1978–79 League Cup

Structure

National knockout championship

Number of teams

Winners

Runners-up

< 1977–78	Seasons	1979–80 >

This was the eighth season for rugby league's League Cup competition, which was now known as the John Player Trophy for sponsorship reasons.

Widnes won the final against Warrington by the score of 16-4. The match was played at Knowsley Road, St Helens, Merseyside. The attendance was 10,743 and receipts were £11709.

Background

This season saw no changes in the entrants, no new members and no withdrawals, the number remaining at eighteen.
Bad weather - Due to an exceptionally inclement (i.e. frost, snow etc.) winter there were very few Rugby League matches played during the months of January and February

Competition and Results^[1]^[2]

Round 1 - First Round^[3]

Involved 16 matches and 32 Clubs

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team	Score	Away Team	Venue	Att	Notes	Ref

1	Fri 22 Sep 1978	Castleford	18-10	Swinton	Wheldon Road
2	Fri 22 Sep 1978	Salford	25-7	Rochdale Hornets	The Willows
3	Sat 23 Sep 1978	Leigh Miners W.	9-21	Halifax	Hilton Park	1621	1
4	Sat 23 Sep 1978	St Helens	16-11	Leeds	Knowsley Road	4700		^[4]
5	Sun 24 Sep 1978	Barrow	8-26	Bradford Northern	Craven Park
6	Sun 24 Sep 1978	Doncaster	2-30	Wigan	Bentley Road Stadium/Tattersfield	1332		^[5]
7	Sun 24 Sep 1978	Huddersfield	10-21	Widnes	Fartown			^[6]^[7]
8	Sun 24 Sep 1978	Hull KR	67-11	Oldham	Craven Park (1)		2
9	Sun 24 Sep 1978	Keighley	20-4	York	Lawkholme Lane
10	Sun 24 Sep 1978	Leigh	13-13	Huyton	Hilton Park
11	Sun 24 Sep 1978	Milford	5-38	Dewsbury	McLaren Field	3129	3
12	Sun 24 Sep 1978	New Hunslet	7-17	Hull F.C.	Elland Road Greyhound Stadium			^[8]
13	Sun 24 Sep 1978	Wakefield Trinity	27-2	Batley	Belle Vue			^[9]
14	Sun 24 Sep 1978	Warrington	14-4	Blackpool Borough	Wilderspool		4	^[10]
15	Sun 24 Sep 1978	Whitehaven	3-9	Featherstone Rovers	Recreation Ground
16	Sun 24 Sep 1978	Workington Town	17-8	Bramley	Derwent Park

Round 1 - First Round - Replays

Involved 1 match and 2 Clubs

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team		Score		Away Team	Venue	Att	Rec	Notes	Ref

1	Tue 26 Sep 1978	Huyton		8-10		Leigh	Alt Park, Huyton

Round 2 - Second Round^[11]

Involved 8 matches and 16 Clubs

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team	Score	Away Team	Venue	Att	Notes	Ref

1	Sat 2 Dec 1978	Widnes	11-10	St Helens	Naughton Park	5030		^[4]^[7]
2	Sun 3 Dec 1978	Castleford	20-9	Workington Town	Wheldon Road
3	Sun 3 Dec 1978	Featherstone Rovers	0-7	Warrington	Post Office Road			^[10]
4	Sun 3 Dec 1978	Hull F.C.	12-18	Bradford Northern	Boulevard			^[8]
5	Sun 3 Dec 1978	Hull KR	16-14	Salford	Craven Park (1)
6	Sun 3 Dec 1978	Keighley	P	Wigan	Lawkholme Lane		5	^[2]
7	Sun 3 Dec 1978	Leigh	17-8	Dewsbury	Hilton Park
8	Sun 3 Dec 1978	Wakefield Trinity	15-10	Halifax	Belle Vue			^[9]

Round 2 - Second Round Replays

Involved 1 match and 2 Clubs - and due to the first match being postponed because of extremely inclement weather

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team		Score		Away Team	Venue	Att	Rec	Notes	Ref

1	Wed 6 Dec 1978	Keighley		9-5		Wigan	Lawkholme Lane				^[2]

Round 3 -Quarter Finals^[11]

Involved 4 matches with 8 clubs

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team	Score	Away Team	Venue	Ref

