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.

However, Mark Aston will not be taking charge of the Sheffield team on Sunday because he is currently suspended while there is an on-going investigation by the RFL into matters which, we believe, are related to concussion protocols. In the meantime, Sheffield’s three assistant coaches, Simon Brown, Keith Senior and Paul Broadbent are in the roles of caretaker coaches.

All three are former Sheffield players and Keith Senior and Paul Broadbent played in Sheffield’s famous defeat of Wigan in the 1998 Challenge Cup Final.

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 in 2024.

So far in 2024 they haven’t had any players come in on loan, but Izaak Farrell was out on loan at Keighley earlier in the year, Lewis Peachey is currently out 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.

Mark Campbell (second row) has recently stepped down as the Featherstone Rovers chairman. He made his professional début at the age of 19 with Sheffield Eagles in 1984, their inaugural season, and played 19 games for them, including the Eagles very first match, a 29-10 win against Rochdale Hornets on September 2nd. He joined Fev in 1985 and over the course of 3 seasons made 20 appearances. His final club was Mansfield Marksman where he played on loan from Rovers in the 1998-99 season.

 

Richard Newlove (centre) started with a single appearance for Fev in the 1995-96 ‘Centenary’ season as a 17-year-old. In the following year (the beginning of the summer era) he again played just one match. He then played 5 games in each of the 1997 and 1998 seasons before becoming a much more regular member of the team for the following 2 years. He took 2001 out from professional rugby but returned to Fev in 2002. In 2003 he made the step up to playing in Super League with Wakefield Trinity but returned to Fev for the 2004 and 2005 seasons. In all he played 112 games for Fev and scored 71 tries.

In 2006 he played for Doncaster and then spent two years (2007 and 2008) with Sheffield Eagles where he made 28 appearances and scored 8 tries.

 

Tony Tonks (prop) made his professional début for Doncaster in 2006 and then moved to Oldham in 2007. Although on the losing side he made quite an impression in the National League Two play-off final against Fev who promptly signed him for the following year after winning promotion back to National League One. He played for Fev for four seasons and made 105 appearances and scored 18 tries. In 2012 he joined Super League side Huddersfield but was unable to establish a regular place in the side and in July he transferred to Halifax. Sheffield Eagles signed him for the 2015 where he played 25 games and scored two tries. He retired after two further seasons playing for Dewsbury Rams.

After the death of Danny Jones, Tony became the chief executive of the charity ‘Heartbeat of Sport’, and campaigned very effectively for all rugby league clubs to have the equipment to deal with heart problems and for full screening of all players for heart issues.