Northern Eel

Carriages A, B, D and E have fallen. It looked like C had 5 left, but actually one bloke was at the toilet, so 6.

The Northern Eel Express is now departing Nottinghamshire. I’m experiencing 5p/50p due to the nerves. Have a grand day out folks.

Any fellow geeks fancy counting the remaining seats? I reckon there's about 2k gone unsold in the open areas, and probably another 1000 that didn't go on sale. Based on an estimate of 12k seats in the zones that have been opened, we must be very, very close to 60k, but maybe not just over the line.

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Gone...

There's other faces covered by clothes, but I agree, it looks like a bit of a brain-fart moment. So that's Brimson and who missing out?

I have just had a positive premonition that we put in a performance like the opener at St James' Park v Samoa when we blew a strong, fancied, but slightly rusty team away. We can't can we?

You couldn't resist what we were all thinking. Oh, alright then.... Keep the faith.

We might just limp over 60k, but I can't see many more going from here.

Wouldn't it be lovely to get an Aussie sent off early doors, to repay Adrian Morley's legendary 2003 hit! I think Ganson says something on the lines of, 'Adrian. It's a really bad one. You're off mate!' Come to think of it, I don't think Morley had any thoughts of him being a mate, either before or after that!

Any minute now...

60,015

Give it 24 hours mate. You will be wishing you stayed at home with a toasted current teacake and a Sudoku.

I can't say that he is my favourite 'character' in rugby league, but then neither was Wayne Bennett, who was widely regarded as one of the best coaches ever to live. SW has won pretty much everything he could in that time, with the obvious exception of the WC SF v Samoa. That's not a terrible record... The problem with a sport where there are 2 teams that are obviously better than there rest makes it difficult to judge England (the third best team?) against the highest standards. What if he wins the Ashes? Would you prepared to give him some praise? What about if they lose in a closely-fought series?

Quite. I believe there's lads personally paying £600 each just to fund their own place in the England Masters game this weekend in the capital.