Geoff Burrow to present the first Rob Burrow Award

The first winner of the Rob Burrow Award at the 2024 Betfred Super League Grand Final will be presented with a new trophy by Rob’s father, Geoff, on Saturday evening – watched at Old Trafford by many of the winners of the Harry Sunderland Trophy which the new award has replaced, and whose names have been engraved on the Rob Burrow Award.

Rugby League Commercial announced before the start of the 2024 season that after an agreement with the Rugby League Writers and Broadcasters Association, the player of the match in the Grand Final would receive the Rob Burrow Award – in recognition of Burrow’s outstanding Grand Final performances for Leeds Rhinos, as well as his inspirational response following his diagnosis with motor neurone disease.

For the first 26 Grand Finals, the player of the match has received the Harry Sunderland Trophy – which was commissioned for the 1965 Championship Final by the Rugby League Writers Association in memory of a former journalist, coach and administrator, and which transferred first to the end-of-season Premiership Trophy following a divisional reorganisation in 1973, and then to the Grand Final when the Super League Play-Offs were introduced in 1998.

The winner of the Rob Burrow Award will be decided by votes from members of the RLWBA covering the Grand Final on Saturday, as has previously been the case for the Harry Sunderland Trophy.

Harry Sunderland Trophy winners in attendance on Saturday will include the Hull KR legend John Dorahy – who won the Trophy for his contribution to the Robins’ Premiership win against Castleford at Headingley in 1984, and also won three trophies in a brief spell as coach of Wigan a decade later, and had made arrangements to fly across from Australia to attend Saturday’s Grand Final well before he knew that his former clubs would be involved.

Trevor Hunt, the Chair of the RLWBA, said:

"Our predecessors celebrated the contribution made by Harry Sunderland to Rugby League in this country when they introduced the Harry Sunderland Trophy for the 1965 Championship Final.

"It was then transferred to the end-of-season Premiership competition from 1974 to 1997, and since 1998 the Grand Final. We thought it was the right time to make a change, and to recognise a man who produced some of the most memorable Grand Final moments, with the Rob Burrow Award – but it was always important for us that the achievements and history of the Harry Sunderland Trophy winners would be recognised.?

"That has been done with the design of the superb new trophy, and by the invitation by RL Commercial of as many Harry Sunderland Trophy winners, or their family members, as it has been possible to contact.”

Among the relatives of Harry Sunderland Trophy winners who have accepted invitations are the mother and brother of Andy Platt (the 1992 winner with Wigan, who now lives in Australia), the daughter of Bill Ashurst (the 1971 winner, also with Wigan), and Adam Fogerty, the actor whose father Terry was the first winner of the Trophy playing for Halifax in 1965.

Rob Burrow’s wife Lindsey and their children will be at Old Trafford for the introduction of the new award in Rob’s memory, in addition to his parents Geoff and Irene.

Three of his former Leeds Rhinos team-mates who were Harry Sunderland Trophy winners have also accepted invitations: Matt Diskin (2004), Lee Smith (2008) and Danny McGuire, his long-term half-back partner who like Burrow won the Trophy twice, in 2015 and 2017.

The distinguished list of former winners in attendance also includes Kris Radlinski MBE, now the Wigan chief executive who was the youngest winner in 1995; Mike Stephenson MBE, who was a Harry Sunderland winner with Dewsbury in 1973 long before he became a Sky Sports commentator; and Alan Tait, who was the first man to win the Trophy twice, in consecutive Premiership Finals for Widnes in 1989 and 1990.

There are four other former winners in the Wigan squad – their assistant coach Thomas Leuluai plus captain Liam Farrell, forward Luke Thompson (who won the Trophy as a St Helens player in 2019), and the 2023 winner Jake Wardle.

Rhodri Jones, the managing director of RL Commercial, said:

“Saturday’s Grand Final will be a special occasion for so many reasons – and as with the Challenge Cup Final at Wembley days after Rob’s death in June, it is another opportunity for us to remember him, and to celebrate his contribution to Rugby League.

“He was thrilled when we told him last winter that the player of the match at the Grand Final would win the Rob Burrow Award, and we are honoured that his father has agreed to present the new trophy to the first winner – with Lindsey and the children also in attendance.

“It was important to us to respect the winners and history of the Harry Sunderland Trophy, and we have done that in the new trophy we commissioned from Fattorini, whose long history in Rugby League dates back to the original Challenge Cup – with the names of the Harry Sunderland winners engraved around the lower of two bases. We are pleased that so many of the winners will be at Old Trafford on Saturday, or represented by family members.”