How Castleford Tigers and Manly star Kevin Ward achieved hero status on both sides of the world

Lee Crooks is talking about Kevin Ward, his former Castleford and Great Britain team-mate.

Anyone who witnessed the formidable prop during his distinguished playing career will be able to picture the scene now.

A giant of a man, with a broad chest – that seemed to dwarf even fellow front-rows like Crooks himself – even bigger thighs, that distinctive moustache, headband and a marauding running style that could cause carnage once it had gathered its steam.

With no action currently on the field due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, it is understandably natural to look back on greats from yesteryear.

Ward, who debuted for Castleford in 1979 after joining from Wakefield club Stanley Rangers, was certainly one of those.

He went on to play more than 300 games for Castleford, including the 1986 Challenge Cup final Wembley win over Hull KR, and is inducted into their Hall of Fame.

Ward also earned 15 caps for the Lions, beating Australia twice in the famous 1988 third Test Ashes win in Sydney and again at Wembley two years later.

His last international appearance was in the 1992 World Cup final against the Kangaroos, too.

However, for all of that gargantuan frame, Crooks conceded initially it took something to get the powerful forward revved up.

“On the field, if you just left Kevin alone to get on with his job, he was all right, a half-ordinary player,” he told The Yorkshire Post.

“But as soon as anybody did rattle him, that was it. The Hulk.

“When you played against him you’d say ‘for Christ’s sake, just let him do what he’s doing and we should have an easy ride here.’

“But if you got stuck into him he just reared up. They were my first experiences of Kevin.

“But going on from there, he just improved and improved and realised at some stage that he was actually a very, very good player and instead of just waiting for someone to rattle him, he could start that series of events from the word ‘go’.”

Crooks had become the world’s most expensive player when he joined Leeds from Hull in 1987 but three years later he moved to Castleford himself.

He said: “One of the reasons I wanted to sign for Cas’ was because I admired Kevin so much as a player.

“He was an awesome player. Beforehand, I even asked Darryl van de Velde, the Cas coach at the time, what Kevin was like as he was one of the reasons I was thinking about joining.

“He said he was alright and so I signed for Cas – and about six months later Kevin signed for St Helens!

“Credit to him, though. What he also did going over to Oz with Manly was outstanding and it was quite alarming how much he stood out when Great Britain played Australia.

“Yet off the pitch he was always very quiet. And he’s sort of vanished off the face of the earth since then. For the size of him you wouldn’t think he’d be able to go around unnoticed!”

Legendary coach Malcolm Reilly worked with Ward for Castleford and Great Britain.

“Kevin was the cornerstone of the pack for a period while I was there,” he recalled.

“We signed him from Stanley Rangers. (Assistant) Dave Sampson had a lot to do with it.

“He’d been to watch him and said I’d better go have a look at this kid because he’s outstanding in this competition.

“I went to see him and he was dead right. He was just what we were looking for.

“When he came to the club, he was a big lad already but we encouraged him to work out in the gym. He put quite a bit of weight on and it was all muscle volume.

“He ended up about the 17 stone mark but was still quite agile and very, very strong. He was lifting weights in the gym you’d be amazed at.

“I had a multi-gym down there with a maximum weight of about 240lbs and he was throwing it around like nothing, doing 20 reps.

“Most of the other players were struggling to get ten out. But it was too simple for him.

“On the field, he was very difficult to handle.

“There’d’ be two or three players around him and he’d still be looking to get the ball away. He was outstanding.

“His contribution on a week to week basis was immense; he was always in the top three players performance wise.

“He never varied. And he did equally as well for Great Britain against the Australians here and over there.”

Ward, whose career was ended by a horrific broken leg playing for Saints on Good Friday in 1993, earned hero status with Manly.

He had two stints with them, helping them win the Grand Final in 1987, just as Reilly had done in 1972 and 1973.

He said: “I knew he wanted to go to Australia and, when he said he’d been approached, I said I’d put him in touch with Manly.

“I’ve some really good friends there and ‘Bozo’ Bob Fulton was the coach at the time. We were in touch on a regular basis. I referred Kev, he went and he was a big success.”