SKY ran a poll of the best win on OZ soil and it came out 60% in Saints favour. There has also been comments from Morley, Kear, Noble, Buderus, Sully saying in their opinion the Saints win was the more impressive for many reasons.
Our Wigoon fans must remember their team had a net value equal or more than the Brisbane Broncos were full time professionals and and almost had a full Great Britain side because all of the money thrown out to create that team. Years down the line the likes of Robinson, Offiah, Edwards, Farrell, Connolly, John-Mather deserted rugby league and went into bed with rugby union and hence did not contribute anything to the league game with the exception of Dennis Betts. Eventually the "Brown Envelope Maverick" of Maurice Lyndsay set the seeds of failure for the club as Superleague surfaced and became rent boys to Wigan Athletic, also they have never dominated Superleague in the way Bradford, Leeds and Saints have done in this salary capped level playing field era.
The Saints win is huge in many ways and not for the club alone, leading up to the game the Saints Club mantra was that they represented Superleague and not as a club entity by itself. They felt the media disrespected our UK competition and was felt by Wello and his players. The Saints net value salary cap spend is only around £2m compared to Penriths £6.5 that is an enormous disparity compared to the Wigoon/Brisbane one, so that was an enormous challenge in itself.
The Wigoon WCC win didn't really benefit rugby league because other clubs couldn't try the spend and bust format. The Saints win is huge, clubs will see the club structure at saints and see the possibility that in a few years others could emulate it, that would benefit Superleague and we might see the likes of Warrington and Hull jumping on that band wagon first to strengthen the UK game.
