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1986–87 Rugby Football League season

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Field	Value
title	1986–87 Rugby Football League season
league	Stones Bitter Championship
season	1986–87 Season
season_champs	Wigan
season_champ_name	Champions
premiership_win	Wigan
premiership_win_name	Premiership winners
MVP	Ellery Hanley
MVP_link	Man of Steel Award
top_scorer	Paul Loughlin 424
top try scorer	Ellery Hanley 63
promote
promote_from	Second Division
relegate
relegate_to	Second Division
season2	Second Division
season_champs2	Hunslet
season_champ_name2	Champions
top try scorer2	Derek Bate 31
season3
season_champs3
season_champ_name3
prevseason_link	1985–86 Rugby Football League season
prevseason_year	1985–86
nextseason_link	1987–88 Rugby Football League season
nextseason_year	1987–88

The 1986–87 Rugby Football League season was the 92nd season of rugby league football. Sixteen clubs competed for the Championship which was determined by League position.

Season summary

The Silk Cut Challenge Cup Winners were Halifax who beat St. Helens 19-18 in the final.

The John Player Special Trophy Winners were Wigan who beat Warrington 18-4 in the final.

The Stones Bitter Premiership Trophy Winners were Wigan who beat Warrington 8-0 in the final.

Wigan beat Oldham 27–6 to win the Lancashire County Cup, and Castleford beat Hull F.C. 31–24 to win the Yorkshire County Cup.

Championship

Stones Bitter League Champions were Wigan for the tenth time in their history, losing only two league games all season - both to Warrington. Oldham, Featherstone Rovers, Barrow and Wakefield Trinity were relegated. A one-off 'two-up, four-down' promotion was used to reduce the top division to 14 clubs.

Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	Pts
1	Wigan	30	28	0	2	941	193
2	St. Helens	30	20	1	9	835	465
3	Warrington	30	20	1	9	728	464
4	Castleford	30	20	0	10	631	429
5	Halifax	30	17	1	12	553	487
6	Hull Kingston Rovers	30	16	0	14	446	531
7	Bradford Northern	30	15	1	14	555	550
8	Widnes	30	14	0	16	598	613
9	Salford	30	14	0	16	509	656
10	Leigh	30	13	1	16	549	610
11	Hull	30	13	1	16	538	650
12	Leeds	30	13	0	17	565	571
13	Oldham	30	13	0	17	554	679
14	Featherstone Rovers	30	8	1	21	498	776
15	Barrow	30	7	2	21	456	725
16	Wakefield Trinity	30	4	1	25	386	943

	Champions		Play-offs		Relegated

Second Division

A complicated fixture formula was introduced in the Second Division and continued until the 1991–92 season. 2nd Division Champions were Hunslet, and Swinton were also promoted.

Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	Pts
1	Hunslet	28	25	0	3	722	218
2	Swinton	28	23	1	4	713	323
3	Whitehaven	28	21	1	6	577	304
4	Doncaster	28	20	1	7	586	388
5	Rochdale Hornets	28	19	1	8	519	369
6	Sheffield Eagles	28	17	0	11	625	426
7	Bramley	28	16	0	12	407	440
8	Carlisle	28	15	1	12	463	446
9	Blackpool Borough	28	14	0	14	530	477
10	York	28	11	0	17	492	537
11	Runcorn Highfield	28	10	1	17	391	533
12	Fulham	28	8	2	18	461	632
13	Batley	28	9	0	19	335	528
14	Workington Town	28	9	0	19	405	652
15	Huddersfield Barracudas	28	8	0	20	456	673
16	Mansfield Marksman	28	8	0	20	366	592
17	Dewsbury	28	8	0	20	328	563
18	Keighley	28	7	0	21	366	641

	Champions		Play-offs		Promoted		Relegated

Challenge Cup

Main article: 1986–87 Challenge Cup

Wigan’s 10-8 defeat to Oldham in Round One this season, would be their last Challenge Cup defeat until February 1996.

Halifax and St Helens reached the final with 'Fax coming out victorious with a 19-18 win at Wembley before a crowd of 91,267. A desperate tackle by Halifax's John Pendlebury was seen as instrumental in giving his side the victory,{{Cite news | access-date = 6 March 2011}} which was their fifth in twelve Final appearances.

Halifax's Australian fullback, Graham Eadie, won the Lance Todd Trophy.

John Player Special Trophy

Main article: 1986–87 John Player Special Trophy

County cups

Main article: 1986–87 Lancashire Cup

Main article: 1986–87 Yorkshire Cup

Premierships

Main article: 1986–87 Rugby League Premiership

Main article: 1986–87 Rugby League Divisional Premiership

A Premiership competition for Second Division teams was introduced for the first time. The structure was the same as the existing First Division Premiership, with the teams in the top eight league positions qualifying for an end-of-season knockout tournament. The finals of both competitions were played on the same day as a double header at Old Trafford.

Kangaroo Tour

Main article: 1986 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain and France

The months of October and November also saw the appearance of the Australian team in England on their 1986 Kangaroo Tour. Other than the three test Ashes series against Great Britain (won 3–0 by Australia), The Kangaroos played and won matches against 9 Championship teams (Wigan, Hull KR, Leeds, Halifax, St Helens, Oldham, Widnes, Hull, and Bradford Northern) and one county side (Cumbria).

The 1986 Kangaroos were coached by Don Furner who had toured as a player in 1956–57 while the team captain was Wally Lewis who had been the vice-captain of the 1982 Kangaroos.

Dual-rugby international Michael O'Connor of the St George Dragons was the leading point scorer on the tour with 170 from 13 tries and 59 goals. Canterbury-Bankstown stand-off / loose forward Terry Lamb was the leading try scorer with 19, including scoring 5 against Hull Kingston Rovers at Craven Park on 15 October. Lamb also became the first player to appear in every match of a Kangaroo Tour.

The 1986 Kangaroos became known as The Unbeatables after their second successive unbeaten Kangaroo Tour.

game	Date	Result	Venue	Attendance
1	12 October	Australia def. Wigan 26–18	Central Park, Wigan	30,622
2	15 October	Australia def. Hull Kingston Rovers 46–10	Craven Park, Hull	6,868
3	19 October	Australia def. Leeds 40–0	Headingley, Leeds	11,389
4	21 October	Australia def. Cumbria Cumbria 48–12	Craven Park, Barrow-in-Furness	4,233
5	25 October	def. 38–16	Old Trafford, Manchester	50,583
6	29 October	Australia def. Halifax 36–2	Thrum Hall, Halifax	7,193
7	2 November	Australia def. St. Helens 32–8	Knowsley Road, St Helens	15,381
8	4 November	Australia def. Oldham 22–16	The Watersheddings, Oldham	5,678
9	8 November	def. 34–4	Elland Road, Leeds	30,808
10	12 November	Australia def. Widnes 20–4	Naughton Park, Widnes	10,268
11	16 November	Australia def. Hull F.C. 13–7	The Boulevard, Hull	8,231
12	18 November	Australia def. Bradford Northern 38–0	Odsal Stadium, Bradford	10,633
13	20 November	def. 24–15	Central Park, Wigan	20,169

References

Sources

1986-87 Rugby Football League season at wigan.rlfans.com

References

"1986-87 Season summary".
(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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