JonM

Yes, until the Halsall intercept try, it was all one-way traffic and it was looking like a big Widnes win. We recovered from that, again had all the play and looked like winning easily, then the Lawton sending off brought it all back level. Thunder might point to the number of players they lost to injury. It must've been difficult managing substitutions in the high temperature. Couple of their younger players impressed. I reckon Sam Halsall is ready to step up to SL with Wigan, and Gideon Boafo caught the eye a few times, he seems to have got bigger since he was at London.

Exciting game at Widnes. Home team was 26-10 up, but Newcastle fought back to 26-26 against 12 man Widnes. Drop goal with 3 minutes to go for Widnes made it 27-26, then a last minute try made it 33-26. We seem to have reached the point where the current rules mean Adam Lawton is just too tall to play professional rugby league. He was sent off for a head tackle against a falling player, which I believe the referee doesn't have much option about. Problem is there is essentially absolutely nothing he can do to avoid it - if you're 6 ft 6 or whatever and you tackle someone nearly a foot shorter around the waist and they slip going into the tackle, there really is nothing you can do.

In fairness, Rugby League county fixtures had about 100 years history of not attracting much interest from spectators, so this is not something that can be pinned on the current administration.

Widnes 20 Newcastle 12 at HT. Pretty decent game considering the conditions, albeit quite a high error count, with both teams conceding tries from kick-offs going dead.

We had the teenage son of a friend visiting York Uni last weekend. Met him at the station at 9:30 Saturday morning and walked over to the Minster, which is maybe a 10 minute walk. I counted over 20 hen parties in that time. Dread to think what it's like in the evening.

Eddie, no need to wait for Euro XIII, you could have watched a Swedish club against a Czech club today, if you'd made the trip to Malmö to watch Skåne Stags against Mad Squirrels Vrchlabí. 38-34 for the home team.

Hard to say, isn't it? They certainly have come on a long way since the GB Pioneers toured there in 2014, with the 2022 national team selected from 6 different clubs, and also women's, university, youth and schools games this week. Some pretty athletic looking players in all the matches, and quite a lot of people in attendance by the looks of the photos. Oxford perhaps not one of the strongest University teams, but as IM2 said, great brand recognition, and I'm sure the name helped with things like getting the British High Commission involved and perhaps the Uni was able to help a bit with a donation (AIUI the players had to raise the money themselves). I guess the fact that they beat two teams and lost to the national team in a reasonably competitive game suggests they were an appropriately strong team for the tour - better than turning up and being thrashed, or winning all the games easily. Ghana lost to Nigeria and beat Cameroon in their last outings; this tour will surely help with their preparation for this year's MEA championships.

Ghana beat Oxford University 52-30 last weekend. Amongst all the schools coaching sessions, the visitors also managed to fit in an extra midweek game, beating the University of Ghana. Reception at the British High Commission, hosted by the high commissioner and her deputy, for the tourists and a delegation from the Ghana RFL.

I moved to York a while back, and have been very pleasantly surprised at the profile the Knights have in the city, the quality of the stadium, and the facilities and standards of the amateur clubs (Acorn & Heworth have their own clubhouses, multiple pitches of their own, more than one adult team, all the age groups, lots of volunteers etc.) Like everywhere else, football is clearly bigger, but a York club could certainly make a go of things in SL. Fundamentally though, as others have said, it's not that big a place. although there is a much wider region that looks to York. It does have the advantage of being relatively well off. Unlike many RL towns, it's also a place where young people move to, rather than away from, and obviously a lot of tourism too. I'm about to move to Wensleydale, which means I'll be in a part of North Yorkshire where I'll be well over an hour's drive to my nearest clubs (Keighley) and over 90 minutes to Leeds, York, Barrow or Newcastle. In other words, I was closer to professional RL clubs when I lived in Cambridge than I will be in Yorkshire. North Yorkshire is just too big and rural to count its population as York's target market.

