ROAD TRIP - LEEDS RHINOS V. NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS - A DAY OF EPIC FAILURE

This day of epic failure actually began a few weeks ago.

There was me thinking what a good idea it would be to head over to Headingley to watch Leeds Rhinos take on the North Queensland Cowboys and to watch the great man, JT, play – you don’t get that opportunity very often in the flesh.

I was excited about a full house at Headingley under the lights and a, potentially, momentous victory for the Rhinos.

It wasn’t until a few days after I had ordered the tickets that I realised that not all of the weekend’s Super League fixtures had been postponed and that my team, Hull Kingston Rovers, were at home against Wakefield Trinity Wildcats on the same day as the Rhinos were playing the Cowboys.

Rovers were kicking off at 3 pm with the Rhinos due to kick off at 705 pm – could I make both games on the same day?

I decided not and that was probably the best decision I made.

It gave us a bit more time to play with and I decided that a little education allied to a game of rugby league would be a good idea for my travelling companion – my 12 year old eldest son, Kelland.

Royal Armouries - educational!!

So I decided that we would take in the Royal Armouries prior to us heading over to Headingley for the big game.

The missus, not a big rugby league fan but leaning towards Hull FC, agreed to take our other kids to the Rovers game so they did not miss out.

One of my children is also a Hull FC fan, although I’m sure he thinks the Airlie Bird actually plays for the team such is his knowledge, and he was not happy about having to attend ‘’Caravan Park’’ with a load of Gypsies as he puts it so politely – although his head was soon turned by the promise of a hot chocolate and a hot dog – how easily some children are swayed!!

We both set off at about the same time – myself and my eldest son heading off down the A1079 and Mychelle heading towards the KC Lightstream Stadium for her first ever taste of the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ and the enticing thought of watching Rovers play Wakefield – quite easily the second biggest Super League match of the weekend!!

My eldest son was happy with a drink and a few snacks for the car journey to Leeds with the promise of a McDonald’s somewhere during the day whilst my other children were not quite sure that they would receive the usual treats at Rovers from their mother that they get from their father on match day – I assured them that their mother would not let them go hungry or deprive them of a hot drink on a cold day but I’m not sure they were convinced by the looks on their faces.

On the journey up the A1079 towards Beverley I was telling Kelland about the Royal Armouries and why it was a good idea to at least have a look around the place for an hour rather than spending it on his IPhone sat in a McDonald’s.

I have decided that all of my children are intelligent but that they just like to hide it from me.

Kelland could see that it was important to me that he looked at least a little bit interested in this piece of history and culture that we were going to experience together on our boys day out.

My son loves his rugby league and had watched the other World Club Series games over the weekend and asked me a very interesting question about why the NRL teams seemed so much stronger than the Super League teams this year – I was formulating my reply in my head when a sudden thought hit me like a freight train – ‘’TICKETS – I’VE FORGOTTEN THE TICKETS.’’

My son seemed to find this amusing until I glared at him and reiterated the fact that I had actually forgotten the tickets.

Now, this wouldn’t seem to be too much of a problem as we had not got that far from home but there were one or two other problems that my mind registered immediately:

1.       I didn’t have a house key on me (I don’t appear to be important enough to have one of them)

        and

2.       Mychelle had already set off for the Rovers game.

My only hope was the fact that Mychelle is generally late for everything and is never ready to go out when she should be.

Cue an immediate about turn at the next roundabout to head back home and a frantic phone call to Mychelle’s mobile.

As she was driving at the time, yes she had set off on time for once,  my 9 year old Hull FC supporting son answered the phone and I immediately screamed down the phone ‘’WHERE ARE YOU?’’, he then repeated the question to his mother because he didn’t have a clue and, to be honest, I am not altogether sure that Mychelle knew where she was but the question came back ‘’Why?’’ and I then told them that I had forgotten the match tickets.

My 9 year old Hull FC supporting son then creased up with laughter and struggled to get out the words ‘’He’s forgotten the tickets.’’ because he was laughing that much.

This laughter just annoyed me even further but I eventually agreed a meeting spot near Rovers ground where I would pick up a house key.