1	Sun 17 Dec 1978	Bradford Northern	16-13	Wakefield Trinity	Odsal	^[9]
2	Sun 17 Dec 1978	Hull KR	23-10	Castleford	Craven Park (1)
3	Sun 17 Dec 1978	Keighley	4-15	Widnes	Lawkholme Lane	^[7]
4	Sun 17 Dec 1978	Warrington	27-0	Leigh	Wilderspool	^[10]

Round 4 – Semi-Finals^[11]

Involved 2 matches and 4 Clubs
Bad weather - Due to an exceptionally inclement (i.e. frost, snow etc.) winter there were very few Rugby League matches played during the months of January and February^[2]^[9]

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team	Score	Away Team	Venue	Notes	Ref

1	Sat 6 Jan 1979	Warrington	P	Hull KR	Wilderspool	6	^[11]
2	Sat 13 Jan 1979	Widnes	P	Bradford Northern	Naughton Park	6	^[7]^[11]

Round 3 – Semi-Finals - Replays

Involved 3 matches and 4 clubs - and due to the first match being postponed because of extremely inclement weather

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team	Score	Away Team	Venue	Notes	Ref

1	Sat 27 Jan 1979	Warrington	P	Hull KR	Wilderspool	6	^[11]
2	Wed 24 Jan 1979	Widnes	21-3	Bradford Northern	Naughton Park		^[7]
3	Sun 1 Apr 1979	Warrington	9-5	Hull KR	Wilderspool		^[10]

Final

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team		Score		Away Team	Venue	Att	Rec	Notes	Ref

	Saturday 27 January 1979	Widnes		P		Warrington	Knowsley Road			7	^[11]

Final - Replay

Game No	Fixture Date	Home Team		Score		Away Team	Venue	Att	Rec	Notes	Ref

	Saturday 28 April 1979	Widnes		16-4		Warrington	Knowsley Road	10743	11709	8, 9	^[7]^[10]^[12]^[13]

Teams and Scorers^[12]^[13]

Widnes	№	Warrington

	teams
David Eckersley	1	Derek Finnegan/Finnigan
Stuart Wright	2	Michael "Mike"/"Mick" Kelly
Mal Aspey	3	Steve Hesford
Eric Hughes	4	Billy Benyon
Mick Burke	5	Dave Sutton
David Moran	6	Ken Kelly
Reg Bowden (c)	7	Parry Gordon
Jim Mills	8	Roy Lester
Keith Elwell	9	Anthony "Tony" Waller
Glyndwr "Glyn" Shaw	10	Mike Nicholas
Alan Dearden	11	Brian Case
David Hull	12	Tommy Martyn
Mick Adams	13	Alan Gwilliam
? Not used	14	Edwin "Eddie" Hunter (for Ken Kelly)
? Not used	15	? Not used
	Coach

16	score	4
2	HT	2

	Scorers
	Tries
Stuart Wright (1)	T
David Hull (1)	T
	Goals
Mick Burke (3)	G	Steve Hesford (2)
	Drop Goals
Keith Elwell (2)	DG
Mick Adams (2)	DG

Referee		G. Frederick "Fred" Lindop (Wakefield)
Man of the match		David Eckersley - Widnes - Fullback
Competition Sponsor		John Player

Scoring - Try = three (3) points - Goal = two (2) points - Drop goal = one (1) point

Prize Money

As part of the sponsorship deal and funds, the prize money awarded to the competing teams for this season is as follows :-

Finish Position	Cash Prize	No. receiving prize	Total Cash

Winner	?	1	?
Runner-up	?	1	?
semi-finalist	?	2	?
loser in Rd 3	?	4	?
loser in Rd 2	?	8	?
Loser in Rd 1	?	16	?

Grand Total

Note - the author is unable to trace the award amounts for this season. Can anyone help ?

