Widnes Vikings 30–18 Canberra Raiders — 1989 World Club Challenge
Old Trafford, Manchester · Attendance: 30,786
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
1989 World Club Challenge: Widnes Vikings 30–18 Canberra Raiders, at Old Trafford, Manchester.
Sourcing caveat: Try-scoring minutes not found. Canberra's goal-kicker(s) and exact scorer list vary slightly between sources (some credit Matthew Wood alongside Chris O'Sullivan on goals) — the more consistently repeated version is used here, with the exact kicking split left unconfirmed.
Scorers
| Widnes Vikings | Tries: Offiah (2); Davies; Eyres; Hulme; Wright Goals: Davies (3 goals) |
| Canberra Raiders | Tries: Meninga; O'Sullivan; Walters Goals: O'Sullivan (goals — exact tally not confirmed) |
Teams
| Widnes Vikings | Canberra Raiders | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alan Tait | Fullback | Gary Belcher | 1 |
| 2 | Andy Currier | Wing | Matthew Wood | 2 |
| 3 | Jonathan Davies | Centre | Mal Meninga (c) | 3 |
| 4 | Darren Wright | Centre | Laurie Daley | 4 |
| 5 | Martin Offiah | Wing | John Ferguson | 5 |
| 6 | Tony Myler | Five-eighth | Chris O'Sullivan | 6 |
| 7 | David Hulme | Halfback | Ricky Stuart | 7 |
| 8 | Joe Grima | Front row | Glenn Lazarus | 8 |
| 9 | Phil McKenzie | Hooker | Steve Walters | 9 |
| 10 | Derek Pyke | Front row | Steve Jackson | 10 |
| 11 | Kurt Sorensen (c) | Second row | Dean Lance | 11 |
| 12 | Paul Hulme | Second row | Gary Coyne | 12 |
| 13 | Richie Eyres | Lock | Bradley Clyde | 13 |
| Substitutes | ||||
| 14 | Barry Dowd | Paul Martin | 14 | |
| 15 | Paul Moriarty | Mark Lowry | 15 | |
| Doug Laughton | Coach | Tim Sheens | ||
Match officials
| Referee | Francis Desplas (France) |
| Player of the match | David Hulme (Widnes) |
Match report
Canberra dazzled early with fast, offloading rugby league to lead 12-0, before Widnes hit back through their own trademark handling game — tries to Martin Offiah and David Hulme narrowed the gap before half-time. The turning point came when Laurie Daley was sin-binned for a high shot on Jonathan Davies as he scored, and Widnes used the extra man to pull clear, adding further tries before Steve Walters grabbed a late Canberra consolation. Offiah's double showcased the blistering pace that would define his early career, while Davies' kicking and all-round game were central to the win. The result gave Widnes their first World Club Challenge title and stood as one of the clearer English victories of the era.This match came from the fixture's early, sporadically-staged years, well before it settled into a genuinely annual format. The fixture as a whole began as a single unofficial match in 1976 and was repeated only sporadically through the 1980s and early 1990s: it wasn't played at all in 1988, 1990, 1993, or 1995-96, the last of those gaps caused by the Super League War splitting Australian rugby league into two rival competitions. The 1997 attempt to relaunch it as a 22-club, two-conference "World Club Championship" — five Australasian clubs touring Europe and five European clubs touring Australasia simultaneously — reportedly lost more than $5 million and was shelved for three years. It returned in 2000 as the simple one-off match still used today, missing only during the brief 2015-2017 multi-match "World Club Series" expansion (when the marquee fixture still determined the World Club Challenge title, alongside several other NRL-Super League pairings played the same week) and the 2021-2022 Covid-19 cancellations and the 2025 withdrawal by Penrith Panthers. The result here was Widnes Vikings' 1st World Club Challenge title and the 3rd staging of the fixture since its unofficial 1976 debut.