This meant that I would waste a lot of time travelling through the huge amount of traffic created by the massive army of red and white fans that would be looking forward to an enthralling afternoon’s rugby league at the KC Lightstream Stadium.

Fortunately, my timing must have been impeccable because I got through East Hull across Holderness Road and down to Preston Road pretty easily and met with Mychelle and the kids at our agreed meeting spot, picked up the house key and headed home to pick up the tickets and start the journey over to Leeds all over again exactly 1 hour since we had originally set off.

Now, Kelland may well have been thinking,  through his tears of laughter and incredulity at me forgetting the tickets, that he would get away with his slight brush with history and culture at the Royal Armouries and head straight to a McDonald’s instead.

No, we still had time to get across to Leeds and spend at least an hour walking around the museum.

As we were driving across to Leeds it was close to kick off time for the Rovers v. Wakefield game and Kelland wanted to listen to it on the radio – something I am not a big fan of purely because the majority of local radio commentators and summarisers cannot string two or three words together without ‘’yer know’’ being unnecessarily thrown into their comments. Something along the lines of ‘’I think Albert Kelly should have, yer know, kept hold of that ball instead of passing it, yer know, into the stand.’’

As it is the Hull accent does not lend itself to good radio listening – as proud as I am to be from Hull I don’t really enjoy listening to Hull people talk on TV or on the radio – we do sound quite thick at times.

Anyway, we started listening to the game and I was fully confident that we would win the match despite the number of injuries to key players that we have – we were only playing Wakey after all.

We seemed to start off OK and the early pressure was all from Rovers and we took the lead from a Kieran Dixon try in the corner – unfortunately we were without Josh Mantellato for the second week in a row and we, like Leeds without Kevin Sinfield, cannot convert tries without him – high quality goal kickers really are worth their weight in gold.

So, this lifted the mood a little bit after our mad dash around Hull but we were soon brought back down to earth when the inspired commentators told us how poor Rovers defended when letting first Mickael Simon and then Stuart Howarth waltz through our paper thin defence.

Unfortunately, Wakey have Liam Finn and he can kick goals – he converted both tries and Rovers were down 12-4. Adam Walker got us another try before half time but we missed the kick AGAIN.

By the time half time came around we had arrived at the Royal Armouries so we turned off our friends from Radio Humberside and headed for some history and culture.

The Royal Armouries is the national museum of arms and armour, including artillery and the Leeds section of the Armouries was opened in 1996 – the Royal Armouries historic base is actually the Tower of London and the Armouries as a whole is the UK’s oldest museum and is now spread across three sites – Leeds, Tower of London and Fort Nelson (Portsmouth).

The Leeds section is based at Leeds Dock in a purpose built £42.5million museum on the banks of the River Aire and was part of a regeneration of the Leeds waterfront area.

Hall of Steel - impressive.

I would like to say that I was thoroughly impressed but I would be exaggerating somewhat – it was interesting in some areas and the central ‘Hall of Steel’ that runs upwards through the building and holds in excess of 2,500 objects, apparently the largest mass display of arms and armour since the 19^th century, is impressive.

I particularly enjoyed the exhibits from the Crusades and the times of William the Conqueror and it brought back a lot of memories from my time at school and I tried to show as much enthusiasm as possible for my eldest son and urged him to look, read and learn rather than play with his IPhone.

He tried to show some interest, bless him, but museums seem to instantly conjure up boredom in a young person’s mind these days and I have found that the older my children have got the less ‘’cool’’ they believe learning and education is – I blame it on peer pressure.

Anyway, I couldn’t be too aggrieved with him because as I walked around and found some of the exhibitions a little bit dull I started following the Rovers v. Wakefield game on Twitter.

My mood slowly went downhill even though Rovers scored the only try of the second half through the magnificent Ken Sio.

Once again we failed to convert the try – Josh Mantellato hurry back please – and with Wakefield kicking a penalty goal we trailed 14-12.

I actually prefer following rugby matches on Twitter than on local radio – there are a distinct lack of ‘’yer knows’’ on Twitter and I can just put my phone in my pocket and easily pick up the thread again a few minutes later.

