YEP rugby league writer Peter Smith reflects on the inaugural 745 Game at AMT Headingley.
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00:00The first 7-4-5 game, a new hybrid version of rugby combining elements of league and union, was just finished here at AMT Headingley.
00:11A narrow win for Rob Burrow's side against team Ed Slater. The whole thing was to raise money for motor neurone disease charities.
00:21Both those individuals of course were diagnosed with the terminal illness and Rob Burrow as we all know sadly died in June.
00:29He'd been planning this event with Ed Slater before that and if he's up there looking down now I think he'd be pretty happy with what's happened at Headingley today.
00:39It was a very competitive game actually, surprisingly so, considering the age and physical state of some of the competitors.
00:47The league team brought Graeme Stedman, the Castleford Tigers legend, on towards the end playing at Fulbrook.
00:54According to the time now he's 62 so it was that sort of occasion.
00:58Two tries for Danny Maguire, rolled back the years, the Rhinos legend and new Castleford Tigers coach of course.
01:07Wayne Price, another Castleford player, bagged a couple of tries for the league side and Paul McShane will be playing at York next year, he got one.
01:18But the union side I thought, considering they were effectively playing with the league, they were effectively totally out of their element, I thought they did really well.
01:26They passed the ball around well, they led a couple of times and until Maguire and Price scored late on it looked like they'd win.
01:33They certainly seemed to enjoy themselves, it was played in a really good spirit and there was a bit of biff towards the end.
01:40Barry McDermott supposedly getting in a fight with one of the Ed Slater team and McDermott for the 298th, I think it was, time in his playing career was sent off.
01:52That was about a minute before the end, no penalties in the game, new rules, mainly rugby league as I say, 13 a side would play the balls.
02:02There were rugby union line outs and five points for a try but other than that it was effectively a game of rugby league.
02:09It was an interesting experiment, the word from people involved is that they'd like to see it become an annual event and I wouldn't be surprised if that didn't happen, perhaps being played at Gloucester next year.
02:21But good game, 10,000 people here and I think everyone's enjoyed it.