Amid the drama of Richard Agar stepping down as head coach, it has perhaps been easy to forget that there is a fairly monumental game taking place at Headingley this weekend. Leeds Rhinos versus Castleford Tigers, in the sixth round of the Challenge Cup, is a fixture to increase the heartbeat.
True, this is not a vintage Leeds side. Nor is this the same Tigers outfit who swept all before them in 2017, finishing top for the first time in their history before reaching a maiden Grand Final.
But whenever these fierce old rivals two meet it is always a grudge match guaranteed to stir the blood. There is a hint of genuine bitterness between the two sets of supporters which dates back years, decades in fact, due to the proximity of the clubs.
Leeds have always been seen as the big-city aristocrats and Castleford the small-town underdogs from the former mining stronghold. In Castleford, the rugby league team is a religion and Wheldon Road the place of worship.
It is said that the mood in the town on a Monday morning is dictated by the Tigers’ result at the weekend. There have been numerous classic encounters between the West Yorkshire rivals in recent years. Cas have stuffed Leeds a few times, and the Rhinos returned the favour at Wheldon Road last season.
There was a certain romance when they clashed at Wembley in the 2014 Challenge Cup final. Daryl Powell’s Tigers lost to a Rhinos side at their peak and then they met at Old Trafford in 2017 Grand Final. In the March of that year, Brian McDermott saw his Leeds side battered 66-10 in a Super League game at Wheldon Road. Remarkably, the uncompromising McDermott claimed his men could go on and win that year’s Grand Final, which they famously did.
That it came in the final game of Rob Burrow and Danny McGuire’s glorious Leeds careers merely added to an emotionally fraught encounter.
Although Castleford reached the Challenge Cup final again last season, they lost to St Helens and their start to the current campaign under Lee Radford has left much to be desired. The same can be said for Leeds of course, hence why Agar had the decency and humility to walk away from what he called “the best job and the best club in the game”.
Which brings us to this weekend’s clash where, in front of a televised BBC audience, there will be no hiding place for either team. The Challenge Cup offers the best chance of silverware for both sides this season – and some might say their only chance.
Significantly for Leeds, the game is also an opportunity for Jamie Jones-Buchanan and Sean Long to prove their coaching acumen. While Agar fell on his sword earlier this week after one win from six games, the men who have been assisting him stayed. Jones-Buchanan, a Headingley legend who served the club with distinction for 20 years as a player, has been made interim head coach.
Long, the brilliant former St Helens and Great Britain scrum-half, will continue in his role as assistant. Nobody seems to know what the future holds in terms of a permanent appointment, with names such as Ryan Carr, Tony Smith and Danny McGuire being bandied about. Could this weekend’s Challenge Cup tie even be the start of Jones-Buchanan’s audition to make the job his own? Might Long fancy himself for the top job?
I interviewed him in November 2020 after he had quit as Harlequins following a 15-month stint as attack coach. Significantly, Long said in print: “Rich has said he wants to groom me into becoming a head coach in the next couple of years. And I know he will. I’ve not been this excited for a long time.”
With his close friend Agar now gone, could Long step up to be his successor? And yet it is Jones-Buchanan, a relative rookie in coaching terms, who has been made interim boss.
Not Long, despite his wealth of experience coaching at Salford, St Helens and at the highest level of rugby union with Quins before moving to Headingley in late 2020. Long is hungry and ambitious and might well make it known to Gary Hetherington that he would like to be considered as Agar's successor.
For now, though, this is a chance for Jones-Buchanan and Long, ably assisted by the highly-rated Rich Hunwicks, to buy Hetherington some time. By getting a few wins on the board and getting Leeds’ season up and running.
Victory over Castleford, to book a place in the Challenge Cup quarter-finals, would be a good place to start. Defeat, on the other hand, is unthinkable and really would set the alarm bells ringing at one of the biggest and best-supported clubs in the British game.
