Sean Long’s storied rugby league journey took another emphatic twist on Monday as he kicked off his competitive coaching career by inspiring Featherstone to a 50-0 wipe-out of newly-promoted Keighley in the Betfred Championship.
Barely hovering above freezing, Cougar Park may have seemed a world away from the Super League summers in which Long starred as a player, driving St Helens to four titles and five Challenge Cups, and reining in his off-field antics long enough to snare a prestigious Man of Steel Award.
Since arriving at Featherstone in his first head coaching role last year, Long has worked to energise a squad left stunned by last year’s shock play-off semi-final loss to Batley, sweeping them to pre-season victories over Hull KR and Castleford.
🟦 BLUE WALL 🟦 pic.twitter.com/6vx1mBx3Ri
— Featherstone Rovers (@FevRoversRLFC) February 6, 2023
And the Rovers resurgence continued under his charge as they ran in nine tries to flap aside the challenge of a team who had surged to promotion with a 100 per cent record last season, and added the likes of another former Man of Steel, Luke Gale, to their spine.
“We came here today and they probably thought they were going to beat us, because they’re in a winning habit,” Long told the PA news agency. “It was great for us to come and knock it out of them within 25 minutes, and it wasn’t anything flashy it was just grit and determination.”
Five tries in the first half-hour effectively ended what had threatened to be a tricky opening assignment, with two from Rovers’ new half-back Riley Dean, on a season-long loan from Warrington, easing them to a 28-point advantage at the interval.
The relentless pressure continued after the break, with Gareth Gale also completing a double to put the seal on a success that bodes well in their quest to bring an end to almost half a decade of promotion heartbreak, not that Long will be getting carried away.
“They are really buying into the culture and the DNA of the club, and where we want to go, because there are a lot of tougher tests to come down the road,” added Long.
“But it didn’t feel any different for me out there. I was having a great time. Game day is always the best day and nothing changes when you’re on the other side of the line.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here