1990 tour match: AUSTRALIA v ST HELENS at Knowsley Road

Sunday, October 7
AUSTRALIA: Gary Belcher; Andrew Ettingshausen, Mal Meninga (c), Mark McGaw, Michael Hancock; Laurie Daley, Allan Langer; Bob Lindner, Paul Sironen, John Cartwright, Martin Bella, Kerrod Walters, Steve Roach. Res: Chris Johns, Glenn Lazarus, Brad Mackay, Greg Alexander.
SAINTS: Gary Connolly; Alan Hunte, Tea Ropati, Phil Veivers, Les Quirk; Jonathan Griffiths, Shane Cooper (c); John Harrison, Bernard Dwyer, Paul Forber, Kevin Ward, Paul Groves, Jon Neill. Res: Mark Bailey, George Mann, Ian Connor, Roy Haggerty.
AUSTRALIA 34 (Ettingshausen 3 Meninga 2 Walters Roach Hancock tries Meninga goal) beat ST HELENS 4 (Quirk try). Referee:

[@Prodigy_Fan]

I was there as a then 14 yr old St Helens fan. It was our 100 yr celebration as a club that day with loads of Saints legends on the pitch before the game of which we took a beating. But it was brilliant to see the great Mal Meninga playing at Knowsley Road again. He was playing for Saints when I was took to my first game back in 1984 and such a shame he never managed a second spell in the red V.

[@jonglewongle3438]

I believe that all the 1990 tour matches were televised in full in Australia. I don't know that they were live rather than delayed telecast. But its an Australian television crew covering this. It was like 'who gives a stuff ' with it but you'd stay with it on the telly for want of something else passable being on at the same time.. I remember one non-Test tour match whereby Meninga crossed paths with a former Canberra team-mate, Lance O'Sullivan, on the opposing side.

[@holdthephoneblocker]

I re-call watching matches from this tour as a 7 year old. If memory serves me correctly, this match vs St Helens was televised on Channel 10 on a Monday evening. I remember being so pumped to watch this match.

[@jonglewongle3438]

@@holdthephoneblocker I'd have been pumped to watch it years earlier, and followed everything to do with it. But in my case it was that you're over it at some point. It was just starting to happen with me in my latter school years. At 7 I was clueless as to anything going on in the world, but it was adolescence when it was follow the cricket intensely in summer and the footy in the winter.. But outcomes with the footy were enough to my dislike that it became ' whatever '. And it was not as if I never realized that something it not going to do exactly what you would have it do, but it got entirely beyond a joke with me. But I did perchance watch some of those 1990 tour matches.

[@richardfinlayson1524]

Knowsley Rd is the only UK Rugby league ground I have been too, great old ground, my grandfather lived in Cambridge road, he was a lifelong Saints supporter. Went to a game in 79 /80 that St Helens won by 50 points or something, great atmosphere, went to Anfield on same trip,I was 15. Fantastic

[@Holden308]

The ground the Kangaroos are shown training at in the opening was Station Road in Swinton.

[@simonskidmore9461]

21:17 Future Saints Coach Shaun McCrae in the video one of the Aussie coaches at the time.

[@garyquelch888]

1990 the year English rugby league started to become more like park football Steve Folks stated on the 78 tour that the standard of play was a lot poorer than in 74 by 1996 it was all over

[@Baskerville22]

Mal Meninga - great player but possibly one of the most unreliable Kangaroo goal kickers ever

[@jonglewongle3438]

An imbecile of a goal-kicker, but in the same vein as Langlands and Cronin. It was a case of all them getting more go-s at it than anyone else. They could miss goals all day but if things still panned they were the highlighted champion geniuses. And were it misses, reasonable gets, which might have mattered then it was totally forgotten. The favoritism of it.