Stefan Ratchford, as a veteran of several Challenge Cup and Super League Grand Finals, is no stranger to the big stage. On Saturday the Warrington full-back appears in his third Wembley final but by his own admission his life could have gone in a very different direction had he turned his back on rugby league before his career had even begun.
Ratchford, now 30, has crafted a career as one of the most talented players of his generation and is likely to be front and centre of any successful performance this weekend should it be Warrington who lift the sport’s most prestigious trophy for a ninth time – and their first since 2012 – when they face Catalans.
“All I’d ever wanted to do growing up was play rugby,” he says. Growing up in the rugby league hotbed of Wigan, Ratchford was tipped for success in the sport from a young age, which eventually led to him signing with the Super League side Salford at the age of 16. But days before Ratchford’s childhood dream of becoming a professional rugby player became reality, there came another offer which could have changed everything.
“I used to play football for a laugh at school as well as the rugby and after I’d been playing for 18 months we noticed this guy had started turning up to watch us,” Ratchford explains. “He eventually pointed three of us out and said he wanted us to go down to Liverpool for a trial with a view to maybe getting a deal.
“That was on the Saturday but on the following Wednesday I was due to go into Salford and sign my professional deal.”
With Ratchford unable to sign the contract with Salford if he attended trials in another sport, it left him with what many would consider to be a heartbreaking dilemma. For Ratchford, however, the decision was simple.
“I never went to the trials at Liverpool,” he says with a smile. “The football side was a laugh as I say and, when Salford said I had to sign with them or go to the trial, it was a bit of a no-brainer. You look at that side of it, the money, but for me it was a three-year deal I was signing to become a professional rugby player.
“I could have turned that down, gone to a trial at Liverpool with hundreds of other kids and maybe not been good enough. Looking back, there’s a lot of what-ifs but I wanted to play rugby and there’s a chance it wouldn’t have worked out playing football. My dream growing up was to play rugby as a professional, so I signed the deal with Salford and didn’t go to the trials. Who knows what could have happened?”
Looking back, are there any regrets? “No, apart from maybe I could have been rich by now!” he says, laughing. “It was 45,000 at Anfield or 4,500 at Salford but there are seriously no regrets with the decision. Playing at Salford as a kid was great fun; you could beat teams before they’d turned up there with the old Willows ground.
“The changing rooms were on an angle, the tunnel was enclosed and had mesh over the top of it with pints – though I don’t think it was beer – being thrown at you. It was a great time for me at such a young age.”
Having emerged as somewhat of a prodigious talent at Salford, Ratchford eventually earned a big-money move to Warrington in 2012, where he has remained. Within months he was a Wembley winner after victory over Leeds in the 2012 final but the highs have been accompanied by remarkable lows, including an extraordinary battle against relegation for one of Super League’s wealthiest clubs last summer. That resulted in Warrington’s long-serving coach, Tony Smith, being replaced by Steve Price and Ratchford admits the time was right for a change.
“Look at the last three years under Tony,” he reflects. “The expectations we have as a club and the facilities we’ve got, the minimum goal for this club is pushing for trophies. It’s up to the powers that be to decide what’s best for the club; I enjoyed working with Tony and it’s not for me to say it was time for a change but, if you look at what happened and you’re going off results, you’re probably right to say the time was right.” Hull beat them in the 2016 Challenge Cup final.
“With Tony there was a Harlem Globetrotter vibe, with us trying to throw the ball around in our own half lots of the time,” Ratchford continues. “But Steve has come in and tried to change things. We’re not exactly taking the Australian mind-set, because we enjoy playing and throwing it around still, but we’ve got a different mind-set which now works for us.”
Ratchford’s first Wembley memory was Sheffield’s infamous victory against the odds over his boyhood heroes Wigan in 1998. With Warrington heavy favourites against Catalans on Saturday, he is keen to avoid a repeat of the surprise cup final outcome 20 years ago. “Anything can happen; it’s a one-off game,” he says. “Hopefully this year it will be different to how it was back then.”
