Paul Sterling - Wing
Wales RLHeritage No | 400 |
Date Of Birth | 02/08/1964 |
Place Of Birth | Wolverhampton |
Height | 175 |
Weight | 71 |
Clubs | Leeds Rhinos, Hunslet RLFC, Hull FC, Bradford & Bingley |
Honours | Wales RL, England, England A |
Paul Sterling played international rugby league for the first time in 1996 when he represented England in the Super League World Nines. At 34 years old in July 1998, he made an appearance for Emerging England against Wales, which he followed up with a try on his only appearance for the full England team against France a year later. However, in 2000 Paul converted to Wales for the World Cup and played in four games, scoring against Lebanon. At 36 years of age, he was the oldest player in the tournament. He is the oldest known player to have made a Wales senior men's debut. Paul started his rugby league career in 1993, joining Hull FC from rugby union club Bradford & Bingley. He made 57 appearances for Hull after signing for them in August 1993, scoring 27 tries. He moved onto Hunslet in April 1996 and scored 13 tries in 12 appearances before signing for Leeds Rhinos, and was the club's top try scorer during 1997's Super League II. He made 101 appearances for Leeds scoring 55 tries, including 51 tries in 90 Super League matches. The 2000 World Cup quarter final win for Wales over Papua New Guinea was his last rugby league match. Before the World Cup, he had taken Leeds to court with an employment tribunal. In December 2000, Leeds were received the order of an employment tribunal to pay £16,058 to Paul as compensation for their coach Dean Lance's "unconscious" racial discrimination against him earlier this year. This was broken down into £10,000 for injury to feelings, £5,250 for loss of opportunity to win match bonuses, and £750.58 interest. In April 2001, Paul announced his retirement, going on to open a gym in Brighouse.
SEASON | P | W | D | L | TRY | GOALS | DG | PTS | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 8 | |
TOTAL | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
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).