callig

Not really bothered if it's golden point or golden try as long as it is settled on the day. The players spend the whole season preparing for that one game, go through a hell of a lot in that final week and then the game itself. Its just not fair to ask them to do it again. Also the idea that it's deflating at the end when someone does score doesn't hold for me. I've never seen 100,000+ people more deflated than after the end of AFL GF on Saturday. I only flicked on to it by accident and got watching because it was a tense second half and then couldn't believe it at the end when it just finished a draw. The whole stadium went from fever pitch to a sombre hush in a split second. The only people that were happy were the administrators licking their lips at the thought of another 100,000 sell out.

Stevo's 'he's got confidence in his own belief' has been my favourite bit of commentary tonight.

Can't agree with Big Dave Taylor been the equal of Burgess. Agree he is an awesome impact player and his time playing stand off growing up certainly shows with some of his passing but he is no where near consistent enough. He might be able to pull off the spectacular occasionally but he doesn't lead the team on a weekly basis like Burgess does.

Well done to all the players who picked up honours. Can't argue with any of those selections. I would say the Albert Goldthorpe Team would have the advantage over the Super League Dream Team despite there only been a few differences.

I think you must have forgotten Jordan Tansey.

The rule is designed to stop players who are clearly short of the line when they're tackled stretching out their arm to advance the ball over the line. Westwoods was clearly a try as his whole body ends up in the in goal. Yeah his arm bounced up off the ground and he may have even moved his arm slightly but that is a try every day of the week. I find it frustrating when the likes of Stevo attempt to do a forensic examination of every try to find an element of controversy when if you were to apply the rule in the spirit it is meant to be applied there is none at all.

I was giving this topic some thought today and wondered what people's opinions of a 'BARLA Heritage XIII' versus a 'Fans Select XIII' as a mid-season rep series for national selection would be. Not sure if BARLA Heritage is the best name for it but the idea would be to have a team made of players who played their junior rugby at a BARLA affiliated club before being picked up by a pro club. The Fans Select team would then be chosen by the fans from the players who didnt qualify for the ex-BARLA team and any players who would prefer to play for the Fans team. The idea would be to play on the heartlands v non-heartlands concept without drawing some random meaningless line some where around the M62 and Cumbria. The two main questions would be are supporters go to buy in to it and what would the player pools look like for both teams (would the Fans team maybe need to be open to non-English players initially?). Being a former Siddal junior player I'd go for the BARLA team but making it a Fans select would hopefully draw the support of those that voted. Can anyone suggest what possible team line ups might look like? Putting aside the arguements of if we should have an equivlent to origin or not what flaws have I missed in this idea if we did want such a series?