SIX TO GO – The Challenge Cup, Wigan bias and some heroes.

Welcome to the latest edition of Six to Go, looking at some of the things that have caught my eye over the past 7 days.

1.       Challenge Cup – Super League v. Championship

There are 4 tasty looking Super League v. Championship ties in the 5^th Round of the Challenge Cup this weekend and whilst I expect all of the Super League sides to prevail I would not be surprised to see at least one of them get knocked out. The bottom 4 teams in Super League in 2014 enter the competition a round earlier than last years top 8 as the competition is seeded for the first time in it’s history – a concept I am not too keen on as it will give the lower league sides less opportunity to face and upset their Super League counterparts. The Challenge Cup has always been about the romance of small clubs taking on the big guns and beating them or giving them a run for their money. The 4 big ties this weekend see Hull Kingston Rovers travel to relegated Bradford Bulls, Hull FC travel to Sheffield Eagles, Wakefield Trinity Wildcats entertain Halifax and the TV tie of the round sees Salford City Reds travel to local rivals and runaway Championship leaders Leigh Centurions. Everyone will be interested to see how Leigh get on against Salford and this will be seen as a barometer for their Super League hopes in the Super 8’s later in the year. They will certainly be fired up with former Red Devils forward Gareth Hock likely to play for Leigh even though Salford say he signed an agreement not to play against them until the end of 2016. This has played out across twitter this week in a will he won’t he be allowed to play farce between the two clubs. That needs to be forgotten about and put to one side for the good of the game. Let him play and may the best team win. This game will be one hell of a battle – the Leigh Sports Village will create a great atmosphere and Salford are without the banned Rangi Chase. I think Salford will edge this but don’t be surprised to see Leigh win the game – they are in a confident mood having won 20 consecutive games going back to last season. In the other fixtures the two Hull sides should win against Bradford and Sheffield but both sides will put up a big fight and with Wakefield Trinity on a horror 8 game losing run and with injuries galore they will have their work cut out to get over local rivals Halifax but I expect them to gain a 6^th round place….just.

2.       The refs from where????? Why?

Phil Bentham

Talking about the Leigh v. Salford cup tie and you have to wonder what formula they use to decide the referee appointments on a weekend. Phil Bentham is, probably, the best referee in Super League at the moment and is used to handling big games and will not have a problem looking after what is a potentially feisty encounter between two local rivals with a committed and vociferous home support roaring their team on to cause an upset. There is also the added pressure of a national TV audience as well. So far so reasonable before you learn that Bentham was born in…..Leigh. Now we all know that referee’s should be impartial and probably are but there is no reason for the RFL to put their man under more pressure and scrutiny then he is already. There are 4 other full time match officials that could have been given this appointment and none of them have an affiliation with Leigh or Salford. This is a tie that could go down to the wire and let’s hope there isn’t a last minute controversial decision that gives Leigh an upset victory.

3.       Justin Carney injury

Carney injury v. Hull KR

Many people who saw the Justin Carney injury against Hull KR on Saturday night can be forgiven for thinking that the injury wasn’t that serious but I am also sure there were a lot of people who had to look away from the TV screen and realised the how bad it was. Carney dislocated his elbow but you wouldn’t have guessed it by the way he reacted. A dislocated elbow is a horrible and painful injury but Carney just laid their calmly waiting for the physios and walked off as if he had been substituted and was heading for a rest – the only positive for me was that he didn’t get the ball down for the try as it would have been an even worse score line for my team!!!! In all seriousness, Carney is great rugby league player and the Cas fans love him to bits – he is all action, hustle and bustle and full of power and raging aggression and he is the kind of player you love to have in your team and the type opposition fans love to hate but have a grudging respect for. He has been a great signing for the Tigers, has scored 54 tries in 54 games and his contract runs until the end of the 2019 season – giving him plenty of time to cement his position as a Castleford legend. I hope he isn’t out too long this season as he is great to watch whether you love him or hate him. Can you imagine the fuss a professional footballer would have made with the same injury!!!

 

4.       To dive or not to dive!! Just keep it quiet!

Diver? Glenn Stewart.

The big controversy over in Australia this week was South Sydney Rabbitohs forward Glenn Stewart admitting he took a dive so that a North Queensland try was disallowed. The incident occurred with the Rabbitohs leading 12-4 with less than 30 seconds left on the clock to the half time hooter and incensed the Cowboys players. Who could blame them? The try and conversion would have got them right back in the game and as it was they trailed by 8 at the break. However, they obviously used all their pent up aggression positively and severely kicked the Rabbitohs backside in the second half scoring 26 unanswered points to secure a surprise 30-12 victory against the reigning Premiers. The win was their third straight win coming off the back of three consecutive defeats at the start of the year and whilst you can understand the furore in the press it wasn’t as if Stewart wasn’t obstructed in the first place. OK, maybe he shouldn’t have gone to ground so easily but either way it was a dead set obstruction by the Cowboys player and it was the right decision to disallow the try. Obviously, we don’t want football type diving coming in to our game but I think it was far enough away from that type of thing not to worry too much about it. Have a look for yourselves at the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR4WSYNeSWs

5.       Flower returns for Wigan – so what!! (and so does Sam Tomkins)

The ovation Ben Flower received as he ran onto the pitch for his return to the Wigan team after his 6 month ban for assaulting Lance Hohaiha in last year’s Grand Final made me cringe. Flower is an average rugby player who will forever be best known for his Grand Final thuggery. You would have thought it was the return of Sam Tomkins the way the crowd reacted not to mention the fits Eddie and Stevo were having ‘’This is for Ben Flower’’ said Eddie as the crowd rose to their feet – embarrassing on both counts. At half time the Warriors announced the ‘surprise’ news that they had re-signed Sam Tomkins from New Zealand Warriors on a 4 year deal at the cost of a £200,000.00 transfer fee, giving Sky even more reason to fly the Wigan flag. In fact the whole of last night’s commentary for the Warriors win over Warrington Wolves was so full of Wigan bias that the positions of Eddie, Stevo and Phil Clarke should be called in to question.

