Many adjectives have been used to describe Lizzie over the
last 10 months since she and her young twins lost Danny in such tragic
circumstances. Her skills as a professional singer have gained her a huge
following and a high profile, particularly in the Rugby League world, and it is
great that she is using her profile so positively.
Not only did she campaign successfully for professional
rugby league players at all three levels of the pro game to have mandatory
heart tests but she has now thrown herself into
raising awareness for the need of defibrillators to be available for use at all
community and junior rugby league grounds in the UK and is helping to raise the
necessary funds to make this possible with the assistance of the RFL Benevolent
Fund.
Defibrilators cost around £1,000 each – that’s a lot of
money for most community and junior teams – but they are a must have as they
provide potentially lifesaving treatment for someone who has suffered a heart
attack. They deliver an electric shock to the heart with the aim of stopping ventricular fibrillation which is a rapid heartbeat that does not deliver blood to the brain or other organs.
Lizzie has donated £1000 to the fund herself and let’s hope
the rugby league family get behind this venture and support it in the same way
that we supported Lizzie and her family in their hour of need.
Former Bolton Wanderers defender Fabrice Muamba, who has
thrown his weight and reputation behind the fund, suffered a heart attack
during a Wanderers FA Cup tie against Tottenham Hotspur 4 years ago and
received numerous shocks from a defibrillator both at the ground and on the way
to hospital in an ambulance.
If it hadn’t have been for the availability of a
defibrillator he may not have survived.
Rugby league is a tough sport and everyone needs to do as
much as they can to ensure that the great people who are involved in the sport
– whether players, coaches, supporters or back room staff – have the right help
when they need it.
BIG WILLIE IS BACK
Allow the name Willie Mason to pass through your lips in
Hull and you will get howls of laughter from Hull FC fans and snorts of
derision from the majority of Hull KR fans.
It’s fair to say that his previous spell in Super League
with Rovers back in 2011 did not go exactly to plan, lasting only 6 games, and
the majority of Rovers fans hold nothing but disdain for the former Australian
international.
Rovers really milked this signing like no other – without a
doubt he was the one of, if not the, highest profile signing the club has ever
made. The club charged fans to attend his first press conference and they even
charged fans to watch his first training session with his new team mates.
Unfortunately, the fact is that the signing should never
have gone through. The deal rested on Mason obtaining a Tongan passport so he
would not count on the overseas quota list as Hull KR’s was full at the time.
By chance, Rovers star scrum half Michael Dobson suffered a
long term injury and, unbelievably, Rovers decided to de-register him so that
Mason could be registered because the infamous Tongan passport had failed to
materialise.
This led to the possibility of Dobson being poached by
another club because he wasn’t officially registered with a Super League club –
fortunately, Dobson had a sense of loyalty to the club despite this ridiculous
decision.
There was even talk of Rovers captain Michael Vella
obtaining a Maltese passport to get him off the overseas quota – it really was
a farcical situation.
Big Willie was too big a name and too big a personality for
the club to turn their back on.
Personally, as a Hull KR fan, I bear no ill will towards
Mason and am glad to see him back in Super League. The situation back in 2011
wasn’t all his fault although he could have handled his exit better rather than
going to meet Toulon RU club behind the clubs back.
Mason, himself, blames Hull KR chairman Neil Hudgell for the
whole sorry mess – I know that because he told me himself in a tweet a couple
of years ago.
Big Willie found Super League tougher than he thought I
think – he made a storming debut against Crusaders, remember them, in a 40-22
win before Rovers lost their next three games.
The highlight of his stay was a
Saturday afternoon defeat of Leeds Rhinos before his last appearance the
following week in a man of the match performance against Wigan despite Rovers
losing the game.
The following week Rovers were facing local rivals Hull FC in
the Good Friday Derby and with Michael Dobson now recovered from injury the
club took the dramatic step of de-registering Mason to make Dobson available for
the Derby – Big Willie was left to sit on the side line and ponder his future
in French Rugby Union.
5 years down the track and with time spent back in the NRL
with Newcastle Knights and Manly Sea Eagles after his ill-fated Union spell,
Mason has headed back to France for a year with Catalans Dragons and I, for
one, hope he shows he still has the ability to be a force in the game.
Without a doubt he is one of games biggest characters.
WORLD CLUB SERIES
The dust has settled on a little bit of the disappointment
felt at the performances of the Super League clubs in the recent World Club
Series against their NRL counterparts.
Before the series, I only expected Wigan Warriors to be
competitive but they were blown away by a Brisbane Broncos performance that
even Head Coach Wayne Bennett was impressed with.
St. Helens were always going to struggle against Sydney
Roosters whilst Super League Champions Leeds Rhinos have lost a host of
experienced and high quality players and have really suffered with injuries in
2016.
The Rhinos at least competed for the first 40 minutes of
their World Club Challenge clash with first time NRL Premiers North Queensland
Cowboys and held them to 4-4 at half time.