The road to success

This tree excludes any preliminary round fixtures

First Round		Second Round		Third Round		Semi Finals		Final


Keighley	20

York	4
		Keighley	9

		Wigan	5
Doncaster	2

Wigan	30
				Keighley	4

				Widnes	15
Huddersfield	10

Widnes	21
		Widnes	11

		St Helens	10
St Helens	16

Leeds	11
						Widnes	21

						Bradford Northern	3
New Hunslet	7

Hull F.C.	17
		Hull F.C.	12

		Bradford Northern	18
Barrow	8

Bradford Northern	26
				Bradford Northern	16

				Wakefield Trinity	13
Wakefield Trinity	27

Batley	2
		Wakefield Trinity	15

		Halifax	10
Leigh Miners W.	9

Halifax	21
								Widnes	16

								Warrington	4
Whitehaven	3

Featherstone Rovers	9
		Featherstone Rovers	0

		Warrington	7
Warrington	14

Blackpool Borough	4
				Warrington	27

				Leigh	0
Leigh	13 (10)

Huyton	13 (8)
		Leigh	17

		Dewsbury	8
Milford	5

Dewsbury	38
						Warrington	9

						Hull KR	5
Hull KR	67

Oldham	11
		Hull KR	16

		Salford	14
Salford	26

Rochdale Hornets	7
				Hull KR	23

				Castleford	10
Castleford	18

Swinton	10
		Castleford	20

		Workington Town	9
Workington Town	17

Bramley	8

Notes and comments

1 * Leigh Miners' Welfare are a Junior (amateur) club from Leigh (formed by merger of Astley & Tyldesley and Hope Rangers - and now renamed as Leigh Miners Rangers) ^[14]
2 * new record score between professional clubs in the competition - at the time, beating the previous record of 9-51 set when Blackpool Borough lost at home to Leeds by 9-51 in season 1972-73
3 * Milford are a Junior (amateur) club from Leeds
4 * Warrington official archives^[10] show the game as being played on 30 September but RUGBYLEAGUEproject^[1] and Wigan official archives^[3] shows it as played on 24 September
5 * Postponed due to frozen pitch
6 * Postponed due to frozen pitch - was due to be televised by BBC
7 * Postponed due to the postponement of the Semi Final ties caused by frost and other extremely inclement weather.
8 * The Final had been due to be played on Saturday 27 January but was put back due to backlog of semi-finl ties caused by enforced postponement due to extreme inclement weather
9 * Knowsley Road was the home of St Helens RLFC from 1890 until its closure in 2010. The final capacity was 17,500 although the record attendance was 35,695 set on 26 December 1949 for a league game between St Helens and Wigan.

General information for those unfamiliar

The council of the Rugby Football League voted to introduce a new competition, to be similar to The Football Association and Scottish Football Association's "League Cup". It was to be a similar knock-out structure to, and to be secondary to, the Challenge Cup. As this was being formulated, sports sponsorship was becoming more prevalent and as a result John Player and Sons, a division of Imperial Tobacco Company, became sponsors, and the competition never became widely known as the "League Cup"
The competition ran from 1971-72 until 1995-96 and was initially intended for the professional clubs plus the two amateur BARLA National Cup finalists. In later seasons the entries were expanded to take in other amateur and French teams. The competition was dropped due to "fixture congestion" when Rugby League became a summer sport The Rugby League season always (until the onset of "Summer Rugby" in 1996) ran from around August-time through to around May-time and this competition always took place early in the season, in the Autumn, with the final usually taking place in late January
The competition was variably known, by its sponsorship name, as the Player's No.6 Trophy (1971–1977), the John Player Trophy (1977–1983), the John Player Special Trophy (1983–1989), and the Regal Trophy in 1989.

References

1 2 "Rugby League Project".
1 2 3 4 "Wigan "Cherry and White" archived results".
1 2 "Wigan "Cherry and White" J Player Round 1 archived results".
1 2 "Saints Heritage Society - History - Season 1896-97".
↑ "Wigan "Cherry and White" archived results".
↑ "Huddersfield Rugby League Heritage" (PDF).
1 2 3 4 5 6 "Widnes Vikings - History - Season In Review".
1 2 "HULL&PROUD - Stats - Fixtures & Results".
1 2 3 4 "Wakefield until I die".
1 2 3 4 5 6 "Warrington Wolves - Results Archive - 1897".
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Wigan "Cherry and White" J Player round 2 onwards archived results".
1 2 Raymond Fletcher and David Howes (1990). Rothmans Rugby League Yearbook 1990-1991. Queen Anne Press. ISBN 0 35617851 X.
1 2 Raymond Fletcher and David Howes (1991). Rothmans Rugby League Yearbook 1991-1992. Queen Anne Press. ISBN 0 35617852 8.
↑ "Leigh Miners Rangers".

External links

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