In their second season since reforming as New Hunslet, the club were starting to put the pieces in place to improve their league standing and attain promotion to the first division.
An important player with these aims in mind was Derek “Sam” Windmill, who made his debut today in 1975 at home to Barrow, Signed from York, Sam had previously played for Featherstone Rovers and Hull Kingston Rovers. Signed by coach and fellow Robins player Paul Daley for £1,000, Sam made an impressive 174 appearances and scored 35 tries.
On the representative front, Billy Jukes, in 1907, was making his first appearance for Yorkshire in the match against Cumberland at Fartown which Yorkshire won 15-12. Billy would go on to be one of Hunslet’s most capped players with 15 Northern Union and England appearances and playing 28 other representative matches and going down under with the Lions in 1910. He scored a hat-trick in Sydney on his Northern Union debut and is thought to be the only player to achieve this. He was Yorkshire captain in 1910/11 and 1911/12. On the domestic front he made his debut in 1905 and was one of the “Terrible Six”. He played on through WW1, finally hanging up his boots in 1919 after 307 matches, 94 tries and 3 goals. He played in six finals and was club captain in 1910/11
In the centre on the opposition side was Billy Eagers. He was also a well capped player with 1 England cap, Cumberland and 1 Yorkshire cap. 146 matches, 37 tries and 21 goals were his stats for Hunslet. He played in six finals, and also played for Bradford (and Northern). He played rugby in South Africa. In the war he was a sergeant with The Legion Of Frontiersmen getting a medical discharge in April 1918 and later served with the Royal Fusiliers.
1992 saw our only ever visit to the short lived Scarborough Pirates at the McCain Stadium, which they Shared with Scarborough F.C. Hunslet came away with a 24-12 win with Alan Daniel getting a hat-trick and David Brook 1 try. James Lowes kicked 3 goals and Brook and Keith Bell dropped goals.
