gaps. Paul Bishop, Steve Roach, Phil Blake and Les Davidson had all returned to careers in Australia whilst Les Boyd and Kevin Tamati had retired.
On the pitch Wigan's Challenge Cup winners were swamped with internationals, Hampson and Gregory had returned from a midweek cup game with Illawarra to make this game, coach Graham Lowe was in charge of his last game before moving to Manly. John Woods would make his final bow for Wire at 33, Boyd would be talked out of retirement by Peter Higham and embark on a 29 hour journey for one last match. As it turned out Ronnie Duane and Mark Roberts, Wire's main outputs of aggression in this match, would be making one of their final Warrington appearances due to injury.
The opening ten minutes are none stop. In fact you can't take your eyes off of the entire game because there is just no lull in the action, even though it was played on a very narrow pitch the teams did try to spread the play all game. Hanley and Boyd get sin-binned in the first set which was followed by a Woods penalty. Becoming the first British player to score a point in America. After that it was end to end with brute force and raking kicks. Offside Wire and 2 points to Lydon. A Woods drop goal was replied with another Lydon Penalty before Goodway surged through the Wire defence to power over in the corner for the only try of the game 8-3, Woods missed two successive penalties and Turner failed with two drop goals to leave the first half score at 8-3. A penalty from Woods and two from Lydon would be the only points of the second half, but by no means was it a dull game. Wire produced as many chances as Wigan but the narrow pitch worked against both sides. Shelford was colossal for Wigan and their standout player. McGinty and Roberts worked hard to punch holes in up the middle of the Wigan line and Boyd played the full game barring his sin bin. It really was an enthralling game that I could only narrow down to an hour. It was a breathless and high energy game that is testament to the players on both sides for making it not a friendly or exhibition match, but a full on, high tempo derby.

Wire: 1, Lyon 2, Drummond 3, Cullen 4, Duane 5, Forster 6, Woods 7, Turner 17, Boyd, 9, Roskell 19, Molloyy 11, Roberts 12, McGinty 13, Gregory Subs - 14, Thorniley 15, Richards 10 Humphries 18, Thomas
Did not play - 8, Tamati 16, Williamson

Wigan: 1, Hampson 2, Tony Iro 3, Lydon 4, Bell 5, Preston 6, Edwards 7, Gregory 8, Lucas 9, Kiss 10, Shelford 11, Betts 12, Goodway 13, Hanley Subs - 14, Byrne 15, Gilfillan 16, Gildart 17, Dermott