It was obviously a low quality match – Mychelle rang me at half time and decided that she would not be returning to her seat in the second half because it was too cold and the game was ‘crap’ in her words.

She decided to sit in the warmth below the North Stand with my Hull FC supporting 9 year old son who started complaining that he had a rash because he was at ‘Caravan Park’.

Rovers bombed chance after chance according to my Twitter timeline and Wakefield also had opportunities to close the game out but neither side seemed able to complete the simple task of touching the rugby ball down on the floor over the try line and either dropped the ball or were tackled into touch.

Anyway, by the time we left the Royal Armouries and got back to the car a few minutes later we had lost the game 14-12 – a result that would cost Head Coach Chris Chester his job a couple of days later - things could only get better!!

I set the SatNav for Headingley and started the short journey to the home of Leeds Rhinos.

Headingley Carnegie Stadium
 

I love the Headingley Carnegie Stadium as it has been known for the last 10 years and do not go there nearly enough.

It is a proper rugby league ground and celebrated it’s 125 year anniversary late last year with a sold out Tour Match against New Zealand.

The stadium was built in 1889 by Leeds St. John’s, who would later become Leeds Rugby League club, and they were joined in 1991 by Leeds Rugby Union club – now called Yorkshire Carnegie.

It is a fantastic ground and has always provided a wonderful atmosphere when full or close to it and that’s one of the things that drew me to the game with North Queensland Cowboys.

I used to travel to Headingley every season back in the 80’s when Hull KR where the top team in the league and took a huge away following. There was no segregation in those days and we often piled into the South Stand and competed with the Leeds fans to create a great atmosphere.

It was also the ground at which I saw my First Test Match – Great Britain v. New Zealand back in 1985 and also, just 7 months ago, Hull KR won a famous Challenge Cup semi-final victory over Warrington Wolves at Headingley to reach the Challenge Cup Final for the first time since 1986.

So, what else drew me to this game?

Certainly not the ease of finding a parking spot, we did eventually find one down the same side street that we had parked for the semi-final back in August, or the price of the food and drink in the ground.

I no longer find it surprising that I have to pay £3.80 for a hot dog or a bacon sandwich in a rugby ground but it still makes me wince and the price of the Fish and Chips certainly kept me close to my diet!!

Wet and windy on the Western Terrace!

The weather had started to deteriorate as well and we had tickets for the Western Terrace which is not covered. We had expected this and so were dressed accordingly but tried to keep out of the gale force wind and rain for as long as we could and ended up in the Sports Bar that looks out onto the cricket ground.

Now this is another thing I love about Headingley – it is the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club – the reigning County Champions and the club that has won more Championships than any other.

The cricket ground is adjoined to the rugby stadium on the northern side and was opened in 1891 and started hosting Test Matches in 1899.

It is a great sight and I always want my kids to see it even though they have no interest in or any idea how cricket works!!!!! 

Plans have recently been unveiled for a major redevelopment of the stadium with a brand new South Stand on the rugby side which will include both a seated and standing area and a replacement for the existing joint stand which overlooks both the rugby pitch and cricket pitch on the northern side – as yet no timescale has been announced but I am sure it will be fantastic.

Everything Leeds Rugby club does seems to be fantastic – they are without doubt the template for an expertly ran sports club in my opinion.

To the match itself, and the main reason for venturing to Leeds on Sunday night was the opportunity to watch the one of the greatest rugby league players of modern times in action – unfortunately Jamie Jones-Buchanan was injured and we had to make do with Jonathan Thurston!!!

I jest of course – as good as JJB is, no one can hold a candle to JT.

When Leeds won the Grand Final back in October and the Cowboys did the same in Australia 8 days later, I made the promise to my eldest son that we would head across for this match in the New Year – the thought of a bouncing Headingley under the lights watching JT play in a hard fought meaningful encounter was enticing.

I really like this expanded World Club Series venture and fully believe that we need to continue it in it’s existing format for a few more years rather than expand it even further.

We have shown in one off matches in the past few years that Super League sides can compete with, and defeat, NRL sides.

