What a series of results in the National Conference League on Saturday!
It didn’t particularly seem to mean much when the NCL announced, recently, that it was ditching the concept of golden point, although it certainly pleased me. I don’t see anything wrong with draws. Life itself is often a draw in truth (in fact a draw would be a dream outcome for many folk these days in an increasingly troubled world) and there’s nothing wrong to my mind in teams finishing all square – in fact it’s often a shame when one side has to lose a thriller through the lottery that is field goals or apparently controversial refereeing decisions.
The NCL’s decision meant a lot at the weekend, when three games finished level. Two, almost incredibly, were in the Premier Division, where last season’s Grand Finalists Thatto Heath Crusaders and Wath Brow Hornets battled out an 8-8 thriller and York Acorn and West Hull closed at 10-10.
Thatto, Wests and Hornets occupy, this morning, the top three slots, while the competitive nature of the NCL’s top flight is illustrated by the fact that Acorn garnered their first point of the campaign by tying with the Green & Golds. What a season we could be in for, at all levels, with Leigh East’s draw with Bentley in Division Three suggesting that the bottom tier could also be closely fought.
On a slightly negative note, no sooner had the NCL hit its stride with the third round of fixtures than one or two irritating factors again raised their heads to affect the programme.
One was the tension between the BARLA National Cup and the NCL itself. The Conference Management has long refused to accept involvement in the National Cup as a reason for postponement, which has put clubs in the position of having to field a second team in one or the other fixture. This year Myton Warriors opted, I’m told, to field their A team in the Division One clash with Kells, and were duly hammered. And, unfortunately for the Warriors, they also took a pasting in the knockout semi-final at Waterhead, whose NCL side lost, a tad surprisingly in terms of the 30-18 margin at least, at home to Hensingham. West Hull, meanwhile, selected their A team for the home semi-final with Sharlston and also went down.
Meanwhile, Covid-19 is again rearing its head, with Featherstone Lions calling Skirlaugh on Saturday to advise that players had tested positive and that they would not be travelling to Hull. The NCL’s immediate response was that an investigation will be instigated.
More happily, a couple of notes for readers’ diaries…
An inked-in slot in my own Rugby League calendar each year is the Women’s Amateur Rugby League Association’s double-header, which always takes place on Easter Sunday (17 April this time around) and which has been hosted with aplomb for quite a while now by Featherstone Rovers.
This season’s Challenge Cup Final will involve Featherstone Lionesses and West Leeds, and will kick off at 2.00pm while, at noon, Leeds University and Liverpool University will meet in the Plate decider.
The WARL event is normally the only one in Rugby League, at open age level, happening that day. There’s certainly not usually anything going on in the professional arena. So get your diaries out, ink the occasion in, and get along if you can. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.
Seven days earlier, the BARLA National Cup Final will be staged at the same venue, with those veterans of the amateur game’s blue riband event Sharlston Rovers due to take on Waterhead Warriors, as previously stated. Again, an event to diarise.
On another subject entirely, am I the only person diverted by quirks of the alphabet when fixtures and scores come through?
I might have to perhaps clarify what I’m going on about. I couldn’t help noticing, when dealing with results for the National Conference League’s Premier Division, that the first home team listed was Leigh Miners Rangers, which is a bit surprising given that the letter ‘l’ is twelfth in the alphabet, nearly halfway down the list in fact. Similarly, the first match shown in Division One was Ince Rose Bridge v Hull Dockers; Ince, again, are some way down the teams in alphabetical terms. But then, in Division Two, the first five home teams started with Beverley and ended with Hunslet Warriors; the next, and last, home side was Woolston Rovers, some 15 letters after Hunslet.
It reminds me of the old Hull League, around 20 years ago, when many of the sides’ names seemed to start with the letter ‘B’. And I did notice, also quite a few years ago, that one professional squad seemed to comprise, in the main, players whose surnames began with letters from the first half of the alphabet. It crossed my mind that the coaches’ method of recruitment might have largely involved looking through alphabetically complied availability lists until they got bored.
That observation might have amused the fine journalist Dave Hadfield, who has sadly passed away.
I spent many a happy hour in press boxes with Dave, from World Cup and Challenge Cup Finals to BARLA National Cup and National Conference League Grand Finals.
Dave Hadfield, who wrote for the Independent, was hugely interested in all levels of Rugby League, way beyond Super League, and two or three memories in particular come to mind.
One was on a sunny spring-time Wednesday afternoon around 15 years ago when I toddled over to Shaw Cross, in Dewsbury, to cover a couple of games in the Skanska Cup (now rebranded as the President’s Cup) which involves such as Great Britain Police, the Armed Forces, England Students and, back then I think, BARLA Great Britain.
I was pleasantly surprised to find Dave there, standing on the grass bank that edges the Leeds Road. He’d travelled over from his home in Lancashire to sample what the Skanska Cup was about but also, I suspected at the time, simply to enjoy some Rugby League on a Wednesday afternoon.
That summed up Dave Hadfield. He absolutely relished Rugby League and, happily for his many admiring readers, he wrote about it with a superb, almost languid, style that fully conveyed his love for the sport.
You could pretty much expect him to be at any major amateur game and I vividly recall watching the thrilling Women’s World Cup Final with Dave and Andy Wilson – then of the Guardian but, these days, doing a terrific job as the Rugby Football League’s Head of Media – at Wilderspool, when Great Britain were edged out by New Zealand in a classic.
A tad more painfully, I’ve a memory of a National Conference League Grand Final when, perhaps talking amateur Rugby League up too much, I started waxing lyrical to him about how good one of the centres was – at which point the self-same player sent a wild pass directly into touch. Dave gave me one of those looks, I can see him staring at me now.
We also shared a love of folk music, albeit with one or two minor differences of opinion. Dave and I were both admirers of Richard Thompson but when I ventured that Thompson’s greatest work was Beeswing he gently demurred, citing Vincent Black Lightning. Maybe readers unfamiliar with Richard Thompson’s music could google both and decide for themselves.
He also, as Bill Arthur revealed so eloquently on Sky on Thursday evening, liked a good pint, and a good pub. So it was no surprise when it emerged that he loved two of my own favourites – the Garden Gate in Hunslet, and the King’s Arms, on Heath Common, which isn’t too far away from Wakefield Trinity’s Belle Vue. I think it was after covering a Trinity game that Dave discovered it. Methinks I’ll be visiting both shortly and raising a glass in his memory. I expect many others at the grassroots will be doing something similar, as Dave Hadfield did a great deal to positively promote amateur Rugby League.
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