SIX TO GO - COLUMN 3

Welcome to the third edition of Six to Go, looking at some of the things that have caught my eye over the last week or so in the great world of Rugby League.

1. BURGESS DROPPED

Joe Burgess

It looked likely to happen and it did. Young Wigan winger Joe Burgess was dropped for the Warriors Round 4 visit to Castleford Tigers after a series of high profile errors in the opening weeks of the year with his spot going to Dominic Manfredi. Obviously, it made no difference to the Warriors as they were crushed 42-14 in the Jungle by the rampant Tigers. It is usually British forwards who make a success of things in the NRL and our backs have not made an impact on the other side of the world since the likes of Garry Schofield, Ellery Hanley, Martin Offiah and Shaun Edwards, true British Rugby League legends, were running around impressing our Antipodean friends 25 to 30 years ago. It was going to be hard enough as it was for the young man to gain a first grade spot at the Sydney Roosters with the calibre of player they already have in their back line – but now he could find himself playing for the Warriors dual registration partner Workington Town in the Championship less than 12 months before he moves across to the other side of the world. Burgess is a player of undoubted ability. He scored 20 tries in 23 appearances in his first full Super League season in 2014 and earned a non-playing spot in England’s Four Nations squad at the end of the year. He has scored two Super League tries this year plus the brilliant full length effort in the World Club Series game against Brisbane Broncos – but the errors he has made have cost his team tries against Widnes, Brisbane and, most recently, Hull KR. He is by no means the finished article and he will get back into the Warriors side this year but the Roosters will have a mountain of work to do to make him ready for the NRL.

2. SUPER LEAGUE DOESN’T MEAN THE END

The general assumption is that most players leave the NRL and come to Super League on something of a downward curve in their career and want to earn some major cash on the back of their reputation or simply because they are not good enough to be a 1^st grade regular in the NRL anymore, if they ever where, and disappear into retirement when they leave the UK.

95% of the time that is correct but there are a few exceptions and some players come over here for the right reasons, improve their game and end up back in the big time. Gavin Miller re-built his career at Hull Kingston Rovers in the mid-80’s and went home and became a World Cup winning Australian international whilst Jamie Lyon came over to St. Helens as a major name, had two great years at the Saints and went back to Manly Sea Eagles an even better player and his career has carried on an upward trajectory and he is the current Manly captain.

The latest player to buck the trend is Pat Richards. Richards made his name on the wing in the Wests Tigers 2005 Grand Final winning side when he scored 20 tries in 28 appearances including a try in the Grand Final off THAT Benji Marshall pass. He joined Wigan Warriors the following year and, at just 24 years of age, was in the prime of his career. He struggled to assert himself or tie down a regular spot in 2006 and was dropped to reserve grade for a while as the Warriors struggled against relegation. From 2007 onwards he became an automatic choice and won many games for the Warriors with his wonderful goal kicking and his ability to pick high balls out of the air to score valuable tries. He ended his Warriors career at the end of 2013 having won two Super League titles, two Challenge Cup winners medals and two League Leaders Shields but even more importantly he had scored 167 tries (tied 10th in Super League history) and 899 goals (incl. 4 drop goals) in just 224 appearances for an individual points total of 2462 and holds the Wigan club record for points in a season with 462 in 2010.

Pat Richards kicks the winning drop goal v. GC Titans.

He was 32 years of age when he set foot back in the NRL in 2014 for the Wests Tigers and scored a respectable 9 tries in 20 games and kicked 54 from 63 goals. He was brought back to my attention with his last minute field goal that gave the Tigers a round 1 19-18 win at Gold Coast Titans at the weekend and the fact that a couple of media types mentioned that he would not look out of place in Origin – now that would be something at 33 years of age.

 3. CAN’T CHILD GO AS WELL??

Tim Roby and that beard.