From the World Club Challenge concept being re-born in 2000, when Melbourne Storm easily defeated St. Helens 44-6, and Leeds Rhinos defeating the Storm in 2008, Super League sides won 7 out of the 9 one off contests.

However, the tide has turned since 2009 and Super League sides had won only 1 out of 11 matches between the sides if you include the expanded contests from 2015 and 2016 leading up to this match.

On the two nights prior to the Cowboys visit to Headingley both the Sydney Roosters and Brisbane Broncos had embarrassed St. Helens and Wigan Warriors respectively – winning both matches comfortably.

The major concern was that the same thing would happen to the Super League champions.

Everyone knew that Leeds had lost players of the calibre of Kevin Sinfield, Jamie Peacock, Paul Aiton and Kylie Leuluai and it was clear to see in their opening two Super League games, losses at home to Warrington Wolves and a hammering at Widnes Vikings, that they were struggling to come to terms with replacing those great players.

Add in long term injuries to JJB and Stevie Ward, which mean they wouldn’t even start their season’s until much later in the year, and early season injuries picked up by new skipper Danny McGuire and new signing Beau Falloon plus Carl Ablett, Tom Briscoe and Ashton Goulding all in the disastrous defeat at Widnes and the storm clouds were already closing in on Headingley well before the teams entered the field for their warm up.

Lizzie Jones

I loved the fact that Lizzie Jones sung at all three games over the weekend – what happened to her husband and her family last May (if you have had your head in the clouds or are not a rugby league fan you will need to know that her husband, Danny, died of a heart attack whilst playing for Keighley Cougars last May) was heart breaking and tragic – their twins were only a few months old at the time.

Lizzie is a brilliant professional singer and has since sung at high profile events such as the Challenge Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, to a rapturous and emotional welcome, before one of the Test Matches against New Zealand at the end of last season and, very impressively, at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards in Belfast last December.

She was singing at all three venues over the World Club Series weekend to help raise awareness of her campaign to ensure that enough funds are raised so that defibrilator’s are available at every rugby league ground, professional and amateur, in the country – a very worthwhile cause.

North Queensland named the 17 man line up that had so magnificently won them their maiden Premiership title last October with a golden point drop goal victory over Brisbane Broncos.

How many other Premiership winning teams from either side of the world have even retained their full squad for the following season let alone played them in World Club challenge?

A big cheer went around the ground when Jonathan Thurston’s name was read out on the team sheet, it appeared everyone in the ground was looking forward to seeing him play.

The Rhinos really did have a big job on their hands if they were to win a record fourth World Club title and for the first 40 minutes the Rhinos gave as good as they got.

Adam Cuthbertson started off well and was off loading virtually at will and the Rhinos seemed to have a spark that wasn’t there in the first couple of rounds and they were defending strongly.

JT’s first couple of involvements were not good either – the first was a kick through near the line that was cleared up easily by Ryan Hall and the second was a strong pass across the line that was knocked on under pressure.

However, it was 3^rd time lucky for JT.

The Cowboys had an attacking set close to the Rhinos line and JT was on the right hand side of the attack heading towards the Western Terrace where we were stood.

Michael Morgan dives over.

Hooker Jake Granville got the ball to JT and a dummy runner was enough to pull Rob Burrow in and JT hit his half back partner Michael Morgan with a beautiful pass and Morgan scorched in for the opening try – the Western Terrace echoed to my cry of ‘’WHAT A BEAUTFUL PASS!!!’’

JT continued to show he was human though by missing the conversion and his next involvement saw his pass intercepted by Ash Handley.

The Rhinos were really competing well and stand in skipper Rob Burrow was a constant thorn in the Cowboys side from acting half and it was his pass from close to the Cowboys line to the outstanding Cuthbertson that created the Rhinos first, and what turned out to be only, try of the night.

The former Newcastle Knights prop charged at the line and cleverly flipped the ball out of the back of his hand to the supporting Burrow who took Lachlan Coote over the line with him – the ground erupted and I think the Rhinos players were just as surprised themselves that they had got back on level terms.

Rob Burrow levels the scores.
 

