Keiron Cunningham - Hooker
Wales RLHeritage No | 373 |
Date Of Birth | 28/10/1976 |
Place Of Birth | St Helens |
Height | 175 |
Weight | 102 |
Clubs | St Helens, Wigan St Judes |
Honours | Great Britain, Wales RL |
Managed | Leigh Leopards, St Helens |
Keiron Cunningham was Wales' 39th captain, leading us just the once, which was in his final appearance, the unofficial World Cup third place play-off match in 2001. Despite taking part in the promotions for Wales v New Zealand in 2002, injury prevented his appearance in the encounter, and following this, all Wales matches clashed with Great Britain, so he was unable to appear again for the Dragons. He eventually retired from international rugby league in 2006 after winning 14 caps for Great Britain and pulling on the Wales shirt 13 times. He played a starring role in both the 1995 and 2000 World Cups for Wales, this after scoring four times against USA in Wales' record international win in just his second Welsh appearance.
A one-club man in the professional domestic game, Keiron, like his much older brothers before him, played for St Helens after signing as a youngster from amateur club Wigan St Judes. He spent 16 years as a player with Saints, turning out 496 times and scoring 175 tries. His Super League appearances totalled 381, and during his career he won five Super League championships, seven Challenge Cup Winners medals and two World Club Challenge winners medals. He was named in the Super League Dream Team on six occasions, in July 2007 Rugby League World magazine ranked him as the greatest player of the Super League era, plus following a supporters' poll two years' later, he was chosen to be cast as a bronze statue outside St Helens' new stadium in 2010. During his time in rugby league, he was approached by both England and Wales to switch to rugby union, turning both down stating that the money was "ridiculous" but he just didn't want to leave St Helens.
Following his retirement as a player, Keiron took up an assistant coaching role in the strength and conditioning department at St Helens. After the sacking of Royce Simmons in 2012 he was appointed assistant coach of the club, and then on Monday 20 October 2014, Keiron Cunningham was appointed as head coach of St. Helens. He appointed former Saints teammate Sean Long to assist him for his role. However, a little under two and a half years and 74 games later, on 10 April 2017 he was sacked, ending a 24-years association with the club. He then joined Leigh Centurions as Head of Rugby, spending a year with the club before departing to go into an electrical wholesale business, sorting out and despatching a different sort of wire!
A one-club man in the professional domestic game, Keiron, like his much older brothers before him, played for St Helens after signing as a youngster from amateur club Wigan St Judes. He spent 16 years as a player with Saints, turning out 496 times and scoring 175 tries. His Super League appearances totalled 381, and during his career he won five Super League championships, seven Challenge Cup Winners medals and two World Club Challenge winners medals. He was named in the Super League Dream Team on six occasions, in July 2007 Rugby League World magazine ranked him as the greatest player of the Super League era, plus following a supporters' poll two years' later, he was chosen to be cast as a bronze statue outside St Helens' new stadium in 2010. During his time in rugby league, he was approached by both England and Wales to switch to rugby union, turning both down stating that the money was "ridiculous" but he just didn't want to leave St Helens.
Following his retirement as a player, Keiron took up an assistant coaching role in the strength and conditioning department at St Helens. After the sacking of Royce Simmons in 2012 he was appointed assistant coach of the club, and then on Monday 20 October 2014, Keiron Cunningham was appointed as head coach of St. Helens. He appointed former Saints teammate Sean Long to assist him for his role. However, a little under two and a half years and 74 games later, on 10 April 2017 he was sacked, ending a 24-years association with the club. He then joined Leigh Centurions as Head of Rugby, spending a year with the club before departing to go into an electrical wholesale business, sorting out and despatching a different sort of wire!
PLAYER FOR | P | W | D | L | TRY | GOALS | DG | PTS | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Great Britain | 16 | 4 | 0 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | |||
Wales RL | 12 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 24 | |||
TOTAL | 28 | 12 | 0 | 16 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 28 |
Note: The statistics tab shows all of the player’s known appearances for this particular Wales side against international sides or other non-capped recognised first class matches. To see exactly how many full test rugby league caps for Wales (or any other country) that this player has, please click the “Test Summary” tab. Nines individual player records are not shown, please click here for full details about Nines. Please also note that clubs’ current names are used throughout this website, due to the database only being able to feed one name per club (e.g. Wigan will also be known as Wigan Warriors throughout all player profiles).