Leeds Rugby League Hall of Fame - Rob Burrow

[Music] hello and welcome to the leeds rugby league hall of fame and to welcome this year's inductees i'd like to welcome phil kaplan the chairman of the leeds rhinos heritage group if you were to draw up a profile of someone who was the epitome of what rugby league and life stands for they are encapsulated by the ponte frat pocket rocket who first made an impact with junior's featherston lions the little man constantly taking on and overcoming the bigger odds the courageous underdog we are all predisposed to support forever proving the naysayers and can't possibly do us wrong he represents the best of what we all hope to be few in such a competitive environment transcend club allegiances but has been seen recently in particular his honesty and bravery on and off the field absolutely does from his debut in 2001 and for 16 further seasons he was the talisman of the best that the competition represents no matter the rhino's golden generation success he was such an integral part of the first leeds player to be a twice winner of the harry sunderland trophy including by unanimous margin in 2011 his astonishing speed off the mark terrific support play which saw him reap some superb tries on the end of flowing moves he often instigated and the most sterling of defenders is the archetypal modern scrum half selflessly putting the team before his acknowledged preference of starting in his favoured role the quality humanity and dignity shown in subverting the personal for the ultimate cause spoke volumes about his work ethic ultra determination and sacrifice with eight super league winners rings including that knowledge best ever solo try at old trafford two challenge cup final successes and three world club challenge triumphs and league leader shields he is the most successful number seven in the club's history he also made 20 appearances in total for his country and in 2007 was awarded the george smith medal as the best player in the great britain series against new zealand always family first he has been and continues to be a magnificent ambassador for the club the sport and humanity the 16th inductee is rob burrow heritage number 1326 429 appearances between 2001 and 2017. yeah firstly massive congrats to roberts it's well deserved uh champion you know champion player half back the famous leeds rhinos team you know the most successful rhinos team in history and in super league really and uh so with rob it's just so explosive uh so tough so competitive um pretty pretty demanding on the field really animated really pushed the team around he he used to run up the left edge at the rhinos there and you had players like ali la titi uh keith senior um scotty donald at first and then was ryan hall and used to run that left edge and man they were lethal yeah first time i met him would be probably about under 11s i always played the year above for east leeds i was always playing against bigger lads and remember dropping back to my own age to play for yorkshire under 11s and uh this little whippet running around running around the field with an head guard on them i was i was really small um yeah probably one of the smallest in the team but i remember we had a team four at the end for yorkshire and uh i thought i'd go stand next to this kid because i'm taller than him and it turned out to be rob and you know our friendship friendship blossomed from them pretty much all mirrored each other's careers all the way through um obviously i played for east leeds and rob was over there in casper um we always played representative together and it always felt that we were always always touring together as well we you know australia a few times france and different places south africa and we're always roommates as well so we ended up spending uh spending tons of time together so i'd probably say 11 would be the you know the first time that we started playing together and against each other i've seen that for is it amazing when you think about the journey that you both went on it's amazing to look at that look at that four biggest head guy it looked like one of them astronaut elements on it on his uh on his shoulders didn't it but i i find it amazing to think that mcguire and burrow are a bit like they're a bit like uh beer and kebabs you don't have one without the other deer and to think you can trace it back to that to that first time and and look at a block that had everything going against him he was so small so diminutive so underdeveloped in lots of different ways but when he had a rugby ball in his hand there were nobody to touch him yeah i totally agree and i think we you know one of my favorite well probably my favorite moment in the game is um i bought ourselves lifting the trophy in 2017 and then obviously thinking back to when we first started playing together in uh for yorkshire under 11s it's you know it's a what is it 25 years yeah you know time span and it's really it's crazy the amount of games and time that we we would have spent together and um you know i cherish those those moments that we that we spent on the field together we had a brilliant understanding we always seemed to click and obviously got on really well off the field as well and you know it's really strange how our journey sort of sort of murdered each other all the way through you know him and magsy are obviously the halves and um he's he's you know he was just a good team man just he's close with everyone always thought you know there was a lot of selflessness involved there and for for mine like i think it's one of the most important ingredients in a you know if you want to have a successful side is people giving up their egos and you know putting the team first and rob was you know he was paramount and all that and uh because we you know we we had a team that had you know some real creative players i mean you know kevin sinfield is so creative and danny mcguire brent webb so there was four guys on the field that you know was robbed at that ball play so there's a lot of selflessness involved in all of them you know to to run the team because it was rich it was rich with creativity um you know and so that's uh you know one of the traits of rob you know it's team first attitude back in the 2000s early 2000s it was i came across rob as a player um i think he was playing for england day we were on a tour for australia and just the way that he performed in that game that's