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The Principality has seen hundreds of players 'Go
North'. Jim Sullivan was one of these
many and in the words of that doyen of the rugby league press, Eddie
Waring, he was the "the greatest Welshman ever to be signed". In the
record books of Rugby League, he
certainly ranks as the greatest goal kicker ever to
have donned a Rugby League shirt. His superlative goal kicking was the feature
of his game for which he is most famous. 'Sully' as he was affectionately
known was a true professional as a player and this
trait shone through in his post-playing days as an inspirational coach.
Jim Sullivan was born in Cardiff on
2 December 1903 and first played Rugby Union for Cardiff as their first choice full-back at the age sixteen.
Shortly after his seventeenth birthday he turned out for the Barbarians. His
prodigious talents did not go unnoticed and he soon had several Rugby League
teams extending offers. He chose Wigan after agreeing a record
equalling £750 signing fee.
He made his debut for Wigan on 27
August 1921 against Widnes, helping his new club to win 22-3 by scoring five goals. Between then and his final game for the club in
1946 he scored and won trophies at
a rate which can be best appreciated by the statistics (which vary slightly
according to what is deemed a first
class match). He played 774
matches for
Wigan
over a twenty-five year period, scoring 4883
points (made up of 83 tries and
2317 goals). The next highest goal and points scorer for the club is Colin Tyrer at 813 and 1890 respectively. For
sixteen
consecutive seasons, from his first until the outbreak of the Second World War
he kicked over 100 goals a season, four times scoring over 300 points. For each
of these
seasons he was Rugby League's top goal-scorer, and for thirteen of them top
point-scorer. Many of these
achievements broke his own
records. One record which still
stands is his mark of 22 goals in one match - against Flimby and
Fothergill in the first round of the 1924-25 Challenge Cup. With
Wigan he won the League Championship Final four times
(1922, 1926, 1934, and 1944), the Challenge Cup twice (1924 and
1929), and the Lancashire Cup three times (1922, 1928, 1938). The second
Challenge Cup victory was in the
first final to be played at Wembley, when, needless to say, Sullivan, the
captain, scored the first points in that historic venue. Sullivan's
international career was
another one of record-breaking achievement. He played sixty matches for Great
Britain, Wales, England, Other Nationalities, and
the British Empire XIII, twenty-five of which were tests. He played a
key role in five consecutive Ashes winning test series from 1924 (for four of which he was captain for some or all of the tests). He was
also selected for the 1936 tour to Australia
but declined because his
wife was expecting. In all his international games he
scored 329 points. When the game of Rugby League was being
established in
France
, he played a major role in organising and encouraging
matches along with his great pal Jean Galia. From a successful player to
becoming winning coach, Sullivan coached Wigan at the end of his career and then
went on to glory with St Helen's. A club which he coached to victories in the
Lancashire Cup (1954), League Championship (1953 & 1959) and their first
ever Challenge Cup Final success in 1956. No history of Rugby League would be
complete without mention of this legendary figure.
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