Meninga makes merry on glimpses of past glories

A lone bugler played the theme from One Foot in the Grave but Mal Meninga showed he still has enough life left in him to haunt British opposition in the first Legends of League match at Widnes last night.

A lone bugler played the theme from One Foot in the Grave but Mal Meninga showed he still has enough life left in him to haunt British opposition in the first Legends of League match at Widnes last night.

Meninga, so often Britain's nemesis during his playing career proper, scored two tries and set up another in the second half – or, strictly speaking, the last two quarters – to deny the British veterans victory after they appeared to be well in control. Everyone still left happy when John Bowles, one of the local amateurs employed as substitutes and not really a Legend outside the confines of Simms Cross, picked up the pieces from Garry Schofield's break and Lee Crooks, not for the first time, landed an equalising goal with the final kick.

Some sports – golf and tennis among them – lend themselves perfectly to a veterans format and there are plenty of handsome livings still being made to prove it. You can get away with it in rugby union for a long, long time, but league is more problematic, because there is only one way to play it and that is pretty much flat out. So bringing together teams of players, many of whom were at their peak in the early Eighties, was always a doubtful proposition.

The concept got a mighty boost in Australia this year when New South Wales played Queensland and Meninga traded punches with his old Test team-mate, Mark McGaw, but there was little of that sort of passion last night.

Some in a crowd Widnes would have been happy enough with in last year's Northern Ford Premiership had the obvious qualms. "My last memory of Brett Kenny is in the 1985 cup final," said one young man just old enough to recall his imperious display that day. "I'd rather remember him like that than as some old guy trundling around."

Once you got used to the idea that Eric Grothe is bald and that Steve Ella no longer justifies his nickname of the Zip-Zip Man, an Australian back-line plucked virtually intact from the unbeaten 1982 tour was recognisable enough.

Great Britain looked to have the edge in youth and mobility as Darren Wright and Steve Hampson combined for Schofield to snap up the first try and Paul Loughlin, who was still playing the NFP less than a year ago, set up Hampson for the second.

Cliff Lyons, who carried on deep into his thirties, still looked sprightly setting up Mark Sergeant, but Loughlin put Great Britain in command in the second quarter, trading passes with Bob Eccles for one try and laying on another for Tony Marchant.

Australia came back, with Kenny reviving old memories with a tumbling pass for Meninga to score and Lyons followed his own kick to reduce the margin to six points.

The still admirable handling skills of Lyons and Meninga levelled the scores before Meninga seemed to have won it five minutes from time by gifting a try to Bob Lindner. For once, big Mal did not quite have the final word.

Great Britain: Hampson; Drummond, Loughlin, Wright, Marchant; Schofield, Gregory; Crooks, D Hulme, Fairbank, Eccles, Heron, P Hulme.

Australia: Ella; Grothe, Meninga, Kenny, Boustead; Lyons, Raper; Sargent, Walters, Tunks, Sironen, Lindner, Cartwright.

Referee: F Lindop.