all we could speak about really after the match is just um how small he was how strong he was uh how good he was um you know all those superlatives that you'd say about a young up and coming player but there's something special about rob that night and still something special about him today one of the most explosive and dynamic players that i ever played with um you know you don't even take his size into account that was just how he played the game but to do it at that size and to compete the way he did i've never seen uh another player uh do what he does on the freefield i was way bigger than him but he used to do my tackles and you know the runs that's why i like you know when i'm tired i'll start all the time so he's coming and do like little darts with gave us a rest he was just one of those those type of players like um you know uh pick these up you know when when the boys are tired and and just magic his magical way with you know some of the stuff that he could do is unfortunately phenomenal like i could even yeah you know you kind of dream about it but he did it you know he scored tries um big plays a big time you know vital times and that was him and he was just incredible one of the things i think with rob is if if he felt when he had the ball in his hand a lot of people think he made it up as he was going along but if he felt that you were in a better position than him he would give it you and you would have that understanding he nearly always nearly always gave me the ball and i thought when jamie jones buchanan was talking about that try in 2011 at the grand final and he was screaming for the ball rob give me the ball and then rob looked at it weighed it up and then did it and it was a try that i think will always be synonymous with um with rob and his contribution to the club on those great games and those big games particularly but he was always pretty good with me when i first saw him i just looked at him and i thought he was all ears old nose all teeth and uh he was just somebody i i looked at him and thought my word i was are you going to get on this fella but i've i've been trained with him for a period of time you realize daughter that he's his ability to change direction his ability to look at a big scary monster and just think well i can go around them i can go underneath them or just beat them with a little bit of smart a little bit of intellect yeah i think probably a lot of people underestimated rob throughout his throughout his career you know i think you know you probably would have took a look at him and thought you know he's having it today he's he's small he's going to get traffic run at him and but he he was always so brave even yeah i remember him in you know in them early days in probably 11 to 16 picking you know from rollers up and dumping him on the back he never shirts from away from the tough stuff and that's and that's probably why everybody respected him so much he was such a tough player and just about mining his understanding it was sort of almost telepathic but i suppose that was all the time you know we played you know academy academy we'll be together we like say we spent loads of time together on tours and i think partnerships are developed over not just on the ruby field off the field as well you get to understand understand the person and i'd like to think when he sort of carried the ball or was looking to do something i i sort of knew he was going to do it if that makes sense and vice versa so you know he always had a really good understanding that way i just love the difference of rob his ability to support the ball uh always around the ball always yapping always chatting and um and tough you know you can't say much more about robbers you know you talk about all the skill parts of the game but it was his toughness uh you know the one-on-one tackles he had to make because people tried to spot him up at the time but um you know you could never get past rob let's talk about rob burrow the trickster let's talk about burrow and the way that he made my life a misery the way that he made kylie's life a misery when i left he kind of looked after me robbie was we hit my little mate there so he didn't pick on me but uh a few of the big boys he loved getting into kylie littleway he was his number one target the amount of times he stole my underwear he stole my claws when we were in um the gym somewhere we might have been up at david lloyd's just on on the ring road there i can't count he must have had tricks that he's played on you or did he respect your partner we almost had a a pact that was unspoken i wish dad would know honor and there's a bit of a theme there to his to his in there he seems to be front rows i don't know he's a bullet a bit of a bullet but he's off he's going for the bigger guys so it's uh bravery i suppose again um but yeah we always had an unwritten rule that we never um we never sort of played any pranks i used to encourage him a little bit to try him did you i was a little bit pulling the strings a little bit behind the scenes and um like saying guns deal he's underpants we did a few things to to kevin field and johnson on one tour and but yeah me and rob we we always had a bit of a pact and yeah i tell a story a pretty funny one and he's probably the only time he sort of got me but it's only it's only small and rob used to get there first every game he were always the first change and i i went far behind to go for a massage my peg was literally opposite the um opposite the um doors you came into the change rooms so i go for a massage put all my clothes nice and neat on my peg and uh i get back from a massage and i can see my white calvin klein's uh i look and i think what's that and there's a big brown stain down the middle of my white white calvin klein's and i'm like i'm sure they're fresh on i'm sure i had a shower before herself so anyway i scurry over to my peg take them off and put them in my bag before hopefully nobody sees it anyway the lads are rolling about on the floor laughing and i'm like thinking what's going on here anyway turns out rob's got a jaffa the chocolate off a jaffa cake and smudged it in my undies anyway so that was probably the only time that um he did something to me other than that we were probably right now yeah quite team compared to some of the stuff that you had to you had to deal with listen i i was tormented on it on a regular basis whether it was my shoes whether