The Cowboys named the same 17 that won the NRL Grand Final
over the Brisbane Broncos with a golden point drop goal from Jonathan Thurston
last October whilst the Rhinos have really struggled to replace Kevin Sinfield,
Jamie Peacock, Kylie Leuluai and Paul Aiton and were without new skipper Danny
McGuire, Jamie Jones-Buchanan, Stevie Ward, Carl Ablett, Tom Briscoe and Ashton
Golding whilst new hooker Beau Falloon had yet to make a start for the club.
The Cowboys scored 34 unanswered second half points and cue
lots of hysteria about the levels of the game in Super League and the NRL.
Without a shadow of doubt we must continue with this concept
in it’s current form – talk of expansion and moving the series to Australia is
premature.
It’s gives added incentive to both winning the Challenge Cup
and finishing on top of the league at the end of 23 rounds and it also put’s
our sport in the major headlines in the lead up to the games – something we
generally struggle to achieve.
The England national side will compete with Australia and
New Zealand at the elite level – we have one of the best squads we have had
since the 1990’s in my opinion – but the lower down the scale you go the more
you will see the difference in class and ability and that is why we had the
blow out scores in this year’s Series.
There is no quick fix for this and I’m not sure that there
is a long term fix either to be honest – the NRL competition holds all of the
ace cards over Super League.
The talent pool in Australia is much larger than in the UK
for a start. It is their national sport and money pours into the game from a TV
deal that absolutely dwarfs ours and from sponsors willing to pay big money to
have their names associated with some of the biggest names in the sport who
have a profile like Wayne Rooney does over here.
Add in the climate which gives much better training
conditions, especially in the all important pre-season and, arguably, better
coaching and a more professional set up all giving a more intense competition
and you can understand why British players want to play in the NRL.
That is before we mention the higher salary cap which I
don’t think is the be all and end all for British players who go over to
the NRL, I think they are mainly motivated by wanting to test themselves in
the best rugby league competition in the world.
However, it is vital that we retain the World Club Series as our sport needs high profile spectacles like this and our players will improve the more they are exposed to this level of competition.
KEEP ON TACKLING
There has been a lot of discussion in the last couple of
weeks about tackling in rugby with some highly intelligent people saying that
it should be banned in schools rugby up to the age of 18.
You will probably have noted that the letter signed off by
70 doctors and academics was aimed at rugby union rather than rugby league as
that is the main code of rugby played in most schools in the UK and,
certainly, Ireland.
Obviously, tackling is a major part of both sports and I am
struggling to understand why this letter is aimed at just schools rugby up to the
age of 18 rather than including the community and grass roots levels of the
game as well.
From my knowledge of local youth rugby league in Hull – the
majority of players who play school rugby league also play for a local club
such as Skirlaugh, West Hull, East Hull, Hull Dockers etc – in fact school
rugby league in Hull is a far more secondary concern against youth rugby in the
city.
I don’t believe there should be a ban on tackling at any
level of the sport – it is a fundamental skill of the game and, although the
letter is right to point out the dangers of tackling (and being tackled), if it
is coached and taught correctly then it will become as easy as passing and
catching a ball.
If there is a case for banning tackling it is at the early
age groups of U6 and U7 when players are still learning the game and the core
skills such as catching and passing and they are also still finding out if they
like the physical side of the sport or not.
This is when coaching is at it’s most important – the
technique of tackling and how to fall when tackled (protective falling) must be
drilled into the players at these early age groups. They need to know what
parts of the body they need to use to tackle with – where should their shoulder
and head be positioned? – what do they do with their arms? – how do they use
their legs in the tackle? – what parts of their body should hit the floor first
when they are tackled and falling forwards, sideways or backwards?
Some players learn quicker than others and I have some six
year olds (now seven) at the club that I coach at who you use as an example
because their technique is so good already – they have an almost natural
ability to tackle correctly.
I know for a fact that some boys (and girls) will not play
the game because they see the tackling that goes on and decide it is not for
them – believe me there are some proper tackles that go in at the lower age
groups and it is not always the small boys who are the intimidated ones – far
from it in my experience.
My fellow coaches and I have been having the discussion
recently about playing touch instead of tackling and whilst I am against it
I can see the case for it but my thoughts are not based on the potential for
injury which was the main case made in the letter discussed earlier.
Playing touch would probably help players improve their core
skills in the knowledge they were not going to get tackled and would definitely
allow some players to take part who did not like the tackling aspect of the
sport, but at what age group would you introduce it?
My view is that tackling is a fundamental part of the sport
and must remain so at all levels and age groups of the game.
It maybe that it is the ability of the coaches to deliver
the right instructions that is the problem rather than tackling or being tackled.
CANADA.....REALLY??
I am sure most people will agree with me that entering a
Canadian club side into the League 1 competition is a very strange and, you
would think, farfetched notion.
But then, this is rugby league and we don’t mind a bit of
out of the box thinking do we?
