Just as the first sighting of the cuckoo signals the arrival of spring, so last week’s announcement of fixtures in the Yorkshire Youth & Junior League indicates that the amateur Rugby League season (the summer version, anyway) is here.
Next Sunday’s schedule, on the first day of the 2022 campaign, is limited to the older age groups (Under 18s, Under 16s and Under 14s), with younger teams set to swing into action later, I assume.
Talking of making assumptions, I could so easily have missed noting the Yorkshire League’s opening fixtures. One of the many diverting characteristics of the GameDay agency, which issues fixtures, results and tables on behalf of the Rugby Football League, is that it bangs out its weekly emails regardless of whether the competition in question is in the middle of a campaign or in its close season.
So, since last autumn, I – and, presumably, others – have been receiving emails from GameDay for several leagues that haven’t actually been playing.
There’s a danger, when that happens week after week, of not bothering to open emails which you can almost guarantee are simply blank. It’s not exactly time consuming going through the process, but it can take a few minutes which would perhaps be better spent on something else. So I’ve opened each and every one, each and every week, just in case.
Sod’s Law decrees that the first time you don’t do that it’ll be the very occasion on which fixtures are revealed. So, “belt and braces” being my philosophy, I once again took a gander last Friday at each email. Most were the usual waste of time; it was good, though, to see matches scheduled in the YJL.
Many of the players in that giant league will, in fact, already have been in action this year, taking part in BARLA’s National Youth & Junior Cups, while those competitions were preceded by BARLA’s Yorkshire knockout competitions.
And, as readers of League Express will be very aware, there’s been plenty going on in those leagues that have remained winter based. Those include the Pennine League, the Women’s Amateur League and, of course, the Student and College Leagues, which couldn’t switch to summer even if they wanted, given that they are unavoidably bolted to the educational year.
The week after next is, of course, when the rest of the summer leagues kick off (although the Barrow ARL gets underway this Saturday with the opening match in the famous Barton Townley Cup). Excitement is palpably mounting!
Meanwhile I was very saddened to learn of the death of Johnny Whiteley MBE.
The great man is best known for his massive impact at professional level, with Hull, Hull KR and Great Britain. He was also a real stalwart of amateur Rugby League, however, and did a great deal of important work in his home city, not least in being an important figure in the launch of the West Hull club.
Always approachable, and of real help to journalists, Johnny Whiteley was a true gentleman and will be badly missed.
Finally, I’d hoped to be able to reflect, in last week’s issue, on Siddal’s performance in their third round Betfred Challenge Cup tie at Hunslet. I was covering the game for League Express but print deadlines prevented me from being able to add my reflections to last Monday’s Talking Grass Roots.
Better late than never, though. Forget the 30-4 result in the Betfred League 1 outfit’s favour – those numbers convey very little, if anything, of the action. The game was in the balance, with Hunslet 14-4 ahead but under some pressure (despite Siddal having had a player sent off in the first half) until the closing stages, when three late tries helped the professionals pull away from the amateurs.
Siddal were a credit to themselves, to the town of Halifax, to the National Conference League and, indeed, to amateur Rugby League as a whole. They will assuredly be among the contenders for the 2022 NCL title, although everyone knew that anyway.
Roll on the start of the new season on Saturday week. Sadly for some players, the campaign will be their last. The curtain comes down, each year, on many careers, as Father Time steps in and retirement becomes an unavoidable option.
Interestingly, the Rugby Football League is, if I’ve read last Friday’s Community Club Update correctly, now requiring players who decide the hang up their boots to confirm their decision in writing to their club.
Their club must, in turn, inform the RFL, with accompanying evidence in the shape of the original letter.
It’s all to do, it seems, with ‘compliance issues’.
Good luck with that, is my first reaction. Many players who have chosen to retire in the past have of course informed their clubs, at least verbally. How many, though, have simply ‘vanished’, their retirement, in effect, signalled by their continued failure to attend training or to turn up for games, with the fact that they have hung up their boots ratified when they don’t show up to register for the next season. I suspect that getting such players to confirm their decision to retire could prove rather difficult.
The above content is also available in the regular weekly edition of League Express, on newsstands every Monday in the UK and as a digital download. Click here for more details.
