Cummins tipped by Sinfield to elevate Bradford

Ahead of Thursday’s latest meeting between the fierce rivals, the England leader took time out to reveal just how influential Cummins has been both as a playing colleague and later as assistant coach at Headingley.

Of course, the 36-year-old is now in his first season as head coach at Odsal where he has overseen an excellent start to the Super League campaign, pressing Bradford forward after last year’s financial turmoil.

However, despite now working for the ‘other’ side, Cummins remains a legend at Leeds where the winger played his entire 12-year career, scoring 188 tries in 356 games to reach seventh on the club’s all-time try-scoring list.

Along the way he set club records for most consecutive games – a remarkable 182 between 1998 and 2003 – and played in the last Leeds side to win a Challenge Cup final in 1999 before joining the Rhinos’ coaching staff in 2005 and helping them to three Grand Final wins.

Cummins, though, is perhaps most famous for becoming the youngest player to feature in a Challenge Cup final, having been just 17 years and 200 days old when the skinny Dewsbury-born winger scored a memorable try against Wigan in 1994.

It was playing in such high-profile games at such a tender age that formed an obvious connection with Sinfield, who would make his debut at 16 three years later.

“He was great for me when I came into the dressing room as a young lad,” recalled the Leeds stand-off, who has since led the club to six Super League titles and unprecedented success.

“It is great when one of the senior players who’d been there and done it has time and advice for you. I think Franny saw some of the issues young lads have to deal with because he had gone through it, too.

“Being the sort of personality he is and the character he’s got, he was happy to share that.

“If you look at our team now, Danny McGuire, Rob Burrow, Jamie Jones-Buchanan, Ryan Bailey and myself all came through under Franny’s tutelage and through some of his advice.

“I am sure he will be passing that on to some of the younger Bradford lads now.”

There are, indeed, some similarities with this current Bulls crop of tyros with the ones that have gone on to form the bedrock of champions Leeds’s recent domination.

Academy products such as John Bateman, Tom Olbison, Danny Addy, Elliott Whitehead and James Donaldson are flourishing under Cummins’s command and are sure to be in the thick of the action when Bradford take on Leeds at Headingley in front of the television cameras.

He was Mick Potter’s deputy for two years, including that traumatic spell under administration last summer, before being promoted when the experienced Australian returned to the NRL.

Bradford, whose financial problems were first made public in the build-up to this Easter fixture last April, did not have their future safeguarded until Omar Khan took over in September.

Everyone then expected them to struggle in 2013, but Cummins had taken them to third, their highest position in several years, before Saturday’s loss in Perpignan saw them drop back to sixth.

“He was always a rock for us and I thought he was ready to be a head coach when he left here,” continued Sinfield, despite his erstwhile colleague still being only 33 when he departed Headingley at the end of 2010 after working alongside Tony Smith and then Brian McClennan.

“Franny did a couple of years apprenticeship under Mick Potter and for him to have got the job now is brilliant.

“I think the work he is doing, bringing their young lads through, will bring rewards over the coming years.

“I’m delighted for him and still think a whole lot about him. He spent a lot of time with me when I was a young lad coming into the team and I learned a lot off him.”

Sinfield, meanwhile, is pleased to see Bradford, who Leeds played in consecutive Grand Finals in 2004 and 2005, back challenging the elite as he believes it is important for the health of the sport.

The Bulls won three Super League championships during the height of their fame, reaching Old Trafford in five consecutive seasons, but the last success was a victory over Leeds eight years ago.

Although Rhinos have evolved into Super League’s greatest force, games with their West Yorkshire rivals are no longer talked of as the epics they once were.

But Sinfield, 32, said: “Granted it’s not first versus second at the minute but, certainly, Bradford have started well under Franny, with how they are playing and what they are doing.

“They are building and, hopefully, we’ll get to a stage where we are filling stadiums, there’s 20-odd thousand there and it’s like it used to be. But I don’t think it’s far off. Both teams are growing nicely.”

Castleford’s home match against Huddersfield has been rescheduled for Saturday, April 6 (3pm).