6.       Keith Senior and Paul Sculthorpe complete Marathon Des Sables

Paul Sculthorpe and Keith Senior

Now to some people who deserves ovations. Rugby League players aren’t just heroes on the pitch and some carry that into their lives off the pitch and two such former players have done just that in the last week or so. Former internationals Keith Senior and Paul Sculthorpe, seasoned extreme eventers and fundraisers, have this week completed the gruelling 6 day Marathon des Sables through the Moroccan desert in blistering heat. In addition to running over 150 miles, competitors also had to carry their own food and medical supplies with them throughout the race, weighing approx. 15kgs. Scully was raising money for the Steve Prescott Foundation – which benefits Christies Hospital in Manchester, Try Assist which helps seriously injured rugby league players and the Oxford Transplant Unit which is where Steve Prescott was treated whilst Senior was raising money for military charity ‘Walking with the Wounded’. Both men undertook extensive training for the challenge including training in heat chambers at Liverpool John Moores and Sheffield Hallam University’s. The first three days of the race saw the competitors completing a marathon a day whilst on day 4 they were expected to complete a 92km run in 24 hours to enable them to have a rest day on day 5. Day 6 is another marathon and on day 7 the competitors get to run an extra 10km as they take part in the Unicef Charity day. All of this in 40deg heat and on SAND!!! These men need to be recognised for what they have put themselves through for some great charity’s and proves that rugby league has some wonderful people associated with it.
                                                                 Give these guys a medal……….and a few beers!!!!


A bit of extra time thinking:

Great news for Super League that St. Helens impressive prop forward Alex Walmsley has turned down offers from the NRL to sign a 3 ½  year contract extension with the champions. Walmsley is an outstanding player and has had a great start to 2015 and if he continues his current form throughout the year he will challenge for a place in the England squad for the Test Series against New Zealand at the end of the year.

It was good to see last week that Leeds Rhinos didn’t leave troubled full back Zak Hardaker high and dry after he admitted he had anger issues and wanted help to work through them after he assaulted a student on a boozy night out. I don’t think he will be to upset that he has lost a month’s salary, will have to attend an anger management course and will also have to work for 20 hours a week for the club’s foundation for the rest of his contract – at least he is surrounded by supportive long term colleagues and living at home – I hope Eliot Minchella is receiving just as much help after being carted off a far as he could possibly be sent - on loan to the London Broncos!!!!!

A few rumours flying about again this week:

England forward Tom Burgess recently signed a one year contract extension at Souths and, apparently, turned down a major long term contract offer from Manly so that he can test the waters and see if any NFL clubs would be interested in signing him. He is a big unit and a great athlete and he has seen what Jarryd Hayne has done and the earning potential is huge.

 

Manly need half backs for next year and it keeps coming up that they are looking at Hull KR half back Albert Kelly who has a good start to the Super League season having scored 7 tries in 10 games. I hope this goes away and it might be helped by the news that Queensland and Australia half back Daly Cherry-Evans is thinking about reneging on the 4 year multi-million dollar contract he recently signed with the Gold Coast Titans. Apparently he is big mates with Test colleague Nate Myles and he was a big reason for DCE signing for the Titans. Now, the news is that the Eagles are set to sign Myles and this has created a dilemma for DCE and he now wants to stay at the Eagles. Under the NRL rule, any player who has signed a contract with another club has until round 13 to change their minds – why?? If you’ve signed a contract, honour it – except in this instance it’s OK as the Eagles might leave Albert Kelly alone!!!!!

 

Talking of Manly and earlier today they cemented their place at the bottom of the NRL ladder as they lost their 6^th game out of 7 this season, 28-16 to last years losing Grand Finalists Canterbury Bulldogs. St. Helens Grand Final winning coach Nathan Brown is being marked out as the man to replace under fire Head Coach Geoff Toovey although the fact that former Manly and Australia coach Bob Fulton, an Immortal of the game, is being brought back to the club in a consultancy role may help Toovey’s cause. Toovey played under Fulton for the Se Eagles and the two are still great mates. Brown is currently working on a consultancy basis with Melbourne Storm and has this week been appointed as assistant coach to the New South Wales Origin squad under Laurie Daley.

 

On his recent run out to Australia, Hull FC’s Director of Rugby Motu Tony was apparently very keen on talking to the Parramatta Eels out of favour half back Luke Kelly with a view to bringing him over to the UK from 2016.

Last week it was Gareth Widdop that was reportedly leaving the Dragons because of salary cap issues, which he has since denied, and now this week it is the turn for the rumour mill to hit his half back colleague Benji Marshall. Apparently, the Dragons are touting the ex New Zealand captain to other clubs as they are desperate to get his sizeable salary of their books as they need to get them balanced quickly and don’t think they are receiving value for money since they took Marshall away from his nightmare stint in Rugby Union. Any takers in Super League??

 

You can follow me on Twitter @sharpster69.