WONDERFUL DAY
I congratulate Martyn Sadler on his article on the Learning Disability Super League match between Widnes v Leigh on Good Friday (Talking Rugby League, 18 April).
I was at the game supporting Leigh Centurions and the whole day was thoroughly enjoyabl. I walked down from Widnes train station with two Widnes supporters who very kindly showed me where the ticket office was.
On entering the stadium, a young girls’ game was in progress between Halton and Leigh Miners. They were certainly holding nothing back, playing the game with a wide range of skills and sheer grit and determination. I urge anyone who has never seen a game of Women’s Rugby League to go and watch one.
At half-time, the large crowd was entertained by a Learning Disability Super League game, between Widnes and Leigh. What a wonderful occasion that was. The supporters really got behind the players, cheering every pass, every tackle, every try scored showing the marvellous camaraderie of this sport, which is truly inclusive – for everyone from every walk of life.
If you could have seen the joy on the players’ faces whenever they ran behind the sticks, and the large crowd there were cheering and applauding, singing their efforts. Everyone in the crowd had huge smiles on their faces. It was truly wonderful to be there, and in their own right, aside from the main event, both these games were worth the entrance fee.
Well done to all involved in organising both events; Rugby League really is a very large family.
On another ‘tack’, I am fortunate enough to support people with Additional Needs, in the Manchester and Oldham areas, who bring much joy, fun and love whenever I am with them (at Funky Fitness & Fun, in Oldham). They never cease to amaze me with their humour, their talents and their love, and every day I go home with a smile on my face.
We have just launched a project, called ‘LoveChain’ (please visit www.LoveChain.uk). We are aiming to create a paper-chain to circumnavigate the globe – all 24,901 miles! This is a project for any non-profit-making support organisation, society, school, sports club and so on to raise funds for themselves, by creating a 1 mile-long paper-chain, for which they must arrange their own sponsorship.
Registration is free at www.LoveChain.uk. We need participants to register, so we can keep count of the miles as the LoveChain travels around the Equator.
We would like to hear from you via the CONTACT page on the website, so we can add your story to our Blog. We would love all four teams mentioned above to join in the project and raise much-needed funds for themselves. And if anyone would like to sponsor our effort please visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/love-chain. We are also looking for any professional sports club in Greater Manchester prepared to help, when we have to unravel our one-mile chain. Will anyone who is able to help please email: carita.smith@lovechain.uk. We would love to hear from you.
Graham Unsworth, Saddleworth (Oldham)
THE LOSS OF STATION ROAD
Last Wednesday saw the thirtieth anniversary of the worst day in the history of Swinton RLFC. When we went to Station Road that afternoon we were totally unaware of the fact that the ground had been sold to developers. The bulldozers were ready to flatten our home, yet we knew nothing of it! We left, still totally unaware of the clandestine action taken behind our backs, by the very custodians to whom we had entrusted our beloved club.
To this day, NOBODY has owned up as to why we were not informed beforehand, and NOBODY has offered a single word of apology for stabbing us in the back. Why? Why? Why?
Plenty of other teams have ‘upped-sticks’ and moved to pastures new, but their fans were invited to embrace a ‘last-match’ scenario which we at Swinton were cruelly denied. And yet, three decades on from that fateful day we are still here; we are still proud and (despite the fairly recent attempts of another ex-chairman) we still carry the name of SWINTON – with blue blood running through our veins!
John Spellman, Monton, Eccles
CUT OUT THE GUESSING
The rule that the referee has to decide on a ‘try or no try’ before sending it to the video referee needs to be changed.
A ref who cannot see a try being scored, with absolute certainty, should signal ‘no try’ when passing the decision to the video-referee but that is not happening. Instead, referees are guessing and passing the decision up to the video ref as a try. That is wrong, and when the referee did that last week at Hull, he robbed Warrington Wolves of a win.
The rule should be changed back to what it was before, when the referee did not decide first and then ‘send it up’ for a decision. He simply referred the decision to the video-referee.
The (current) referees are terrible. I wouldn’t let any of them referee a children’s match. In the Hull derby, the Hull winger failed to catch a bomb which clearly went backwards, but James Child ruled a knock-on and the Robins scored, at a vital stage of the game.
Bad decisions like these are happening frequently. We desperately need more referees quality referees or the game will be a laughing stock.
Brian Shaw, Salford
SILENCE PLEASE, ON REFEREES
Is there any chance we could manage a week of Mailbag without any mention of match officials and their perceived bias? The “my team was robbed” and “it wasn’t like that in my day”?
I am just asking this for a friend.
Rachel Pressley, Keighley
NOT SO GOLDEN
On the night of Maundy Thursday, I watched Leeds and Huddersfield battle out an entertaining twenty-all draw, with the Giants achieving the equalising score close to the end of normal time.
We were then subjected to another twenty minutes of ‘Golden Point’ extra time, in the vain hope of creating a result but neither team could score again and we were left with the result that we started with.
With one of the RFL’s buzz words of the season being ‘Player Welfare’, perhaps they can explain exactly what the point is, in trying to force an outcome in tied games, subjecting players to a further twenty-minute battering on the back of an already hard eighty minutes, and let’s not even get started on the two fixtures over Easter, with perhaps the shortest turn around for teams all season and the way additional fatigue may dilute quality.
A tied game in Rugby League is something of a rarity. Some teams may manage one (or occasionally two) in a season but there are often none at all. Thankfully, our game is not like Association Football, in which the ‘bore draw’ is common place. In Rugby League, as happened last Thursday, a drawn game usually generates a extra tense and entertaining run-up to the end of regulation time.
