Rugby League: Paul Happy to Back Playing League

The Willows, Salford's home ground in the depressed area of Weaste, is a world away from Princess Anne's Gatcombe Park estate, the setting for the birthday party which effectively marked the end of Henry Paul's union career with Gloucester. But after kicking a last-gasp drop-goal to give his Harlequins team a vital 29-28 win on Monday, his most significant contribution since returning to league with the London club six weeks ago, the man who played league for New Zealand and union for England sounded genuinely happy to be back on familiar ground.

Paul spent almost a decade criss-crossing the north of England after Wakefield Trinity spotted him playing for the Junior Kiwis in 1993, winning Challenge Cups and Super League titles with Wigan and Bradford before accepting a joint offer from Twickenham and Gloucester in the autumn of 2001. His union career was a roller-coaster, combining success with Gloucester and the England Sevens team with high-profile droppings by club and country, culminating in a hefty fine and written warning for his failure to return to training for three days after Mike Tindall's birthday bash at Gatcombe. But he claims he has no regrets.

"I'm massively pleased with my time in union, yeah," said the 31-year-old. "I'm so proud of playing for England, winning trophies for Gloucester, the great atmosphere with sevens - I look back and think wow, what an experience. I left Gloucester not maybe on the best terms but that's life, you move on."

Despite that and his other well publicised off-field scrapes Paul says he had offers from union, Super League clubs and even a couple from Australia's National Rugby League. "The couple from Oz really made me think," he admitted, even though he turned down the opportunity to join his former Bradford coach Matthew Elliott at Canberra.

"But I just liked the vision of what Ian Lenagan and Tony Rea [the owner and coach respectively of Harlequins' league operation] want to try and do. I've put my money where my mouth is in a way, because I've always said Super League needs a good team in London - and a team in Wales as well. I'd done it with all the big teams and I could have gone back but you know me, I like a challenge - the challenge of taking a team maybe to places they've never been."

Paul's signing, followed by the new three-year contract agreed with Quins' Australian captain Mark McLinden, was the hardest evidence yet that league's latest guise in London is more than a mere gimmick. Their progress so far has been steady but unspectacular, with significant increases in attendances, corporate support and general interest undermined only by poor home form which has included heavy defeats by St Helens and Bradford.

That makes a creditable performance in tomorrow's Challenge Cup quarter-final at Leeds vital, as it will be the first time Quins' famous pastel quarters have been seen in a rugby league match on terrestrial TV. "We'll front up," Paul promises. "What have we got to lose? We go to Leeds, throw caution to the wind, we can go out and enjoy it, upset the odds. I've loved that my whole career, doing that.

"I feel a lot better now than I did in my first game against Huddersfield. I genuinely couldn't breathe when they interviewed me on Sky after that, I was so knackered.

"It's hard getting used to the pace of league again, I always knew it would be. But having a week off for our last cup game against Barrow really helped me, it let me put in some graft on the training pitch, just working on my fitness, up and back."

Paul was arguably the outstanding player in the Super League when he signed off for union after Bradford's thumping grand final win over Wigan in 2001. It is good to have him back.