IT’S been a long time coming but, wow, is it richly deserved.
Great Britain Teachers lifted their first-ever President’s Cup with a memorable 30-point victory over UK Armed Forces on Wednesday evening.
With absolutely no disrespect to either the Forces or previous holders England Universities, who the Teachers beat 34-10 towards the end of April at Lock Lane, it was good to see.
GB Teachers have battled hard for many years, before this season, with scant, if any, reward. But a squad that has a fair old sprinkling of Betfred Championship players in its ranks is now, together with coach Matt Thompson, basking in the limelight.
It was noticeable, to me, that the players who primarily led the charge at Lock Lane – Brad Clavering and Liam Welham – weren’t quite at the forefront at Goole, where for my money their key figures were Ryan Wright and Will Kirkup.
Jack Walton also deserves a mention, not least for his two tries and the game’s last conversion, although it has to be said that the tireless second rower also copped a yellow card as the interval whistle drew near for a late challenge – and there was a belief that he had done the same in the second period but, as referee George Cox didn’t seem to know the identity of the culprit, Walton got away without further sanction.
Further reflections on the game are that the Forces could have taken the contest much closer if they had evidenced more ‘Rugby League know-how’, particularly in terms of ball retention and game awareness, while an early injury to Jiute Tupua hardly helped the cause of a side that had only 17 players compared to the Teachers’ 20 (although I still stand by my belief that you can have too many substitutes, a plethora of options almost inevitably leading to confusion).
England Universities certainly went much closer than the 34-10 result in the opening game would indicate. That match was, in my opinion, very much in the balance with seven or eight minutes left, when there were only twelve points between the teams and the Teachers were down to twelve players following Ryan Morley’s yellow card.
All things considered, the Tri-Series could have been much tighter but the reality is that Great Britain Teachers are the champions and that England Universities and UK Armed Forces will be striving to avoid the wooden spoon when the sides clash at Halton Farnworth Hornets on Wednesday June 10.
My hope, now, is that Great Britain Police can rejoin the President’s Cup in 2027. This year’s competition has been, I reckon, a success, even if the title hasn’t gone to the wire.
What an event Wednesday’s game was, by the way! Much of that was due to the venue, and I can’t recommend Goole enough. The ground itself, at the Victoria Pleasure Gardens, is a picturesque place, the Vikings volunteers are so very friendly, and the burgers are as good as any you’ll find anywhere. And the Goole Railway Club, on the approach to the ground, is a must-visit hostelry and is enthusiastically geared to Goole Vikings.
There was a moving prelude to the game, with the teams entering the playing arena to a guard of honour formed by RAF cadets from Goole and the Humberside and South Yorkshire Army Cadet Force, while colours were held by a member of the Goole & Howden branch of the Royal British Legion.
Let’s hope that there’s similar enthusiasm this Saturday, when the first round of the BARLA National Cup takes place.
Only one of the six preliminary-round ties was played and it’s clearly important that there’s no repetition this week, particularly as the competition is now operating under the jurisdiction of the Rugby Football League.
It was exhilarating, meanwhile, to be among those who enjoyed last Friday’s celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Hull & District Youth League.
The glittering event was held at the city’s palatial Guildhall, an impressively historic venue if ever there was one, and the importance of youth and junior Rugby League to the region was properly celebrated.
The Lord Mayor of Hull, Cheryl Payne, certainly set the right tone with her inspiring introductory speech, and Hull Youth administrator Sasch Brook, who works so well with Rob Wilson, conducted illuminating interviews with several guests, starting with Hull Youth chair Alan Parker, whose involvement in the sport stretches back to 1946 and who informed guests that the Hull Youth League was launched in 1976 largely because too few schools in the city were playing Rugby League at the time.
Other landmark speakers included Neil Hudgell, the chair of Hull Kingston Rovers, and his colleague Paul Lakin, Hull FC’s Richie Myler and Tony Hutton, and the RFL’s Dave Raybould.
The Hull & District Youth & Junior League is administered jointly – and has been for the last few years – by the city’s two professional clubs, Hull FC and Hull KR, embodied by the former’s Sasch Brook and the latter’s Rob Wilson. There were, it has to be said, initial doubts about that but, as Parker stressed recently, those were quickly allayed.
It was good to meet up with such people as Chris Nicholson, Ann Thompson, Ian Harris, Ben Thaler and BARLA chair Sue Taylor MBE/OBE, together with her husband John.
The Lord Mayor – who emulates her predecessors by fully backing the youth game in Hull, including financially, while the league similarly supports member clubs – rounded off the event in real style by presenting Brook, Wilson, Alan Parker (whose wife Chris was rightly present) and Karen Okra with civic coins, in recognition of their superb work.
All well and good, then. Talented young players are gravitating in impressive numbers to the professional game, which is superb; at the risk of introducing a slightly negative tone, my hope is that a way can be found of pointing those lads who don’t get snared by the pros to the local amateur scene, which now embraces far fewer teams than used to be the case.