“Is Rugby League so well served with international occasions that we want to kill the World Club Challenge with apathy?”
y sincere apologies to Luke Patten, his family and friends, to the players of Salford, the club’s management and its supporters. We might as well make it a general
M
apology from my colleagues as a whole. We’ve all been guilty of giving the new City Reds’ fullback the sort of build-up that simply invites disaster. Or as someone put it after the Saints game: “...one of the best fullbacks in the world for ten years. He comes here and he forgets how to catch a ball.” I’d just like to point out: 1) It’s early days yet. 2) If he has forgotten how to catch a ball, he will almost certainly remember again. 3) Remember how underwhelming some other class players’ first couple of games have been? That Gene Miles, for instance.
he game at The Willows was notable for something else. It was the first time I’ve been referred to by a coach at a press conference as “you boofhead.”
T Royce Simmons could equally have called
me a lair, a larrikin or, god forbid, a hoon, so I suppose I should take it as a compliment. For a fuller discussion of Australian terms of friendly abuse, see Down and Under – still on sale at selected booksellers.
S
Poor start - Luke Patten
“I’ll show you how bad it was,” says one, brandishing the picture taken on her phone. Thanks to modern technology, you not only saw that the receptacle was overflowing, but precisely what was blocking it. Too much information, ladies. Too many pixels. But I hope that wasn’t the high-water mark of your weekend.
I
Unlucky Luke
A ometimes it seems to me that
everywhere I’ve been to see Rugby League is afflicted by disaster, natural or man-made. Rabaul was literally obliterated by volcanic ash, most of Queensland is reeling from floods and hurricanes. There was the Greymouth mining tragedy, not to mention floods and a mad gunman in West Cumbria. What next? A plague of locusts in Saddleworth? No, just an earthquake in Christchurch. Sedate, charming old Christchurch, shaken to within an inch of its life by angry stirrings beneath the earth’s crust.
The human cost is the main thing – and
there will be Rugby League people in there somewhere – but I’ve also found it unbearably poignant to see what places I know have been reduced to.
That pile of rubble is the cheap hotel I stayed in on my first trip. That heap of bricks is the pub that used to claim to serve the best Guinness in the southern hemisphere. Good luck, Christchurch. Let’s hope you’ve had your share of misery.
82 APRIL 2011 - RUGBY LEAGUE WORLD
n the train to Cardiff, I found myself sharing a table with two entertainingly batty lasses from Warrington.
O All went swimmingly until they went to
use the over-burdened toilet facilities. When they came back, it was with much theatrical gagging and heaving. Surely it can’t have been that bad.
few traveller’s tales of a more local
nature. On a bus the other day, a man got on carrying the sort of large globe that every classroom used to have in order to teach the rudiments of geography. I willed him to come and sit within earshot, but sadly he didn’t. Realistically, that means I will never have the chance to use the line: “What’s up mate? You look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
n a train from Wigan, a young lad heading for the fleshpots of Bolton looked at me blearily and said: “D’you know who you look like?”
O
Leave it out, son, and do not mention Brian Blessed. “No, it’s not a bad thing,” he assured
me. “You look just like that Dave Hadfield.” I’d rather just be called a boofhead.
am deliberately writing this before
the World Club Challenge. I hope it’s been a belter, in front of an enraptured full house. But I’ll tell you one thing. It’s been the
worst-promoted WCC in history. Alright, you can’t legislate for Wayne
Bennett’s mother-in-law taking a turn for the worse. But basing St George Illawarra in London and not playing a warm-up match? What sort of strategy was that?
The aim seemed to be for them to sneak in and sneak out, without anyone noticing. No wonder it was harder than usual to shoe- horn anything into the newspapers. The nadir was a hastily-arranged press
conference on the Friday at which the media were very nearly outnumbered by the two coaches. It makes you wonder about the WCC. Is Rugby League so well served with international occasions that we want to kill it with apathy?
A
little bit of credit where it’s due…. There wouldn’t be a WCC if Wigan
hadn’t ridden roughshod over official apathy in 1987.
The long-term effects might not have been quite as dramatic, but I’d compare it with Manchester United defying the authorities and entering the European Cup in the 50s. So, for once in my life, I’ll be raising a glass to Maurice Lindsay after the match.
Y
ou have to take your little victories
where you can. You might have noticed that the French
representatives in Super League are now the Catalan Dragons, rather than the unwieldy Franglais of the Catalans Dragons. I’d like to think I’ve played my part in getting rid of that superfluous ‘s’. Now to teach James Webster how to say
Loughborough. In his otherwise sound analysis of the student final, he tried everything from Luffbruff to Loffburrow. Loffburrow? You’re having a lough.
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