THE most interesting news of the weekend is the disclosure that Andrew Abdo, the chief executive of the NRL, will be flying into England towards the end of this month for a meeting with RFL Chairman Nigel Wood and RL Commercial chief executive Rhodri Jones, presumably to discuss a proposed NRL investment into Super League.

If I were Nigel or Rhodri, the first thing I would say to him (after giving him a cordial greeting) would be to request that NRL officials stop saying that the game in the northern hemisphere is on its knees.

In fact the game is in a far healthier state than it’s been in for some time, as one of our stories on page 3 of this issue perfectly illustrates.

The Magic Weekend at Everton in three months’ time has now achieved tickets sales of around 70,000, which means that it will become the highest selling Magic Weekend in the history of Super League, even if not another ticket is sold.

And we had strong crowds over the Easter weekend, with more than 80,000 people attending the seven Super League matches.

And it’s worth pointing out that some of the clubs with the largest stadium capacities were not playing at home. If they had been, then the crowd aggregate could have been even higher.

The highlight of the weekend was undoubtedly St Helens’ astonishing victory against Wigan, which saw them score four tries in the last eight minutes of the game, with Bill Leyland, on loan from Hull KR, scoring the last two in a stunning debut.

I’ve written about the game on page 18 of this issue.

I wondered how St Helens managed to persuade Hull KR to loan them two players, given that they are one of their great rivals, but apparently it was the player-agent Graham Taylor who instigated the deal.

He represents both Bill Leyland and Jordan Dezaria and he was concerned that neither player was being selected regularly for Hull KR but they both needed some game time at the highest level.

He raised the issue with both clubs and somehow the deal was magically done.

Whether either player turns out again for St Helens remains to be seen, but you can bet that St Helens supporters would love nothing more than to see Leyland especially playing for them again, particularly at home.

Rarely has a player been so immediately taken to the collective heart of a team’s supporters.

For various reasons this is turning out to be the most interesting Super League season I can remember.

Until a couple of weeks ago Wigan were beating every team put in front of them until the winless Huddersfield Giants visited them and put 34 points on them.

Then Wigan conceded 34 points again at St Helens.

And suddenly they looked far from invincible.

And Huddersfield, who had looked hopeless before that trip to Wigan, scored 34 points again in beating York on Saturday, and suddenly they are off the bottom of the table. It’s quite a turnaround, helped by the return of so many injured players. And now they look like a team that is capable of running up some more wins.

It must be very unusual for only six points to separate the top and bottom teams in Super League after only seven rounds of the competition.

So are we a game in crisis?

Anything but!

And I hope our leading administrators will make that perfectly clear to Andrew Abdo when they meet him.

Vale Geoff Burrow

The saddest news of the week was the death of Geoff Burrow, the father of Rob, who died from MND almost two years ago.

Before Rob’s diagnosis in late 2019, Geoff worked for the GMB Union, which the Rugby League Players’ Association was affiliated to.

I used to have fairly frequent discussions with him about the various issues affecting players in the game and I always found Geoff to be a totally dedicated supporter of Rugby League who was determined to help players as much as he possibly could in a variety of different circumstances.

After Rob’s diagnosis his priority obviously changed to trying to do the best for his son, and in particular learning about MND and searching for a cure, if one could be found, which sadly it couldn’t be.

Geoff was intensely proud of his son’s achievements in Rugby League and he did everything he could for Rob as his condition worsened. I can’t imagine the feelings of a father who had to watch the disease take a greater and greater hold on his son until it eventually ended his life.

My sincere condolences to the Burrow family for the loss of a husband, father and grandfather.