Francis Cummins

Francis Cummins (born October 10 1976 in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, England) is a former English rugby league footballer. His position of choice was fullback though he also regularly played at centre and winger.

Early Honours

Francis grew up in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire and was the captain of both St. John Fisher's school team (1988-93) which were regular finalists in the Yorkshire Cup and St. John Fisher's ARLFC. St. John Fisher's school team has produced some notable English rugby league talents over the years including Francis Maloney, Ryan Sheridan, Adrian Flynn and Tommy Gallagher. When playing at St. John Fisher, his preferred position was stand-off and he was also the designated goal-kicker. Francis represented England schoolboys when he was 15 years old.

His sporting heroes growing up were former Leeds star Gary Schofield and ex-Manchester United and England football captain, Bryan Robson.

Rugby career

He played for Leeds throughout his whole career between 1993-2005. Cummins has also played on several occasions for Great Britain and also Ireland at international level. He is the youngest player ever to appear in a Challenge Cup at Wembley. He was aged just 17 years and 200 days when Leeds lost to Wigan in 1994, although Francis did score a memorable length-of-the-field try during the game.

International Duty

Francis made his debut for England in 1995 against France at Gateshead when he scored a hat-trick on his debut and then played for Emerging England in 1998 against Wales. He made his Great Britain debut later that year playing in the last two Tests against New Zealand. In 1999 he gained two more caps for Great Britain in the Tri-Series against Australia and New Zealand. Unfortunately, injury struck in 2000 and Francis made the tough decision to pull out of that year's World Cup. He was later to rate this as the worst moment of his career. 2001 saw Francis revert to playing for Ireland, making his debut in France. He continued this in 2003 when he played at full back in both games for Ireland in the European Nations Cup.

Leeds Rhino's Records

Francis set a new club record for consecutive appearances for Leeds at the end of the 2003 season with a total of 178 appearances. He is the seventh highest try scorer in the history of the club with total of 188 tries at the end of 2004, making him the most prolific try scorer in the past twenty years of the club.

Following his retirement from playing in 2005 after playing for Leeds Rhinos for 12 years, Cummins has now [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/super_league/leeds/5165204.stm been appointed] as assistant coach at Leeds Rhinos.

He is married to Katy and has two children.

External links

* http://www.bbc.co.uk/leeds/sport/clubs/leeds_rhinos/rhinos_2004_cummins.shtml
* http://leedsrugby.dnsupdate.co.uk/leedsrhinos/Coaching/coach-page.asp?ID=175