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1984–85 Rugby Football League season

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Field	Value
title	1984–85 Rugby Football League season
league	Slalom Lager Championship
no_of_teams	16
attendance
season_champs	Hull Kingston Rovers
season_champ_name	Champions
league_leaders
league_leaders_name
second_place
premiership_win	St. Helens
premiership_win_name	Premiership winners
MVP	Ellery Hanley
MVP_link	Man of Steel AwardsMan of Steel
top_scorer	Sean Day 362
top try scorer	Ellery Hanley 55
promote
promote_from	Second Division
relegate
relegate_to	Second Division
season2	Second Division
season_champs2	Swinton
season_champ_name2	Champions
top try scorer2	Vince Gribbin 27
prevseason_link	1983–84 Rugby Football League season
prevseason_year	1983–84
nextseason_link	1985–86 Rugby Football League season
nextseason_year	1985–86

The 1984–85 Rugby Football League season was the 90th ever season of professional rugby league football in Britain. Sixteen teams played each other from August 1984 until May 1985 for the Slalom Lager Championship. Also these 16 teams plus several more competed for the Challenge Cup.

Season summary

Slalom Lager League Champions: Hull Kingston Rovers
Silk Cut Challenge Cup Winners: Wigan (8 – 28–24 v Hull)
Slalom Lager Premiership Trophy Winners: St. Helens (36–16 v Hull Kingston Rovers at Elland Road, Leeds)
- Harry Sunderland Trophy: Harry Pinner
John Player Special Trophy Winners: Hull Kingston Rovers (12–0 v Hull F.C. at Boothferry Park, Hull)
Burtonwood Brewery Lancashire County Cup Winners: St. Helens (26–18 v Wigan at Central Park, Wigan)
2nd Division Champions: Swinton

Aside from retaining the Championship Hull Kingston Rovers won the John Player Special Trophy and reached the finals of both the Premiership and Yorkshire Cup, they were beaten in the Semi-Final of the Challenge Cup meaning they played in every possible game of the season bar one.

On 21 October 1984 Peter Wood kicked a record-equalling five drop goals for Runcorn Highfield in a match against Batley. On 28 October, two tries by Mal Meninga inspire St. Helens, to beat Wigan 26–18, and win the Lancashire County Cup for the first time in 16 years.

The 1985 Man of Steel Award went to Bradford Northern utility back, Ellery Hanley. He also became the first man to score more than 50 tries in a season since Billy Boston, and the first non-winger to reach this figure for 70 years.

The increase of the Second Division to 20 teams meant that it would have taken 38 rounds to play out a full double round robin, which was considered too many matches, so a complicated fixture formula was used to reduce it to 28. For this season, Huyton relocated and were renamed Runcorn Highfield, Cardiff City Blue Dragons relocated and were renamed Bridgend Blue Dragons, and Kent Invicta relocated and were renamed were Southend Invicta, Huddersfield were renamed Huddersfield Barracudas, and Mansfield Marksman, and Sheffield Eagles joined the Second Division. As of 2025, 11th in the Second Division is the lowest position that Wakefield Trinity have ever finished.

St. Helens beat Wigan 26–18 to win the Lancashire County Cup, and Hull F.C. beat Hull Kingston Rovers 29–12 to win the Yorkshire County Cup.

Championship

Hull Kingston Rovers finished on top of the First Division table to claim their fifth championship.

Championship final Standings

Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts
1	Hull Kingston Rovers	30	24	0	6	778	391	+387
2	St. Helens	30	22	1	7	920	508	+412
3	Wigan	30	21	1	8	720	459	+261
4	Leeds	30	20	1	9	650	377	+273
5	Oldham	30	18	1	11	563	439	+124
6	Hull	30	17	1	12	733	550	+183
7	Widnes	30	17	0	13	580	517	+63
8	Bradford Northern	30	16	1	13	600	500	+100
9	Featherstone Rovers	30	15	0	15	461	475	−14
10	Halifax	30	12	2	16	513	565	−52
11	Warrington	30	13	0	17	530	620	−90
12	Castleford	30	12	1	17	552	518	+34
13	Barrow	30	9	1	20	483	843	−360
14	Leigh	30	8	2	20	549	743	−194
15	Hunslet	30	7	1	22	463	952	−489
16	Workington Town	30	2	1	27	297	935	−638

Champions	Relegated

Second Division Final Standings

Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts
1	Swinton	28	24	1	3	727	343	384
2	Salford	28	20	3	5	787	333	454
3	York	28	21	1	6	717	430	287
4	Dewsbury	28	21	1	6	539	320	219
5	Carlisle	28	19	0	9	547	437	110
6	Whitehaven	28	16	3	9	496	385	111
7	Batley	28	17	0	11	489	402	87
8	Fulham	28	16	1	11	521	526	−5
9	Mansfield Marksman	28	15	0	13	525	398	127
10	Blackpool Borough	28	15	0	13	486	434	52
11	Wakefield Trinity	28	12	2	14	450	459	−9
12	Rochdale Hornets	28	12	2	14	436	466	−30
13	Huddersfield Barracudas	28	12	1	15	476	476	0
14	Runcorn Highfield	28	11	1	16	462	538	−76
15	Keighley	28	11	0	17	495	567	−72
16	Bramley	28	9	2	17	439	492	−53
17	Sheffield Eagles	28	8	0	20	424	582	-158
18	Doncaster	28	6	2	20	353	730	−377
19	Southend	28	4	0	24	347	690	−343
20	Bridgend Blue Dragons	28	1	0	27	258	966	−708

Promoted

Challenge Cup

Main article: 1984–85 Challenge Cup

The 1984–85 Silk Cut Challenge Cup was won by Wigan after defeating Hull F.C. in the final.

The Final was played on 4 May at Wembley before a crowd of 99,801 and is arguably the greatest ever in Challenge Cup history.{{cite news | access-date = 26 July 2009 | access-date =13 February 2017

John Player Special Trophy

Main article: 1984–85 John Player Special Trophy

Premiership

Main article: 1984–85 Rugby League Premiership

References

Sources

References

(1995). "Rothmans Rugby League Yearbook 1995–1996". Headline Book Publishing.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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