it was my socks there's always something missing out in my bag now as you say i think we respectfully looked at our game day stuff and left that alone because we all needed to be on the money but it was open season weren't it during during the week and training and everything and i always think you you need you need somebody like that within your group he's he always lifted morale you know on a bad performance you lost at the weekend and you need somebody to be to be in that different mindset you know we had we had a few moody guys that hated losing and you know sometimes monday or saturday mornings after a loss can be um you know can be tough places and you always need a character in there that could lighten the mood and rob was definitely that that person throughout our time through courts from films or whatever just the one line is he's probably the best i know what one line is he knows them all from films and the office and partridge and you know somebody that can just lighten that mood is really important in in team dynamics i think when he walked into a room it sort of lit up i think it was a practical joker my my locker was down the other end but you could always hear rob um always laughing giggling taking the mickey out of someone which is always in good fun so he's a relationship with kylie littlewhy i used to love that the big guy and the little guy and the little combination was great to watch and great to listen to cheeky guy you know just always a happy chat always um you know looking for you know someone to prank or you know joke around with he was just one of those guys he's just you know brought um excitement you know he was um always cheered the boys up i guess uh but he had a good heart you know um probably one of those like mighty mouse kind of kind of type dudes you know he's real explosive but got a good heart good sense of humor anyway he got along with him i guess and he was so selfless and i suppose that was you know in 2011 when he when brian mcfirst came in and he got uh put to the bench time for him that i had a couple of conversations with him i reckon you would have done as well contested his loyalty um obviously kev was six and we were all really good friends so it was like there could have been a problem there there could have been like somebody set the baton ball home and um you know make a real issue with him do you ever talk about it yeah um we had that much respect for each other that it happened but we just got on with it i don't know it was really it was weird um and the age you know just again he just did his did what is raw for the team to the best and yeah i'm not saying he did morning we were disappointed he wanted to play and he was upset with with some of the decisions that the coach at the time made but i suppose his big point was i'm going to go out there and prove every weekend that i'm you know that i'm worthy to be you know starting this team that i'm a valuable player within this team and you know obviously what i did in the final and you know what i did throughout the rest of that that time that he probably played you know it didn't change nine or nine he would always turn in games and you're always coming up with special players yeah the 2011 grand final try for rob burrow was it was such an iconic moment for the leeds rhinos what i saw my vision from where i sat or stood watching that was just amazing i still feel like it was yesterday just so yeah just to see him weave and and bump and and away he went it just um ducked his head typical rob burrow run but the ability to to move really quick sideways as much as he moved quickly going forward was you know instrumental in that try and you know in the in the situation of the game as well in a grand final at old trafford uh so many leagues rhinos fans just got so many joy so much joy out of that but to have that view and that vision to see rob pull that try off uh it's it's one of the best best visions of my career it's um and to win on the back of that try was it was amazing it's an iconic moment in the leeds rhino's history yeah if any names getting tossed up uh rob's got to be at the top of the list or somewhere close there and uh yeah no one could be more more deserving you know has been inducted in the hall of fame it's just thoroughly deserved um you know that's his his playing career most successful seven in rhino history uh you know and what he's gone through is you know heartbreaking um but you see he's just you just see rob as he is as a player just you know he he never quits he he's tough um you know he love he always loved that clip from uh al pacino um you know on any given sunday and you know fight for the inch and that's him you know like that's wrong he fights for every inch in every part of his life um you know and uh yeah and that's that's him in a nutshell one of the things he doesn't get credit for um and when i first met him when i first looked at him i used to think i'm gonna have to look after this kid me i'm gonna have to look after him because he's a bit brittle he's a bit fragile he's only knee-eye to a grasshopper i very quickly realized that he was tough he was tough in his mentality he was tough in his approach and he was brave and courageous in the way that he looked at big men and and made fools of him left him chasing shadows i never really thought of him as being the smaller player i mean he just he walked into the side every week he said he was a rhino's number seven and uh and he was fed by the opposition uh you could see that when you know we've got a little bit of momentum in our attacking sets you know the threat of rob running is it's just so scary for the opposition and i had a mate once over in york tell me you know gee when rob runs it's like he's shot out of a cannon he's so quick and uh not only that he's so strong through the hips and strong with it so there were times he'd take the line on and he would go you know go at some gaps and and i would in my mind think that that might be a bit too small this one but boom he'd come out the other side he was fighting robbie he didn't mind a little blow up on the field and he'd never really blow up much with with his teammates um that would probably make more me and johnson that had blown up with each other in jp but rob rob didn't mind a bit of an argument with the opposition and you know you get into a tough game you know then bradford dares the saints you know the rivalries we're