THEY remain one of the most celebrated halves combinations in the game’s history, but when Parramatta greats Brett Kenny and Peter Sterling wrote themselves into British rugby league folklore, they did so in rival colours.
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The pair had already steered the Eels to three straight premierships in Australia before they met in the 1985 Challenge Cup final at Wembley in front of 99, 801 fans.
Kenny ultimately got the last laugh that day, scoring a try and becoming the first ever Australian to claim the Lance Todd trophy as man of the match in Wigan’s 28-24 win over a Sterling-led Hull FC.
It’s a match still regarded as one of the greatest Cup finals of all time and the role the Aussie pair played in it will be recognised when Wigan host Hull at WIN Stadium next month.
In the first regular-season Super League clash played in the Southern Hemisphere, the traditional rivals will fight it out for competition points and for the freshly minted Kenny-Sterling Shield.
Kenny told The Mercury it’s a huge honour.
“It’s good to hear ‘Kenny-Sterling’ and not Sterling-Kenny for once,” he joked.
“It’s something that’s never happened before for me and it makes you feel very humbled to think people have that much respect for you to put your name on a trophy.
“I think both clubs have respect for each of us for what we were able to achieve there.”
A four-time premiership-winner with the Eels during the 1980s, Kenny said the epic encounter at Wembley was an experience like no other.
“It was a very special day for a lot of reasons,” Kenny said.
“The atmosphere was unbelievable. This was back in 1985 and, even in grand finals, we’d only had about 40,000 at the SCG. Here we were at Wembley Stadium which is a wonderful arena in front a hundred thousand people.
“Sterlo and I were very fortunate to playing for those clubs and everyone feels as though it was one of the best finals in the history of the Challenge Cup. It was a game made in heaven in really.”
Kenny picked up man of the match honours but says his great mate was a very close second.
“I remember Sterlo went close to winning the game for Hull,” Kenny said.
“They were only 10-15 metres off our line and he had the ball, he threw the biggest dummy you’ve ever seen, I fell for it and they nearly scored.
“We’d played against each other back home once in a City-Country game but that was the only time we’d done that.
“Playing against him, particularly in a Challenge Cup Final at Wembley, was something very special and certainly something different.
“It wasn’t just another game. I never played a game I didn’t want to win but this was a final and you never want to lose them.
“John Muggleton was playing for Hull as well, they were both teammates from back home and you like to see them win but I wanted to win as well. You can’t both come out as winners.”
It explains the embrace they shared after the match, the image of which, forms the centre of the new trophy.
“It was an unusual feeling at the end. Sterlo was down on his knees and I went over to him and shook hands and it was tough,” Kenny said.
“It was a funny sort of feeling because I was happy we’d won but I was disappointed to see what he’d done in that game and still finished up on the losing side of it.
“The way he played, to still find himself on the wrong end of the scoreline, I felt for him.”
The honour comes at the end of a trying 12 months for the 56-year-old who was diagnosed with cancer in June after doctors discovered an 11-centimetre tumour in his stomach cavity.
It came just months after his stepson Riley was left a quadriplegic after a swimming accident. It’s seen them spend the bulk of the last year at Westmead Hospital as they both underwent treatment.
They are now back home on the Central Coast and both Wigan and Hull – in partnership with Destination Wollongong – will host a joint fundraiser for the family at City Beach Function Centre on February 9, the day before the historic match.
Kenny said the support from the rugby league community has been overwhelming.
“It’s been pretty tough but we’ve had a lot of help from a lot of people and the rugby league community has been magnificent,” Kenny said.
“I feel very fortunate that I was able to play rugby league and be part of a great community. I’ve had messages from all sorts of people and it just shows that, in difficult times, it doesn’t matter who you played for, rugby league people will support you.
“That’s been an amazing thing. It’s the same thing now with Wigan and Hull, I was blown away to have people coming from the other side of the world to help us.
“I find it hard to describe the feeling, you just can’t say enough to thank people.”
Mitch Jennings
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