Super League Match Official Tim Roby announced that he and his partner were moving out to Australia after he was offered a positon as a Match Official in the NRL. Firstly, why they would want any of our officials is beyond me – surely they have enough Australian and New Zealand officials making errors as it is without bringing in a Pom who has sometimes ran around with the most ridiculous child like looking beard I have seen. When I saw he was taking his partner, I was praying that he was in a same sex partnership with James Child and the Aussies would be getting a 2 for 1 - it appears that that is not the case and we are stuck with Child. Good luck Tim, you are probably one of the better ones – that’s not saying too much though.

 4. MANLY WOES

DCE - Titans bound.

Round 1 of the NRL has just been completed and already you’ve got to feel sorry for fans of Manly Sea Eagles. Not only did they lose their opening game of the year against Parramatta Eels but it has now been confirmed that star half back Daly Cherry Evans has signed a 4million dollar four year contract with the troubled Gold Coast Titans from next year. Evans, who was off contract at the end of this year, has played all of his first grade Rugby League with Manly scoring 28 tries in just over 100 appearances but you certainly can’t blame him for taking the money that the Titans are throwing at him as it will certainly secure his family’s future – whether he will get anywhere near winning a Grand Final with the Titans is another thing. 

Foran - Eels bound??

Now Manly’s other off contract star half back Kieran Foran is reported to have signed an even bigger four year 4.7million dollar contract with Parramatta Eels. Foran has also played all of his first grade career with the Sea Eagles and it must be galling for a club like Manly to lose such high quality players on the back of the losses of club legends Glenn Stewart (Rabbitohs) and Anthony Watmough (Eels) at the end of 2014.

Evans had a contract offer taken off the table by the club last week and also revealed that he had agreed a new deal, in principle, with the old management team at the club last year. It appears that since the new management came in the club seems to be falling apart. It could be a long hard year for the Sea Eagles and their fans.

5. BUSY BOY NIGEL

Nigel Wood

Nigel Wood is a very busy boy has had a hectic week. As the boss of the Rugby Football League AND Super League he has been setting out his 7 year plan to grow the sport and make England World Champions and as the Chairman of the Rugby League International Federation he introduced the organisations first CEO this week.

Wood revealed ambitious plans last week for the period up to 2021 and they included increasing the games turnover from £118m to £146m, increase spectator numbers from 2.3m to 3m with an increase of TV viewers from 17m to 22m per year and he also expect the total number of registered players to rise from the current 46,636 to 65,929 – I love how these player numbers are SO specific, how do we know the EXACT number of people that will be playing the game in 6 years time??

But his main objective, and the one that he has the least control over, is that he wants England to win the World Cup in 2017. Yes, just two years down the line AND in Australia / New Zealand he is expecting the England RL squad to win the World Cup, something we have not done since 1972 when the late great Clive Sullivan went the full length down the wing in front of not many supporters somewhere in France.

Don’t get me wrong because I and probably everyone who reads this will want England to win the World cup in 2017 – the one question that Mr. Wood will not be able to answer is HOW we will do that – it is OK making it an aim or an objective but you have also got to put a plan in place of how to get to where you want to be – ’A’ IS WHERE WE ARE NOW – ‘B’ IS WHERE WE WANT TO BE – WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO TO GET FROM ‘A’ TO ‘B’? Sounds simple, but we all know it’s not that easy and we don’t even know who the coach will be as Wood admitted that no talks had taken place with incumbent Steve McNamara although he will definitely be in charge for the New Zealand series later in the year.

David Collier - new RLIF CEO

Earlier this week Wood introduced David Collier as the very first Chief Executive Officer of the Rugby League International Federation – Collier has a wealth of experience of top level sports administration after spending 10 years as head of the England and Wales Cricket Board and he has also worked for the International Cricket Council and the International Hockey Federation so there is no doubt he is a major catch for the game of Rugby League.

His brief is to expand the game worldwide and with more new countries gaining membership status with the RLIF, including Serbia and Spain recently, he is coming to the game at a good time and it has got to be hoped that he is listened to and that his recommendations are acted upon.

