STEVE P

I can't find the actual 'last game' that you are referring to. Further testimony to my inefficient Web searching skills. I am however amazed to see that the back to back Christmas fixtures throughout the league were largely phased out at the end of the 1960s. I was not quite qualified to buy a pint then, officially speaking.

Worse still, little or no chance for you or me BSJ.

Dewsbury played Batley at one venue on Christmas Day, with the return at the other venue on Boxind Day. I am sure this is true, although these days my memory sometimes remembers what I want it to, rather than what actually happened. I definitely remember one Christmas Day afternoon when Trevor Walker and a bloke called Shuttleworth, who propped for Batley had a real set to at the first scrum. It was just their way of saying Merry Christmas. Both probably played on Boxing Day with a nice big shiner. Sorry, I must sound like a real old giffer sometimes.

Thanks BSJ. Just had a good look through all the information and enjoyed it very much. It puts me in mind of when I was a young boy and every Christmas one of my pressies was a Rugby League Year Book. It was a smallish booklet type thing full of history of the game, information and articles about the current players and sides, and contributions from aces like Alex Murphy. Can't remember who produced it, might have been Windsor the bookies, but I really don't know. I loved it. That and my Victor annual were my favourite bits of Christmas.

Only right. The other sides efforts are somebody else's responsibility.

Ta.

Looks like Crusaders grabbed a couple themselves, making 22 in total. Exciting once in a while, but you wouldn't want to see it every week.

I was looking at Batley's score on Sunday. I couldn't make the tries and goals add up on the BBC score card, but if you allow for a few missed conversions you are looking at around 19 or 20 tries to score 110 points. That averages out at around 4 minutes per try. If you think of how long you are allowed for a conversion, the need to walk back to halfway and take the kick off, etc, it is hard to imagine how many more you could score in a match. I looked online for the highest score ever, but got fed up of being told how many the highest combined score in Super Duper League was, who once scored lots of tries in a game in Australia, and who beat somebody else by the biggest score in Super League history. I gave up. I aren't cut out for this online stuff. Come on BSJ, put me out of my misery.

Sadly, these days as players improve so do their prospects and some follow the money and move on. Don't blame them, young men with a life to build and all that, but I don't have to like it.

14 points it was then, but not the way round I wanted. Hopefully the coach will be happier with today's performance after last week's 'worst of the season' debacle.

Drat, fail to qualify by a year or two. I reckon Dewsbury by 14 points as the away from home juju strikes again.

Not only would I take exception with the coach's interpretation of the quality of the team's performance, but I fail to see how slagging your players off in public when they have just won a hard fought match in difficult conditions can be good coaching practice.

Yes, I said the same about calling the last tackle late. At one time in the first half I thought the ball had already been played before he put his hand up for a Whitehaven last tackle and they were caught with the ball for the hand over. All in all though the ref did OK. If you aren't thinking about him, or noticing him then he is having a good game.

Thoroughly enjoyed the game today, a proper game of rugby. Despite the wet conditions neither side made too many mistakes and the ref kept out of it for the most part. I had to smile when the Whitehaven supporters were singing to us about what we should do with our Yorkshire pudding. I was in a unit in the TA with a load of lads from Cumbria. They don't like Yorkshire men, nor do they like Lancastrians and they very much dislike Scotsmen. In fact they don't like a big percentage of the rest of the people in Cumbria who aren't themselves either. One lad, who was my particular mate, reserved the most intense of his dislike for the bloke who lived next door to him. You most certainly can't accuse them of regional bias. Oh, and, if you needed it, they would have given you the shirt off their back. Today the Whitehaven crowd's good natured banter helped make a grim afternoon into an enjoyable one.

Typical RFL. No point having a simple system if a complicated one will do. Bit of shame to be missing Danny again straight after his head injury break.