Leeds managed to hold the Cowboys for the rest of the half, and created one or two chances themselves, and they could be proud of their first half efforts going in at 4-4 and in with a real chance of winning the match.

The second half was a different story and the Cowboys ran away with the game after scoring two very early tries – the first within a minute of the kick off from a dropped ball close to the Rhinos line.
It was a very soft try and seemed to deflate the Rhinos, and the crowd, and it was just a case of trying to remain competitive for the rest of the game.

They did manage that to a certain extent but Thurston and the Cowboys were now in cruise control with JT controlling everything the Cowboys did and having a hand in just about all of their tries.

JT scores against the Rhinos.

Put simply, he knows how to run a rugby league team. He doesn’t do anything particularly spectacular, he will not make 80 yard breaks, is not fleet of foot nor overly muscular and physical – he doesn’t need to be – but he is constantly thinking and making sure he, and his team, are one or two steps in front of the opposition.

The one thing to get the home crowd roaring in the second half was the cheap shot from Mitch Garbutt on James Tamou. I don’t think Garbutt should be lauded for what he did, a punch can be very dangerous and I don’t think Tamou deserved to be laid out because of a light slap on another player, in fact there was no need for Garbutt to get involved.

The former Brisbane Broncos prop deserved to be sent off and should have been banned for at least 6 games in my opinion – two is not enough.

There is nothing that gets a crowd going more than a bit of biff but strong hard punches to the head, like Garbutt’s, can prove life changing – we should do what the NRL have done and ban punching totally from the game.

We left the match with about 5 minutes left to play and the Cowboys scored their final try as we were departing the ground past the cricket pitch behind the North Stand so I didn’t get to see the trophy presentation or JT come up to the Sky booth – which was right next to us on the Western Terrace – to do his match analysis with Jon Wells.

Co-captains Matt Scott and JT.

It was now getting colder and we were wet and it was a school night and we had to negotiate our way through the very heavy Headingley traffic before even thinking about getting out of Leeds.

That in itself was a challenge.

We were parked down a little side street called Chapel Lane which was rammed with cars and we were lucky to find one parking spot half way down when we arrived 2 hours before kick off.

However, I wasn’t feeling lucky 60 minutes after the game had finished when I was still down Chapel Lane.

The traffic was ridiculous and we were hardly moving plus one or two other problems had occurred as well.

I travel the country a fair bit for my work and have come to rely on a SatNav to get me everywhere I need to be.

It was the same on this day even though I have been to Leeds many times. Call it an indictment on modern day society if you wish – I just like to make sure I don’t have to read too many road signs!!

Anyway, when we got back to the car – the SatNav wouldn’t charge.

A bit of investigation showed that, somehow, the part that connected my SatNav cable into the car charger had broken. This had happened in the time between us getting out of the car to attend the match and getting back in after it had finished – how did that happen???

My TomTom is a few years old now and the battery dies within minutes without a charger and this was the case again.

Next idea!!

Use my mobile phone. I got the map up easily but at the same time came the message that my phone battery was running low.

No problem – I’ll just charge my phone won’t I? No, I won’t because I didn’t have my charger with me and Kelland’s Iphone battery had also died – a modern technology nightmare!!!!

I knew my way onto Kirkstall Road which then leads onto the M62 but the turn off for the M62 East was closed and I was diverted around Leeds. This was a nightmare of mine because in pre-SatNav days many years ago when I had just passed my test there was an occasion when I just could not find my way out of Leeds.

I felt as though this was happening again – I was urging a very tired eldest son to stay awake and point out any signs that said ‘EAST’ on them.

We were driving around Leeds for about half an hour late at night when I eventually saw a sign for the M1 South – I took a gamble on this and turned the car around and was rewarded with a sign for the M62 EAST and the magical word ‘HULL’ – yes, we were out at last and on our way home.

Kelland could at last fall asleep and eventually got his McDonald’s at 1130pm and went to bed a very tired but happy young man.

It really had been a day full of epic failures but you can’t beat a road trip with your eldest boy and the chance to watch one of the greatest rugby league players of all time in action – I’m looking forward to the next trip already.