Rugby League Hall of Fame inductees announced

Four of Rugby League’s greatest ever players, Lewis Jones, Martin Offiah MBE, Garry Schofield OBE and Mick Sullivan will be inducted into the Rugby League Hall of Fame on Friday night.

Billy Boston MBE and Neil Fox MBE will welcome the quartet into the Hall of Fame at a World Cup Celebration Dinner at Huddersfield.

Lewis Jones

Jones was an attacking genius who had crowds flocking to see him.

He was first capped by Wales at 18, he won 10 caps in rugby union and was a replacement on the 1950 British Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand whilst still a teenager.

He then made the move from Llanelli to Leeds as a record £6,000 signing in 1952 and would go on to enjoy a British playing career of more than 400 games.

Jones stands behind only fellow Hall of Fame members Jim Sullivan and Gus Risman on the game’s all-time points chart with 3,445.

Mick Sullivan

Great Britain legend Sullivan set an appearance record of 46 tests between 1954 and 1963, scored an unsurpassed 41 tries and played a record 36 consecutive tests over a seven-year period following his debut at centre in the World Cup defeat of Australia at Lyon.

He was involved in record-breaking transfers when joining Wigan for £9,500 in 1957 and moving on to St Helens for £11,000 in 1961.

Sullivan then went on to play in Australia having scored 342 career tries, topping the game’s chart once (with 50) in 1957-58. That try tally included 120 in a representative career of 102 games for Yorkshire, England and Great Britain.

Garry Schofield

A Lions tourist on four occasions, Schofield equalled Mick Sullivan’s 46-cap Great Britain record when appearing in his sixth Ashes series.

He captained his country on 13 occasions, including the 1992 World Cup Final against Australia at Wembley, throughout the 1992 Ashes series in Australia and when Great Britain produced their finest performances of modern times when white-washing New Zealand, 3-0, in 1993.

Schofield scored 328 touchdowns in a British career of almost 500 games and that was complemented by four close-season stints in Australia, with Balmain in 1985, 1986 and 1987 and with Western Suburbs in 1989.

Martin Offiah

Offiah became the highest try-scoring Englishman of all-time in a career with Widnes, Wigan, London Broncos, Salford, Eastern Suburbs and St George.

The lightning-quick winger amassed 501 career touchdowns, including 20 in stints with the Roosters and Dragons between 1989 and 1993. He headed the British try-scoring charts on a record six occasions between 1987-88 and 1995-96, surpassing the five-time feats of Australian wing legends Brian Bevan and Eric Harris.

Offiah became the game’s costliest player when moving from Widnes to Wigan for £440,000 in January 1992 and he also  joined the exclusive band of players to win the Lance Todd Trophy twice when scoring his iconic length-of-the-field try in the Cherry and White’s 1994 Cup Final defeat of Leeds.

The total number of legends in the Rugby League Hall of Fame is now 21 and the latest four are the first to be inducted since 2005.

The 21 members of the Hall of Fame are Eric Ashton MBE, Billy Batten, Brian Bevan, Billy Boston MBE, Douglas Clarke MM, Neil Fox MBE, Ellery Hanley, MBE. Martin Hodgson, Lewis Jones, Vince Karalius, Roger Millward MBE, Alex Murphy OBE, Martin Offiah MBE, Jonty Parkin, Gus Risman, Albert Rosenfeld, Garry Schofield, Mick Sullivan, Jim Sullivan, Tom Van Vollenhoven, Harold Wagstaff.