CONGRATULATIONS to the England Universities and Wales Under 16 teams.
The players, coaches and management of those two camps are rightly basking in the glory of topping their respective Four Nations tables.
Both closed their competitions with 100 percent winning records after prevailing in the final fixtures at The Gnoll, Neath (somewhat ironically, England Students beat Wales, while the Wales youngsters saw off their England counterparts).
In addition, title sequences have been further extended in each instance, with England now having claimed the student crown on nine successive occasions, while Wales have bestrode the Under 16 competition in the last four campaigns.
It seems healthy, to me, that neither team had it all their own way on Saturday.
Yes, they both enjoyed comfortable winning margins in the end, but the victories were a long way from being landslides.
And although it would have been good to have seen the Welsh maestro coach Clive Griffiths bow out on a fine career with the student trophy, it was nevertheless pleasing to see how England Students put the disappointment of missing out to Great Britain Teachers recently in the President’s Cup behind them.
Less happily, Ireland were unable to fulfil their final students fixture in Scotland two days ago. Gratifyingly, however, their Under 16s travelled to Hawick and pulled off an impressive win.
I’d like to see the day when all Four Nations fixtures, at student and Under 16 levels, are too close to call. And hopefully, in time, the same can be said at Under 17s, despite England having eased to a large victory over Wales on Saturday.
Still on the international front, I do get the sense that things are definitely moving in the right direction in Scotland, regardless of Saturday’s Under 16 defeat by Ireland.
Much of this stems, in my opinion, from the appointment, last year, of Adam Houston as interim head coach.
Houston, who really made his mark in the student game in England with Northumbria – where a very professional approach was instilled (I’ll never forget phoning him, as requested, very early one morning, before 8.00am if I remember rightly, to find that he was in the middle of a training session with his players) – and with his country.
Houston learned a great deal from his experiences which in the main, perhaps entirely, were successful, and that accumulated knowledge, plus the fact that he is a quarter Scottish, is being brought to the table.
Yes, the Scots finished in the bottom half of the Student and Under 16s Four Nations tables but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t plenty of talent in both squads, while Houston and his colleagues will be seeking to further develop all young players.
And it cannot be ignored that there are quite a few professional players who, having Scottish heritage (in the main, like Houston, through a grandparent) have shown real interest in playing for a country which means so much to them.
In one sense I can totally understand that it can mean more when you have actively selected the country you appear for, rather than it simply being the land of your birth.
At the very least, the abilities and experience of such men could well rub off, beneficially, on the lads who are locally based, which can only be good.
Scotland A are playing the Royal Navy on Saturday as part of a double-header with the Betfred Championship fixture between Newcastle Thunder and Whitehaven. On the same afternoon, in Warrington, the Royal Marines are taking on The Army at Crosfields.
The following day German Exiles face Brazil at Keighley, prior to the Cougars’ clash with Swinton in the Championship.
Hopefully this Brazil team can play more games, the same obviously applies to the German Exiles and, indeed, all other representative teams, including the RAF, who face Doncaster Toll Bar on Wednesday evening, with a 6.30pm kick-off.
What I can tell readers about the Exiles, thanks to Jay Kay (their co-founder and treasurer) is that they have two more matches coming up, details of which feature elsewhere in this issue.
As it happens, and as I’ve reflected previously, it’s not always easy getting details of fixtures, matches and squads from any of the Armed Forces sides, or for that matter such as the Police.
Rightly or wrongly, I’ve tended to put this down to the fact that The Army, Royal Navy and RAF have, of necessity (especially in a world that has become more dangerous) to operate in secrecy.
That’s what, in my view, is a good habit which almost inevitably spills over into issuing information on Rugby League games. That’s my take on it, anyway.
I had a dispiriting moment meanwhile when, early on Saturday morning, I worked my way through the postponements shown in GameDay’s listings of last weekend’s fixtures.
Given the dry weather, there shouldn’t really have been any call-offs (although my own stance is that grounds can be too hard for play to take place in summer, but that’s another story).
It was quite alarming that in the North West Men’s League, seven out of ten of that afternoon’s Entry League games had been called off, while in the Yorkshire Men’s League, all three Entry League matches had been pulled.
Oh dear. Granted, the Entry Leagues cater for teams and players who are testing the water (or at least they used to be) but even so…
On another subject, which isn’t quite grassroots related, it’s my pleasure to catch up on the first Sunday of June every year with Ray Ashby who, together with Brian Gabbitas, is the only joint winner of the Lance Todd Trophy.
The pair shared the coveted man-of-the-match award in 1965, when Ashby’s Wigan edged Gabbitas’ Hunslet 20-16 in what was perhaps the finest Challenge Cup final to be played at Wembley.
Ray, who was guest speaker at the 2015 reunion of the Hunslet RL Ex-Parkside Former Players’ Association, is therefore an honorary member and, with his friend Keith, comes every year.
A highlight of his display in 1965 was his break, from deep, which closed with Trevor Lake racing from around halfway to dive over at the corner despite the despairing attempted cover tackle of Hunslet’s charismatic Welsh winger John Griffiths.
Ray Ashby was at an event in Wigan, recently, at which a number of the club’s tries were rated one-to-ten.
As I understand it, Lake’s score came in at ninth on the all-time list. All I can say is that if there were eight tries better than that one (in which Ashby had a big part to play) they must all have been belters.