THE long wait to win the Rugby League World Cup for Great Britain's men continues after their 27-26 golden-point semi-final defeat to Samoa at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday.

Here, rugby correspondent Bill Marshall talks to Bingley’s David Jeanes, who was part of the last Great Britain team that won the World Cup 50 years ago.

Jeanes, who was brought up on rugby union, explains in the first of a series of interviews, how a diet of fish, raw eggs in milk, and tripe (with no onions) built up his strength before a switch to rugby league...

David Jeanes’ first game of rugby league was almost his last.

He played once for Silsden under-19s, scored a try and, seconds later, was kicked up the backside by an opponent who had run about 20 metres to perform the ‘dirty deed’.

Jeanes, now 78, vowed never to play the sport again.

However, fortunately, he changed his mind, going on to represent Wakefield Trinity in the famous ‘watersplash’ Challenge Cup final of 1968, and then Leeds and Huddersfield, as well as Yorkshire and Great Britain, being part of their squad that won the World Cup 50 years ago.

A handsome man, despite years of service as a prop, and genial, albeit with a no-nonsense streak below the surface, this is a good time for the Skipton-born man to reflect.

Fast for his position, an attribute aided by his father’s athletics background, Jeanes soon became noticed by rugby league scouts after an initial grounding in rugby union.

“My mum and dad got an extra 2s 6d (12½p) after I was born,” laughed Jeanes, who moved from Skipton to Keighley when he was 21 after marrying Susan.

“My dad Edgar worked on the railways and was basically a very, very fit man.

“He used to train people to run and his protege was half-mile runner Tom Clarke, who instigated (beds and mattress firm) Silentnight (in 1946).

“I used to go and watch them train at Sandylands (in Skipton). My dad was also a footballer and had trials with Burnley as a full back. He was a founder member of Skipton Bulldogs, now gone to the wall, and they won the Craven Cup.

“Because he worked on the railways he used to go up to Appleby, and that is where he met my mum Ada, who was the first employee that Silentnight ever had on Coach Street in Skipton, and my dad won the Westmorland Cup playing for Appleby.”

The younger Jeanes attended Skipton Parish Church Junior School, who had a very successful football team, but surprisingly failed his 11 plus.

He said: “No-one could understand why because I was one of the bright boys, but maybe I was not good at exams. I therefore went to a secondary modern school in Skipton, which was a football school, where I was a flying right winger.”

Channelling his inner Nat Lofthouse, Jeanes said: “I was big for my age and knew how to push goalkeepers over.

“Then, after a year, they decided that I was bright and offered me a place at Keighley Grammar School, which is where I got my first taste of rugby (union).

“I then found out that rugby was made for me. I was big for my age - 6ft as a 14-year-old and weighing 14st. My dad, being a war man, kept hens and had an allotment so I was fed all the right foods and did all the right things.

“We had fish in the morning and before we went out running or doing any training I used to have a raw egg in milk and then, before games, tripe with no onions, which I loved.

“I used to be able to run the 100 yards in 11 seconds and won the Westmorland Games at Kendal and got a massive cup, but that was the only time that I won a race, although I did finish second and third a few times.

“As for rugby union at Keighley Grammar School, I started at full-back, went on to the wing, went to centre, went to stand-off and then to No.8.

“But when I went to Keighley Rugby Union Club I could not play at No.8 because they had a brilliant one already in Stan Hutchinson, so I played in the second row with David Kirkham.

“Then when John “Butty” Davies joined us, I had to move into the front row and stayed there until 1966 when my accountancy job took me to Wakefield.”

It was during the early 1960s that Jeanes got his first taste of rugby league.

“Once Malcolm Archer, who lived in Silsden, asked me to play rugby league for their under-19s in a cup final against Keighley Albion.

“I got the only try that we scored and someone ran from about 20 yards away and kicked me up the backside, and I swore from that day onwards that I would never play rugby league again as I thought they were thugs.”

As for work, Jeanes said: “I was a pen-pusher. I trained as an accountant for Dyson’s Electrical Wholesalers in Bradford, failed my exams, but worked my way through to basically become an assistant company secretary.

“They used to send me to our branches in Huddersfield, Scunthorpe and Wakefield, and they decided that they had better base me in Wakefield so that is why I joined Wakefield Rugby Union Club.

“That was very enjoyable as they were one of the top sides in union and gave me experiences I had never dreamt of, such as playing at Ebbw Vale in front of 6,000 people on Easter Saturday.

“I was playing against the great Denzel Williams, Wales’ most capped prop at that time. They had three internationals in their team and we had one, Ian Gibson, plus quite a few Yorkshire players, and I had the game of my life.

“Denzel, who had just come back from a Lions tour, and I sat all night drinking beer and basically offered me a contract to play for Ebbw Vale. I had seen all the steelworks and thought this is not for me but they were insistent.

“On the Easter Monday we played at Newbridge and someone came to talk to me again after Denzel had told me how fantastically the steelworks looked after him and his wife, and there were brown envelopes etc.

“I came off the pitch and Alan Calvert said to me ‘You will play for Yorkshire next year’. I had already played for Yorkshire Colts when I was at Keighley in 1962-63.”