Leeds Rhinos 39–32 Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs — 2005 World Club Challenge
Elland Road, Leeds · Attendance: 37,028 (one source gives 37,208 — the more consistently repeated figure is used here)
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
2005 World Club Challenge: Leeds Rhinos 39–32 Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, at Elland Road, Leeds.
Sourcing caveat: Attendance has two slightly different published figures (37,028 vs 37,208). Try-scoring minutes not found. Canterbury's exact goal-kicking conversion count for El Masri is uncertain across sources.
Scorers
| Leeds Rhinos | Tries: Walker; Calderwood; Poching; Burrow; McGuire; Mathers; Jones-Buchanan Goals: Sinfield (5/7 conversions) Drop goals: Sinfield 78' |
| Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs | Tries: El Masri (2); Patten; Lolesi (2); Grimaldi Goals: El Masri (goals — exact tally not confirmed) |
Teams
| Leeds Rhinos | Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Richie Mathers | Fullback | Luke Patten | 1 |
| 2 | Mark Calderwood | Wing | Hazem El Masri | 2 |
| 3 | Chev Walker | Centre | Jamaal Lolesi | 3 |
| 4 | Keith Senior | Centre | Willie Tonga | 4 |
| 5 | Marcus Bai | Wing | Trent Cutler | 5 |
| 13 | Kevin Sinfield | Five-eighth (c) | Braith Anasta | 6 |
| 6 | Danny McGuire | Halfback | Corey Hughes | 7 |
| 8 | Ryan Bailey | Front row | Chris Armit | 8 |
| 14 | Andrew Dunemann | Hooker | Adam Perry | 9 |
| 15 | Danny Ward | Front row | Roy Asotasi | 10 |
| 18 | Jamie Jones-Buchanan | Second row | Reni Maitua | 11 |
| 12 | Chris McKenna | Second row | Sonny Bill Williams | 12 |
| 20 | Gareth Ellis | Lock | Tony Grimaldi | 13 |
| Substitutes | ||||
| 7 | Rob Burrow | Ben Czislowski | 15 | |
| 11 | Ali Lauitiiti | Nate Myles | 16 | |
| 10 | Barrie McDermott | Trevor Thurling | UNCONFIRMED | |
| 16 | Willie Poching | Brett Oliver | 14 | |
| Tony Smith | Coach | Steve Folkes | ||
Match officials
| Referee | Sean Hampstead (Australia) |
| Player of the match | Danny McGuire (Leeds) |
Match report
Widely remembered as the highest-scoring World Club Challenge in the fixture's history, this was a genuine classic. Leeds, fresh off a Super League Grand Final win and with a long pre-season build-up, blitzed the jet-lagged Bulldogs to a 26-6 half-time lead, with Chev Walker scoring inside the first five minutes and further tries flowing from Mark Calderwood, Rob Burrow and others. Canterbury, missing several first-choice players left in Australia post-surgery, mounted a stunning fightback, scoring four tries in a frantic 15-minute spell led by Hazem El Masri and Jamaal Lolesi (two each) to close the gap to just a converted try. Leeds held on, with Kevin Sinfield's 78th-minute drop goal putting the result beyond reach. Danny McGuire's all-round display earned him the player-of-the-match award in a game still cited as one of the great World Club Challenges.This match belonged to the modern, annual World Club Challenge era launched in 2000, pitting that season's NRL Premiers directly against the same season's Super League Grand Final winners in a single fixture. 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 Leeds Rhinos' 1st World Club Challenge title and the 13th staging of the fixture since its unofficial 1976 debut.