saying some wiggin and rob was in there in the mix and never shied away and um you know you speak about his his talents with the ball his ability to beat people he's his footwork his speed but his bravery yes that for me that's that's the top of us even though and you know we we so that that that era that stretched from the the early part of the century the 2001 when when you all started to come through bit before kev all the way up to when you left the club you look at that era there and his the constant within his game is everybody was trying to find a place for him everyone was trying to put him in a in a spot in the defensive line where he wasn't explore exploited but it didn't matter who ran at him he he jumped up and ran the ankles picked him up and drove him into the ground didn't he and he he again he didn't he didn't lose out in them sticks did you use it used to try and hide on on the wing a bit like the after actually you do you try and protect him and you know sometimes me and rob would find ourselves on the same side and with a bit of a competition too could go closer to wing so i'd push him i'd push him in or he pushed me out and it would i think it would who were more tired i had to go a bit closer in but but then like say when anyone sort of came in his alley or came down his channel you know nine times out of ten he made him pay he he picked him up and dumped him on the on the back and i think that's for me you know young halfbacks now he's you probably coach him offense all the time out of a good offense but if your defense isn't strong yeah you know all the things that you want to try and apply offensively you can't do because you lose your confidence if you're not tackling and rob was probably one of the you know one of the best defenders one of the best half-back defenders we've seen you know really strong very rarely missed tackles so tough and you know stayed in the game and really competitive yet flip side off the field just such a gentleman you know he's a credit to his family and how he's raised his mum and dad and his wife lindsay and family the children you know what a fantastic family of the boroughs one of the bonuses of going to the rhinos for me was to whip around to florida to play a trial match i think we played salford so i got to experience um the passion of rob burrow in in the country of the us so very passionate when he went over there loved florida um but he took me to disneyland i jumped in his car he was the leader he was the cat he's the driver of the car and we had a couple of young boys around us but we went to disneyland so a lot of those memories and those experiences um that i remember about my my time over in the usa rolls around rob and got to know his passion for michael j michael jackson as well oh he loves michael jackson if you put if you said anything bad about michael jackson though he'll be we'll be at you man i'll give it to you yeah i'll let you know um yeah i had a lot of fun in that that time around in florida and i know rob bought a place around there macy's villa so i didn't get a chance to go there but for me i know it made a lot of people happy because a lot of people went around there florida we got to go and play over there a couple of times once the south south sydney and um against salford great time um was really awesome over there so just to be in camp together i think we're there close to 10 days and yeah it was uh you know everyone gets on great and got got to play against a sydney team which the players really enjoyed and uh just yeah the same as we i'm you know honored and you know um just to you know be a part of the team but that he played with but also graced the field with him he's a great man um lovely genuine person their bond is is in friendship that's passed you know that's come on and that's been proven by how everyone's you know getting together to help rob um and uh you know led by kim led by kevin and the boys all jumped on board everybody you know we all love rob you know we feel a long way away here down down under and down in new zealand but you know our hearts are with rob and boro family all the way not one to be too emotional at times but um to see that as the visions come through my tv screen um you know a lot of times this year firstly talking about the testimonial match for uh jamie jones and and rob to see him run onto the field that um uh to give anything just to be there and more importantly on the field with him was you know it's just it now still gives me chills so to see that and to see what he's done um post that is amazing and then obviously you've seen what kev did many weeks ago with the seven for seven and the amount of money that was raised so um you talk about special places you still talk about special clubs and special things but they all revolve around people they're the special moments and are all about people and you put so many good people in a team in that golden decade and to see the what's happened this year the amount of support that's been around rob on the back of all those special people in that special club um it's just so proud to be a part of and play a small a really small part in in the rhino's history to be there to sales really to run as player oh my just completely honored and humbled to have uh spent so much time with him and playing alongside him just special guy i've never seen a group of players so close and being humble you know being courteous being kind looking after each other you know rob is a big part of why that culture is like that rob is the first player from the summer era to be inducted into the leeds hall of fame it's my privilege and pleasure to induct you into the lead ruby league hall of fame all my life i've been a rhinos fan all my life i just wanted to play for leaves i'm just proud to have played in this wonderful club for so many years let alone be inducted into the hall of fame of all trophies that we were lucky enough to win this one means the most there is no club in the world that compares to the rhinos a massive thank you to everyone who put faith in me and believe that size doesn't matter this is the ultimate accolade for me it means so much thank you rob welcome into the lead ruby league hall of fame [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Leeds Rhinos

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Length: 26min 54sec (1614 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 30 2020