In Salford’s last regular Super League game of 2024, the coach Paul Rowley gave debuts to eight reserve players to protect his stars for the playoffs. None of them are likely to be on the field when their season begins at St Helens on Saturday evening. Their services may never be required in the top flight again. But, for one night only, they found themselves up against the world champions, live on national TV.
Dan Spencer-Tonks knows what that “for one night only” role feels like. Rowley did the same thing two years earlier, fielding six debutants against Warrington in the final regular round. Spencer-Tonks came off the bench for his only taste of Super League, earning membership of the one sub club. He has spent the last two seasons in the Championship and League One, his time at the top seemingly gone as rapidly as it arrived.
Spencer-Tonks appeared that night as if from thin air, making his Super League debut at the age of 27, three years after a four-year ban for doping expired. A former England Under-16 union international, he had moved north from Gloucester and attended an open trial for Salford reserves. “I smashed it, signed and played all season,” he says.
“A week before the final Super League game we were told some of us would play. I was very emotional. I was playing high-level union when I got banned and, when you’re 20, a four-year ban – a fifth of your life – feels like forever. It turned my life upside down. Rugby was all I knew. But I didn’t give up, kept fit and was determined to have a shot at the top. I was very proud my hard work had paid off. This was my opportunity.”
Spencer-Tonks played nearly an hour in a 32-14 defeat. “I had a really good game actually,” he says. “Some fans said I was man of the match. With my family and friends there, it was a great day.”
The buildup to a big game can unnerve players plucked from the humdrum circuit of reserve, youth or semi-pro rugby. “It was the drive up to the stadium,” says Spencer-Tonks. “All the roads were shut and there were police everywhere, with the fans walking up. I thought: ‘Oh this is different!’ Once you’re in the dressing room you go into your own headspace and just focus on the game. I relished the moment and wanted to live every bit. When you’ve been waiting that long, what with the ban and Covid, you take it all in.”
Making your Super League debut as a replacement, then not getting another opportunity, is pretty rare. The new League Express RL Yearbook lists the 2,750 men who have played in Super League: of those with just one appearance beside their name, the majority – about 100 – came on as replacements. Most were raw teenagers unaware their window of opportunity would slam shut as soon as they peeked through it.
Rob Worrincy clocked up 350 games in his career but only the first few minutes were in Super League, for Castleford in a heavy defeat at Bradford in 2004. Likewise Ade Adebisi, a student given his chance in London Broncos’ final game of 2004. The only Londoner facing the champions Leeds in front of over 17,000 at Headingley, he became the first man with sickle cell disease to play professional rugby.
“Sickle cell made it really tough for me,” says Adebisi, who is from Lagos. “Don’t forget: I shouldn’t have been playing rugby. But I’d had a good season for the Under-18s and Tony Rea wanted to have a look at me. I had a couple of training sessions, which was not routine as I was still at college. I was a full-back then and I remember the first thing I did was catch a bomb and scan where to run it back. The defensive line were up quickly and they were giants, like Barrie McDermott and Wayne McDonald. I saw Rob Burrow, god rest his soul, and ran at him as I thought that was the safest bet. It wasn’t. He picked me up and dumped me.”
Adebisi’s 15 minutes of fame(-ish) are preserved solely in his mind’s eye. He still has his No 36 shirt but has never seen the footage. It’s not on YouTube and the team didn’t watch the game back as their season had ended. Adebisi went straight to Cornwall on holiday and then signed for Hull FC, where he found himself further down the pecking order behind international wingers.
“I might have got more chances in Super League elsewhere but it was good to get there in the first place and compete,” says Adebisi, whose 10 professional seasons included a prolific try-scoring year with Whitehaven in the Championship. “The only thing stopping me was my fitness, so imagine if I didn’t have sickle cell. It’s a positive memory for me, a massive achievement.”
The briefest Super League careers can be spawned in random weakened teams. Some were picked the week before the Challenge Cup final or the playoffs, like the young software engineering student Leunbou Bardyel Wells who was in the Salford team for their final game against Wigan last season.
Others were given their chance just as clubs went down – or under. Emmerson Whittel played in Bradford’s last Super League game over 10 years ago; David Despin played 20 times for France but only had a cameo for Paris Saint-Germain; and Abderrazak El Khallouki was a standout prop for Villeneuve and France despite his Super League career consisting of several miserable minutes at Odsal where PSG were humbled 69-0 by the champions-elect Bradford in August 1997. Ten days later the Paris club had played its last ever game.
The Wales winger Dalton Grant made a brief appearance for Crusaders before they folded in 2011 but, like most of these blink-and-you-miss-them players, he carved out a successful career away from the Super League spotlight. Greg Worthington did it the other way round: the current Barrow centre had played 200 games over a decade, helping Toronto rise from League One to finally make his Super League debut at Warrington, aged 29. A fortnight later the pandemic struck and financial meltdown ended the Wolfpack adventure.
Others made their debuts because no one else was fit enough to pull on the jersey. Back in 2001, the Wakefield coach John Harbin threw on his son Lionel – a 24-year-old hooker – at Huddersfield. Now a rising coaching talent, Harbin junior’s top-flight debut was his only senior appearance.
That’s also the case for Adam Janowski. At just 18, he played a few minutes for Quins RL in a surprise win over star-studded Leeds at the Stoop in 2008. Now a fitness coach in Surrey, having “played for Harlequins” on his CV will do Janowski no harm. And Kris Tickle became the 1,016th player to pull on a Warrington shirt when he made a brief appearance in 2001.
Even the most fleeting glimpse of glamour should be treasured. Since his single appearance in Super League, Spencer-Tonks has played for Swindon, Whitehaven and Rochdale, while also working part-time with autistic people in care homes. “It’s exciting, no one day is the same,” he says.
Spencer-Tonks may never return to the top flight but, unlike so many players, he made it. “I got my Salford shirt framed for my dad for his 50th birthday as a thank you for everything he’d done for me,” he says. “It’s like my England cap – no one can ever take that away from me.”
