FORMER Rugby League ace Danny Brough is preparing for a trip to rugby union stronghold Twickenham.
He was a Challenge Cup winner with Hull FC at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, the home of the Wales national team, in 2005.
Now the former Huddersfield Giants captain is coach of that town’s 15-a-side club, who have clinched a Papa Johns Community Cup final appearance at the England union headquarters in London this Saturday.
Huddersfield won 29-25 at Leicestershire side Syston in the Regional One Championship semi-finals on Saturday, and now face Oundle, from Northamptonshire, who were 31-27 winners at Devon team Brixham.
Former Scotland international Brough, 42, Super League Man of Steel with the Giants in 2013, when he skippered them to the League Leaders’ Shield, took the reins at Huddersfield RU Club a year ago.
With former Dewsbury Rams, Swinton Lions and Halifax Panthers player Ed Barber also on the Lockwood Park coaching panel, he came close to leading them back to National Two North, at step four of the league system, at the first attempt, however Scunthorpe pipped them to promotion from Regional One North East.
The Papa Johns Cup was introduced when the divisions at step five and below were reduced in size. The competition is split into a series of sections, with the finals of the four highest ranked being at Twickenham.
Huddersfield beat Regional One North West runners-up Wirral in the two-legged quarter-finals before seeing off Syston, who took the Regional One Midlands title. Oundle, based near Peterborough, were Regional One South East champions.
Brough was twice a Super League Dream Team member and a three-time winner of the League Express Albert Goldthorpe Medal before retiring from Rugby League in 2021, when he was with Bradford Bulls after previously also playing for Dewsbury, York Knights, Castleford Tigers and Wakefield Trinity.
He has had a long association with Huddersfield RU Club, and dusted off his boots to play a handful of games for their second and third teams last season before becoming defence coach in December 2023.