League 1 is seen as the launching pad for clubs from outside
of the heartlands of the game into the semi-professional code with participants
from Toulose, North and South Wales, London, Newcastle, Gloucestershire,
Coventry, Oxford and Hemel Hempstead alongside some historic names such as
Hunslet, Barrow, Rochdale, York and Doncaster.
There were questions raised last season about the travel
costs for League 1 teams to travel over to France to play Toulouse so you can
imagine that the question of who pays the travel costs over to the Canadians
team base of Toronto to play their league matches was very much at the
forefront of people’s minds.
This has been cleared up by the Canadian Rugby League
confirming that they will cover all of the transport, accommodation and all
associated costs for each team to travel over.
This is good news for the League 1 teams who would have
struggled to raise the necessary funds but it is a huge cost outlay for the
Canadian Rugby League that I would have thought would be difficult to sustain
in the long term.
Also the fixture list would have to ensure that the Canadian
team played a block of home fixtures for 3 to 4 weeks and likewise the away
fixtures in the UK.
It has already been heavily touted that former Leigh
Centurions coach Paul Rowley will be the Head Coach of the Canadian team that
will look to enter the competition in 2017 and, apparently, he has approached a
few of his former charges at Leigh to see if they fancy playing for the new
team.
I am assuming that the playing and coaching staff will be
full time as no employer that I know will accept people being away from work
for 3-4 weeks at a time 3 or 4 times a year – so the Canadians will have to pay
full time wages as well which just adds to the costs.
I know the Canadian national team can pull in attendances of
around 7-8000 for big games against the USA or Jamaica but would they get those
kind of crowds on a regular basis for a club side?
Maybe at the start when there is some novelty value attached
but the team would have to win games as I am sure that new spectators, or
sponsors, will not be drawn to a losing team.
I am sure the RFL have done their due diligence over the
last couple of years on this project, but the game has always struggled to keep
clubs afloat from outside of the heartlands of the game in our own country let
alone in a country over 3,000 miles away with no real tradition of playing
rugby league.
What about the infrastructure of the club? What kind of
youth set up do they have? If any. What about open age clubs in the local area?
There are currently 4 clubs in the Ontario Rugby League with
two of them based in Toronto – the Centurions and the Saints – not exactly a
hot bed of rugby league is it?
I am not against expanding our sport and I hope that this
project is successful and long lasting and sets in place a legacy that will see
Canada become a real power in international rugby league, but I just don’t see
it and wouldn’t be surprised if this new club lasted less than a year or two.
I really hope I am wrong but we have so many areas of the
game in our own country that are struggling and I think the attention of the
RFL should be fixing the game much closer to home.
KEEP QUIET, MARWAN.
I was watching the thoroughly entertaining Salford Red
Devils v. Warrington Wolves game a couple of weeks ago and, at the time, the
Red Devils were going along brilliantly and were putting the much improved
Wolves to the sword.
I thought to myself isn’t it good that things have calmed
down at Salford.
Last year there was a negative news story coming out of the
AJ Bell just about every other week but in 2016 Marwan Koukash was taking a
back seat and was enjoying watching his hugely entertaining squad play some
great rugby league.
On that night in particular Robert Lui and Ben
Murdoch-Masila were outstanding and Michael Dobson looked to be on his way back
to top form.
Obviously, the last 20 minutes were cruel on the Red Devils
as they let Warrington off the hook and a brilliant last second drop goal by
Chris Sandow gave the Wolves a 31-30 victory – you could see the hurt in the
reaction of the Red Devils players, you could see they cared.
Salford seemed to have put 2015 behind them and were showing
themselves to be genuine top 8 contenders.
Then came the news the next day that the RFL have charged
Salford Red Devils with breaching the Salary Cap in both 2014 and 2015 and
they, potentially, face a 20 point deduction if found guilty.
Now, it should have been left at that. By all means Koukash
and Salford have the right to reply to the charges and, obviously, deny them
but do we need a full blown press conference for Koukash to vent his spleen at
the RFL once again and be splashed all over the rugby league press and websites
and social media for all and sundry to see?
Koukash has made it clear many times that he does not like
the RFL and thinks that they are targeting his club and constantly wants to go
into battle with them.
I like Koukash and think he is, overall, good for the game but
he needs to reign himself in when it comes to his attacks on the RFL. He should
know by now that he needs to work with them rather than against them and that,
in the end, there will be only one winner.
He will have his opportunity to respond to the charges
brought by the RFL and, if found guilty, he will have to accept the resultant
penalties. If the club is found not guilty then he will have his chance to
berate the RFL.
Unlike Melbourne Storm who were found guilty of breaching
the salary cap in the NRL a few years ago, the Red Devils don’t have any Minor
Premierships or Grand Final wins to be stripped of so, undoubtedly, any punishment
will come in the form of a fine and, highly probably, a points deduction.
Even so, a points deduction will not concern them too much
as they will be far too strong for the majority of teams in the middle 8
qualifiers and will easily retain their Super League position – but is it
within the RFL’s power to relegate them if they decide that the breaches of the
salary cap are very serious?It will be a very interesting tribunal hearing.
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