Rugby League: Missionary zeal needed to counter crisis of faith: Ken Jones on the standing of the professional code

AMONG the issues at stake when Great Britain and Australia stepped out through billowing smoke clouds at Wembley and to the appropriate strains of 'Jerusalem', the world championship of rugby league ranked second.

As a predominance of northern accents in the wall-to-wall crush of a hotel bar near the famous old stadium underscored, the first question was whether rugby league could spread the gospel to millions watching on television.

Here, with a great prize at stake, was the grand opportunity. Here a dilemma for Malcolm Reilly, Britain's coach. If relatively secure in its traditional heartland, and in spite of the interest aroused annually by the Challenge Cup Final, the 13-a-side game continues to encounter scepticism elsewhere. Can it survive the inexorable advance of professionalism in rugby union?

Thus, for all their indomitable spirit, the relentless ferocity of their tackling and stirring thrusts at Australia's line late in the game, was the truth simply that Great Britain did not have enough missionary zeal? In similar circumstances plenty of coaches in any team game you care to mention, have settled for the conservative approach Reilly adopted. 'You do the best with what you've got, play to your strengths,' he said afterwards, standing in the doorway of an untidy dressing room that was awash with streams from the showers and barely large enough to accomodate the large men who had done battle. 'The object now is to improve our all-round skills.'

The pattern was set early; six one-man drives followed by a kick, no hint of a gamble or very much in the way of imagination; the game kept so tight that it soon began to look, disappointingly, as though kickers would decide it; the boots of Deryck Fox and Mal Meninga.

Open play was at a premium, the scoreboard showing 6-4 to Great Britain with only 13 minutes left. Then came the mistake that was to prove so costly and the rare inspiration Australia found to take the trophy. Giving Alan Hunte, a wing, the responsibility of running the ball out of defence risked more than was necessary. The Australians nailed him, and from there the Walters brothers initiated a move that sent Renouf over for the only try. Meninga's unerring toe poke from a narrow angle completed Britain's despair.

There was no way back. Only the future to consider. Reilly and Maurice Lindsay, the England manager, a man of considerable vision who now takes up his appointment as chief executive of the Rugby League, addressed it squarely. 'There is a wealth of talent coming through, and we are particuarly pleased with the progress being made by very young players,' he said.

What he had to concede is that while rugby league enjoys a prime position in the spectrum of Australian sport it has to jostle for space in this country, a poor relation of football, and has gained no ground from rugby union beyond Lancashire and Yorkshire. 'In Australia when a 12-year-old boy turns on the television he is inspired to play rugby league and gets a lesson on the skills of the game,' Lindsay added.

This is not true of Queensland where a boy's bedroom walls are more likely to be adorned with pictures of David Campese and Lynagh, but Lindsay had got to the heart of the matter.

Inevitably, anyone who watched the prideful struggle at Wembley had to wonder. There was much to admire in the unremitting hardness, the intense commitment and courage. But will we come to remember it as a crisis of faith?