6. SAD ABOUT MICK / HELLO SHAUN!!

Mick Weyman

My team, Hull Kingston Rovers, had an up and down day on Wednesday. Everyone who supports the club will have been sad to hear the news that former Canberra and St. George Illawarra prop forward Mick Weyman has decided to retire immediately due to a knee injury. We heard last week that he had had a clear out of his knee and that he could be out for 10-12 weeks but the big man has now taken the best decision for himself and his family and decided to end what has been an outstanding career in professional Rugby League in which Weyman has represented New South Wales and Australia. I will always remember Mick as a hard working never say die prop forward who gave everything he had every time he wore the red and white of Hull KR. Whenever we scored a try and Mick came back to the North Stand for the kick off he always got a big round of applause and cheers because we could all see the effort he was putting in and he would give us a cheeky little grin in return, especially if he had just scored himself. Good luck Mick, it’s been a pleasure watching you perform.

Shaun Lunt

On the same day the club released the news that we have signed Huddersfield Giants hooker Shaun Lunt on loan for the rest of the year. I am deliriously happy about this – we desperately need a hooker to replace Josh Hodgson and we were all hoping that we could have bagged him in the off season. That didn’t work out and coach Chris Chester has given early season opportunities to Keal Carlile and Frenchman John Boudebza. Carlile has not worked out and has been dropped for the last two games whilst Boudebza’s form has been encouraging and there is light at the end of the tunnel for this inexperienced player. However, we have been lacking in good work out of dummy half this year – Hodgson gave us a great attacking option from that position that we have just not had so far this year but with Lunt we will now have that in spades. He is also strong and rugged defensively and is still only 27 years old. The Giants loaned him out for the season to the Rhinos in 2012 and he won a Grand Final ring with them – I’m not suggesting the same will happen in East Hull but I guarantee he will make us a better team.

Rumours also in the last 2 weeks that Ryan Bailey has or will be leaving the club because he has failed to settle. The club are officially giving us information regarding injuries and that he will be back soon but there is just too much smoke on this one for there not to be any fire – I wouldn’t be surprised if an announcement was made shortly that we had off loaded him to somewhere closer to his West Yorkshire home (I’ve heard Wakefield and I’d like Danny Kirmond in exchange please!!) – either way, we need him out of the door or on the field soon because he is eating up a decent amount of salary cap for us and he needs to start earning it or let us free it up for someone who wants to play for Hull KR.

A bit of extra time thinking:

The Catalans Dragons v. Salford Red Devils match last Saturday was a hell of an entertaining game wasn’t it – there was no tough defence, apart from the Junior Sau hit on Todd Carney  but there was some lovely Rugby League played and some great tries scored – it was perfect Saturday afternoon entertainment. Talking about the Carney hit – as far as I am concerned it was all above board, the main problem was caused by the fact that Carney did not see him coming and could not brace himself for the tackle – it’s a shame because Carney looked to be settling in well and was forming a good link with Scott Dureaux. The main controversy was the last minute penalty awarded to Salford by Phil Bentham – Dragons full back Morgan Escare was tackled but didn’t hear his call and got up and played on. A couple of years ago that WOULD have been a penalty but everyone thought that the player was now brought back to allow him to play the ball – true, but not on this occasion and Bentham awarded the Red Devils a kickable penalty in the last minute that they converted to earn a Super League record 40-40 draw. Referee’s again having a major impact on a game and getting the full backing of his boss, Jon Sharp, who stated that the decision was correct. A full explanation please!!!!!

Obviously, St. Helens aren’t as bad as everyone has been thinking in the last couple of weeks as evidenced by South Sydney Rabbitohs 36-6 demolition of Brisbane Broncos at the weekend. The Rabbitohs are currently on another planet.

As second half blow out’s go, Hull FC’s was pretty spectacular against the Rhinos last Thursday. They played really well in the first half and led 12-0 but the Rhinos upped their game in the second half, much to the delight of us Hull KR fans, and destroyed the black and whites with 43 unanswered points. Social Media was awash with FC fans venting their anger at that second half performance and who can blame them with the amount of money they invest in their squad added to the fact that they only conceded 1 try in the first two rounds but have now conceded 13 in their last two games. Is their coach, Lee Radford, under pressure already??