T'Other Side: Sheffield Eagles

     

Head Coach: Mark Aston

Amazingly, this is Mark Aston’s 24th season as head coach of Sheffield Eagles! He started the re-born club in 2000 and is still the coach, although he stood down and was ‘only’ Chief Executive in 2006, but then he took over the coaching again in 2007. When you add in his playing career he has been at Sheffield ever since 1985 with just one break for a little over a year when he was at Featherstone.

A dynamic scrumhalf as a player he won the Lance Todd Trophy in 1998 when he led Eagles to that amazing win over Wigan at Wembley. He also played five times for Great Britain. Mark Aston was the head coach of the Ireland international team from 2011 to 2018.

Captain: Anthony Thackeray

Now aged 38 and into his 18th season as a first grade player, experienced halfback, Anthony Thackeray, joined Sheffield in 2019 from Fev. His career began with Hull FC in 2007. During that year he had loan spells with York and Castleford, joining Castleford in 2008 and while at Cas he played 6 matches on loan for Fev. In 2009 he moved to Widnes and in 2011 he went again on loan to York. He then spent two years each at Halifax and Dewsbury before signing for Fev in 2016. His main contribution is undoubtedly leading the team around the park, something he has been doing very successfully.

 

Dual Registration and Loans

 

Sheffield have a dual registration agreement with Midlands Hurricanes this year for whom Blake Broadbent, Ryan Johnson and Ryan Miller have all played this season.

So far in 2024 they haven’t had any players come in on loan but Izaak Farrell is on loan at Keighley, Joe Hird at Dewsbury and Lewis Peachey is on loan at Midlands Hurricanes.

 

 

The Fev Connection

 

 

70 players have played for both Fev and Sheffield. We usually like to highlight at least one player from the early days of Fev but that’s not possible this time as Sheffield Eagles only became a professional club in 1984.

Darren Hughes (wing or centre) started his career with Fev at the age of 19 in 1993. And what a start as his début came in a 35-22 win against Wigan. He went on to play a total of 61 games for Fev and scored 28 tries which included scoring 4 tries in a match against Hull KR in March 1997. During the 1995/96 season he played 6 games and scored 3 tries on loan at Sheffield. He left Fev after the 1997 season and played for Batley in 1998 and Hunslet in 2000.

Iva Ropati came to England to play for Fev in the 1989/90 season and quickly became very popular with Fev fans as a stylish centre or winger. After one season at Fev he returned to New Zealand but came back to England for the 1991/92 season to play for Sheffield Eagles and towards the end of the season he moved to Oldham where he stayed for the following season. He came back to Fev for two further seasons (1993/94 and 1994/95). In total, for Rovers, he played 56 games and scored 31 tries. For Sheffield he played 27 games scoring 30 tries. At representative level he played in four test matches for New Zealand and scored two tries.

Tangi Ropati (winger and not a relation of Iva’s) had played in eight test matches for Samoa before he joined Sheffield Eagles in 2009 from Marist Richmond Brothers in New Zealand after they had spotted him playing in the 2008 World Cup. He was at Sheffield for two seasons for whom he made 52 appearances, scored 27 tries and kicked 14 goals. He then spent 2011 at Widnes Vikings and joined Featherstone for the 2012 season making a big impression very quickly. But he only managed to play 16 games for Fev, scoring 16 tries, because of the incident in the Challenge Cup defeat of Cas when an awful tackle from Rangi Chase broke his jaw keeping him out from mid-April until the beginning of August. In his second match back he scored 5 tries in a match against Swinton.