Hills became world para tennis champion earlier this year<\/a> and Offiah lifted the World Club title with Widnes and Wigan. His 501 senior tries is bettered only by Billy Boston and Brian Bevan, but he didn\u2019t win the World Cup or the Ashes, something that leaves him with that nagging headache.<\/p>\nHaving made an extraordinary impact on the 13-man code after moving to Widnes in 1987, Offiah played in four Ashes campaigns and lost them all 2-1. He faced Australia four times at Wembley, all tight games decided by fewer than nine points, winning two Ashes Tests and losing two World Cup finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve won against Australia, gone to Sydney and won the World Sevens, beaten Brisbane Broncos in their own back yard, won a Test in Brisbane, in Sydney, won at Wembley in 1994 after Shaun [Edwards] was sent off. We can beat Australia with 12 men but not with 13! But I still haven\u2019t got that Ashes win. I came close on a few occasions. That\u2019s the thing that still rankles me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is what it is, but if Mal [Meninga] hadn\u2019t fallen on my knee in the second Test at Old Trafford in 1990, I believe we would have won the Ashes and it\u2019s a totally different landscape. That\u2019s the one that got away. We were 90 seconds away. I was on the treatment table. Carl Gibson went into the left wing position and there\u2019s a video of him getting barged out of the way by Mal, which would have been a penalty \u200bin this \u200bcurrent day. There\u2019s no way that Ricky Stuart\u2019s getting all the way down my left wing if I\u2019m on that pitch. But, you know, you\u2019ve got to win. I\u2019m gonna take it to the grave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin Offiah races away from Steve Menzies during the World Cup final between England and Australia at Wembley in 1995. Photograph: Anton Want\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
There is a statue of Offiah outside Wembley, a stadium he knows well. \u201cPeople remember all my Challenge Cup finals at Wembley with Wigan, but the first time I played there was the first Ashes Test in 1990 when we won back-to-back Ashes Tests,\u201d says the 59-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a mystique about Wembley. A lot of Australians have grown up getting up early to watch games at Wembley but there hasn\u2019t been an Ashes game at Wembley for well over 20 years so this will definitely be a moment in time. When an English team plays against Australia in an Ashes or a World Cup final \u2013 that is the ultimate test. Hopefully England will be up to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hill believes that England can harness their home advantage. \u201cThere will be a whole bunch of Australian players who haven\u2019t played against England, who haven\u2019t played at Wembley and might not have even played for Australia before,\u201d he says. \u201cMost of our players have never been there. England have got to take advantage of that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m betraying my nation here, but there\u2019s a real feeling in England \u2013 an aura \u2013 about the Australians and the NRL. They need to cut through that and just go: \u2018They\u2019re just a bunch of footy players. Have they trained any harder than us? No. Have they prepared any better than us? No. So let\u2019s not treat them as if they are gods.\u2019 Go out there to try and beat them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Offiah agrees England must shred their inferiority complex. \u201cBack in my day, you knew every two years we were playing against Australia in an Ashes series. But hardly anyone\u2019s ever played against Australia. The difference now is a lot more English players have had success against Australian clubs, but not playing against Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a host of players, George Williams and Jack Welsby, for starters, who\u2019ve starred in the NRL or won World Club Challenges in Australia. Australia like to write their own narrative; they gloss over that Penrith Panthers have lost three World Club Challenges. The England squad have all got experience in the NRL or against New Zealand, Samoa and Tonga, who are all laden with NRL players. There\u2019s more than enough talent there to rewrite history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given his role with the Rugby Football League, Hills is having to ride two horses. \u201cAs an Australian I hate saying this but, as president of the RFL, clearly you want England to go one up in the series. Bearing in mind how many Australians are in London, we\u2019ll almost have a home ground advantage so every English fan needs to get down there to drown out the Australians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin Offiah and Adam Hills pose with England players George Williams and Jack Welsby. Photograph: Allan McKenzie\/SWpix.com<\/p>\n
As an avid South Sydney Rabbitohs supporter, Hills has plenty of memories of Offiah touching down for Eastern Suburbs, St George Dragons, England and Great Britain. \u201cI\u2019m finding it really hard to be friendly to him,\u201d he says. \u201cI was raised to not like you scoring a try. It\u2019s in my DNA. But I\u2019m genuinely a little bit starstruck as well. Martin was one of the huge imports into Australia, with loads of publicity around him, one of the superstars of the game. And really flashy. You know when you meet someone from the opposition team and it turns out they\u2019re actually a really nice guy? It\u2019s exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Offiah has been retired for as long as he played in an extraordinarily successful and prolonged career. His Super League finale for Salford was in 2001 before a few months back in union with Wasps. And yet, like Hills, he remains one of the sport\u2019s most famous faces.<\/p>\n
British rugby league desperately needs high-profile backers and cut-through events, which makes it baffling that the RFL and ARLC somehow sidelined it for two decades until this streamlined Test-only tour. Despite Australia winning every series since 1973, they only lead the head-to-head 59-54 and series wins at 20-19.<\/p>\n
\u201cOpportunities like this don\u2019t come around very often, you\u2019ve just got to grasp it,\u201d says Offiah wistfully. \u201cLife itself is an opportunity\u200b: to live on this planet and do what you want to do. It\u2019s just a microcosm of life. I\u2019ve had my opportunity and now it\u2019s theirs. I\u2019d love them to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Follow No Helmets Required on Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At first glance Martin Offiah and Adam Hills make for an odd couple. The east Londoner who has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-217210","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}