Ours is not like an American sport, where it seems there must be a winner and a loser at whatever cost. Going right back to the earliest days, Rugby League fans have always understood the concept of an equitable outcome at the end of normal time.
Don’t get me wrong. Golden Point is a necessary way of resolving any game which has to present a winner ‘on the day’ to avoid a replay. Knockout Cup fixtures for example. But that does not apply to run-of-the-mill, domestic League games.
Also, I would be surprised if the game’s various broadcast partners appreciate having their schedules mucked up by an unpredictable extra twenty minutes of play, when they should be analysing the finer points of the game just gone. Golden point has never been popular with the paying spectator. So, given the ongoing focus on player health, safety and welfare of the players in both the short and longer term, the time has surely come to consign the concept of Golden Point to history. Not least, to protect the most important part of our game, the players we all pay to watch and enjoy.
I J Sharp, Driffield
LOOK IN THE MIRROR, CHRIS
I agree with Chris Hill that ‘play-acting’ is creeping into the game. But ‘pot calling kettle black’ springs to mind, unless he is agreeing that he is part of the problem. Let’s face facts; Hill himself is one for being constantly in the face of officials.
Mike Wright, Hull
GO EASY ON OUR EARS
In ‘the olden days’, my father would switch on our state-of-the-art TV (with 12″ screen and grainy black and white pictures), sit back and enjoy an afternoon of sport.
If it was football, it was Kenneth Wolstenholme; tennis, Dan Maskell; cricket John Arlott; rugby union, Bill McClaren ….. and Rugby League, Eddie Waring, and one thing all these commentators had in common was that they knew when to speak and when to keep their mouths shut.
They would tell you who was playing whom, who had the ball at any given moment, what infringement/s merited a penalty, and they would interject occasionally with some relevant information.
Can someone please explain to me why Messrs Wells, MacDermott, O’Connor and (heaven help us) Wilkin, find it necessary to fill every moment of air time with details of something we have just seen?
If our eyesight is less than perfect we can select audio, but they insist on telling us what has just happened, why it has happened, how it should not have happened, and if they are not wittering about that, they are gossiping and missing important passages of play. They talk over the referee (who is infinitely more interesting than they are), we know who has a birthday and (time permitting), I fully expect to be told what the players had for lunch.
Jenna Brooks is the only person who gives us relevant information with the minimum of fuss. Beyond that, we are forced to turn the sound down (that being the lesser of two evils. Is it possible these people are being paid by the word?
Please, please, please stop it (for the sake of our ears and sanity).
Valerie Andrews, St Annes on Sea
PROTECT THE PLAYERS
This letter, ahead of next weekend’s games; is nothing to do with ‘who beats who’. It is about the horrendous injury list most clubs have and what should be done about it.
While soccer merely cannot decide whether or not to ban heading of the ball, we have the problem of superlative athletes running at each other at thirty miles and hour. Is there any wonder we have so many injuries?
I would hate to see American style headguards (or their ridiculous shoulder pads), but the physical side of both the American and our game is not that different, so something needs to be done and sooner rather than later. Those involved in the running of our great game should come up with some protective clothing, be it body guards, head guards, leg protectors or face protection.
Although we keep getting life-changing injuries, I don’t see anything happening to further protect the players.
I certainly wouldn’t encourage any of my children to take up the sport in its current form.
Anthony Kelvin, Leeds
SINGING SUPPORTERS
I travelled with my mum and dad to Swinton recently to watch North Wales Crusaders in action, and when we got there, we were told that if we wanted to sing we would not be allowed in the seating area, but had to stand on the opposite side.
To be fair, we are loud, but we are not rude or nasty and we don’t swear – or anything like that. We just love cheering on the lads. There were only around thirty of us – and we still had a great time – but in all my thirty-five years I have never been to a club where only one certain section of the ground is allocated to the singers!
Rhiannon Davies, Wrexham
SHAMEFUL TACTIC
Many years ago, if teams did not field their strongest team available they would be fined for bringing the game into disrepute. That doesn’t seem to happen nowadays. I noticed that at Castleford, St Helens had a virtual second-string on the field, which to my mind is an insult to the paying spectators of Castleford, and even worse to the travelling Saints’ supporters.
The Rugby Football League should discipline Kristian Woolf for his cynical tactics, and deduct points to discourage this shameful tactic becoming commonplace.
Ian Haskey, Castleford
DISRESPECT
Saints’ idea to field what was effectively a second team, against Castleford, came back to bite them well and truly in the behind.
I found it not only a poor show but totally disrespectful to the Tigers. By all means rest players, but not in such a way as to field anything less than your strongest available side, assuming that your opposition will not be worthy of competing against your best side.
It smacks of arrogance, I’m afraid. But bravo Castleford!
Matthew Kelly, London
FULLBACK DILEMMA
Much has been written about the choice of fullback for England in the World Cup. is Sam Tomkins past his best? Does he seem more injury prone? Jack Welsby is a good player behind a good team but will he be able to cope at international level? Jake Connor plays a bit like his club colours, black and white but is he too much of a maverick?
Let’s look at the problems the Aussies may have: Ryan Papenhuyzen, Turbo Tommy, Clinton Guntherson, Dylan Edwards, James Tedesco, Lattrell Mitchell . . . . .
They must have sleepless nights!
David Ramsden, Bournemouth
THANKS, MATT
I thank Mr Peet for the huge improvements made in Wigan’s performances this season. It seemed a lot of their players were ‘not playing’ for Mr Lam whereas they are for Mr Peet. And whereas I had a lot of criticism for Mr Lam, if he had lost the dressing room his cause was nigh impossible. We now have a much more attacking style of play which fans of other clubs have welcomed and congratulated us for.
Chris Riordan, Chorley