Odd couple back on an even keel

THE postponement of Warrington's fourth round Silk Cut Challenge Cup tie against Oldham means we will have to wait until the fixture is played on Wednesday for the competitive debut of one of the game's more improbable partnerships - Alex Murphy and John Dorahy.

A few weeks ago, the common view would have been that the two of them were perilously close to being unemployable separately, let alone together.

So unlikely a pairing did they seem that when the badly kept secret first leaked out, most people were inclined to dismiss it as a bizarre fantasy. But that is rugby league: think of something too weird to be true and the chances are that it is.

Such was the fall-out from Dorahy's turbulent season in charge at Wigan in 1994-95 - and, to a lesser extent, at Halifax previously - that his chances of finding another British club seemed slim.

But if his mistake there was indulging in what Martin Offiah last week described as "fixing what ain't broke", then the situation is different at Warrington. The rate at which things have fallen apart there since Christmas has convinced the board that drastic repairs are needed.

That feeling that things were going badly awry has also prompted the decision to bring back Murphy, 18 years after he left the club to coach Salford, as rugby football executive.

It is a symbolic appointment immensely popular with the club's older supporters, who associate him with success and who warmto his brash, barnstorming approach. Murphy is also adored by journalists, who know they can phone him at 7am for his views on the Albanian potato harvest and get quotable quotes.

The game's best-loved old rogue couldn't keep his face straight for long when the new partnership was unveiled on Monday. "I won't have any say in team selection," he solemnly assured us, but, before there was time for eyebrows to be fully raised, he added: "If you believe that, you'll believe anything."

Dorahy laughed uneasily, as well he might. It is going to be an interesting relationship. What Murphy brings to it is unrivalled experience and unquenchable enthusiasm. His lack of interest in modern coaching techniques need not be a handicap, if he leaves that to Dorahy.

"John Dorahy will come back to haunt Wigan," he predicted on Monday. What is more difficult to predict is whether Warrington will come to be haunted by the day they put this odd couple in command.