If we say 37 players per team (which seems pretty generous to me giving that we're talking about a period of 28 days), that suggests 1000 teams of male adults playing rugby league nationwide. What am I missing? Are there separate numbers for Touch?

To be clear, the game itself didn't seem to be a violent one, nor did there appear to be any particular bad feeling between the teams. The match video obviously focuses on the game rather than what is going on in the stand below, and we only get to see the crowd problem at the point at which the referee stops the game, and then only the front few rows, from above. At that time, one of the West Hull players appears to be defending himself from a fairly irate woman in the stand. I don't know the circumstances which led to him being there - he may have been assaulted while stood on the sideline, he may have been appealing for calm, he may have run in to join a fight. At least one of the West Hull players appears to be involved in getting a younger sibling out of the melee. The Dewsbury Moor players do all stay away from the trouble. Certainly plenty of Fev stewards on hand, and no shortage of witnesses.

Completely agree. I don't think in the case of the u-18s cup final that it was anything to do with on-field events or the referee. I watched the YouTube video of the game, and there really didn't seem to be anything that would've prompted fighting in the stand. One of the West Hull players did end up in the crowd, remonstrating with a fairly angry looking woman, but the game itself seemed fine. Horrible situation to put teenage match officials in.

My take on it was that in terms of what coaches often talk about, Town actually did OK. They tackled well, didn't make many errors in terms of knock-ons or forward passes etc. I don't think it's lack of commitment or motivation that is the problem. Of course, if you concede 5 tries off short kicks, you're down 30 points and lose the game. Likewise, if you never look like threatening the line yourself, you're not going to win any games. But I think Town still have a shout of winning some games this season.

I think you've been a bit unlucky - the Barrow game could have been a win as could the home game v Thunder near the start of the season, and the two must-win home games against Whitehaven and London weren't the best timing with respect to injuries. I suppose it's not impossible that Paul Sykes will improve the team quickly, your remaining fixtures don't have too many games where you'd fancy Dewsbury's chances beforehand.

10 360

He said that London need two more wins - I'm questioning why he thinks that. I think they're already safe, tbh. Certainly one more win (Workington at home) would do it.

Where do you see Dewsbury potentially picking up 3 wins from in their remaining games to get to 10 points? Their two wins were by a point at home against Workington and by 2 points at home against Sheffield. They've recently lost at home to the two teams immediately above them - Whitehaven and London. I wouldn't have them as favourites in any of their remaining fixtures. Workington would need 4 wins to get to 10 points, but they do have Dewsbury at home, Whitehaven to play twice, and a trip to London. Tall order, but not impossible, particularly if the loan players from Catalans add something to the team. That said, they lost 38-0 yesterday at home to a bottom half team, and Widnes's stats show that the Vikings made 0 line breaks and that Town had a higher set completion rate and fewer errors in the game.

That's a comment that's not aged well

Interview with the Oxford Uni president.

Oxford won 24-8. Seems like they spent quite a while fundraising to pay for the trip beforehand, and will also be running coaching sessions in local schools and for their counterparts at the university of Ghana. Quite impressed to read that teams from the Ghanaian womens and junior championships were playing games beforehand.

What's the transport situation like - is it just drive there and park up, or is it do-able by public transport from London?

L'independant gives it as 10,200. 3441 for Toulouse v Hull KR.

Yeah. Having spent all these years driving up from Cambridge, travelling from York seems pretty easy. Hopefully moving to the Dales in the next couple of weeks which will mean that I'm living in Yorkshire and still further away from a pro RL club than I was in Cambridge

Town defended well for half an hour there in spite of a fairly heavy penalty count. If they'd tackled like that in the first half, might have been more of a game. Seven from seven for Jack Owens, quite a while since that has happened. I make it 2001 that we last conceded a point in a game at Derwent Park.

Hard to see what happened based on the match YouTube video - certainly nothing much in the game itself that looked like a problem. Absolutely intolerable situation to put teenage match officials in.