That was the week that was
Canada Wolverines 18 – 40 RAF Rugby League
Saturday’s season opener for the Canada Wolverines provided a kick in the pants of a welcome back to international footy. The RAF came with some big and quick lads, and took full advantage of the Wolverines lack of defensive speed at the play the ball to systematically take them apart in the first half. Consign that half to the history books lads, and moving swiftly on…
The Wolverines improved greatly in the second half, putting on some well worked moves which genuinely stretched the visitors and made for some entertaining tries for the almost 5000 spectators. The Wolverines competed with spirit and showed a lot of muscle in the second half; they could, and probably should, have scored a couple more times, unfortunately it was just too much left to do.
The new caps acquitted themselves well in their international baptism; Joe Newman in particular figuring well both in attack and defence having taken the berth of Wolverines legend Robin Legault at full back, but for me the highlight was seeing veteran Christian Miller back on the park, having missed most of the domestics due to surgeries. A nicer bloke you’ll never meet, but as the full moon brings out a werewolf, the opening whistle with Miller unleashes the pitbull. Commitment in spades and savage in defence, uncompromising and relentless but fair. Well, for the most part, I’m sure the RAF winger might disagree.
It will be a sterner test next with the England Lionhearts in town July 5th. Stay tuned.
The Baby Wolverines leave the den.
On Monday the Canada U19’s Rugby League side set off for their trip to the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow where they will play an exhibition tournament of Rugby League 9’s. It’s like Rugby Union 7’s, only better in a completely different, it’s not like 7’s, kind of way.
I’m still not sure what to call them. Baby Wolverines sounds a bit cutesy for 6 foot, 200lb+ 19 year olds but what else is there? The young of Wolverines are ‘kits’. Not far off kittens which is an obvious no-no. Besides, Wolverine Kits sounds like something Airfix should be doing or something you get in a box from the pet shop so it doesn’t leave many options. Sorry lads.
Regardless, they open their tournament on Friday at Broadwood Stadium, against some stiff opposition from South Africa, England and Papua New Guinea. They are a talented group, led by Coach Andy Blackburn so I’ve no doubt that whatever the results, Canada will still leave its mark on the competition.
It will be televised by Premier Sports in the UK, though I’m hoping some streaming-savvy, net-trawling rugby league geek will come up with a link for the rest of us to watch the games, and a potent crop of future Wolverines doing the business.
USARL continues to impress.
Reading the reports and watching the YouTube videos of the opening weeks of the USARL 2014 competition, it’s pretty clear it’s going to be a very successful season. While generally competitive, with a couple of front runners, there is only one team of whipping boys in Baltimore, but overall I’m very impressed, not only with the standard of play, but also the off the field work and social media effort to engage the fans and keep them in the loop. Excellent crowds in Florida, and even a spot on Fox news this week!
It’s like the opposite of the AMNRL.
With no AMNRL competition this year, and AMNRL players playing with USARL sides just to get game time, it does make one wonder what the makeup of the Tomahawks side will be come Colonial Cup time, but whatever happens, the future is probably going to lie with the USARL. After such a fantastic World Cup performance the promotional torch got dropped, now the next guy has picked it up and is sprinting away with it, which is awesome to see. A strong US competition will serve us well here in Canada also.
North America has great potential for rugby league to have semi-pro or even professional competitions given enough time. But with the shakers of the CRL and USARL changing up the promotional side, it’s hard not to dare to dream a little bit of how things could be, even for a cynical Northerner like me.
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye.
Oh Bradford! Why dost thou vex me so?
Shakespearean tragedy this is certainly becoming. Again, Bradford made it onto the TV over here this past week, in the game against Hull KR. Touted as a must win game by a couple of the lesser used players on the soundbite circuit, as if none of the others before this weren’t, this one absolutely had to get put in the bag. With Franny Cummins given the order of the boot along with Lee St. Hilaire (finally), it was up to Sir Matt Diskin the Reluctant to take us bravely forward.
Well not that bravely for me as it turned out, it was Saturday morning and I had stuff to do, so it went on the PVR. But after a week when every England side in every sport (other than U20 RU) had lost, I couldn’t take any more disappointment. So I admit it. I chickened out of watching it live.
Then I found out the score.
Oh dear.
That last bit of mathematical hope upped and disappeared quicker than England flag vendors in Brazil.
I couldn’t do it then. I couldn’t bring myself to watch what was obviously another dismal performance. So after many hours of heart wrenching over whether to watch it or not, I moved the cursor over to ‘delete’ the recording, closed my eyes, and with the vision of the life support being turned off, the last, slow beeps of the heartbeat turned into the constant flatline tone. And delete was pressed. Hello Championship footy.
But then a couple of things made me feel better. First off, Wakefield stuffed Wigan. Didn’t just beat them, stuffed them. Awesome! I should have felt bitter that it was another nail in the coffin, but no. Acceptance had given over to release, and it was great news. Perhaps the pendulum is starting to swing back to the light side of the Pennines. Then, secondly, Jimmy Lowes is back! Jimmy Jimmy!
Largely untested Lowes is back as the new head coach on a 3 year deal at Odsal. It brought back all those rose tinted memories of the 90’s with Jimmy taking teams apart with ball or fists, those heady days where Lowes was at the centre of Bradford’s greatest success. Only slightly outdone in the memories by supersub Medders bullocking through the defensive line exactly like the current forwards don’t.
Successful coach this may not make. But time will tell; after the inevitable exodus of players at the end of this year, if not before, hopefully Lowes is given the support to build up the team while the backroom guys build up the business.
Hot off the press! Marc Green is taking the points challenge to the High Court. Good, the points don’t matter one iota any more. Whilst this whole sorry mess has always had the fresh kipper fishy smell about it, after the initial appeal all of a sudden didn’t even make the threshold to even be considered, despite legal advice to the contrary, that smell went from fresh kipper to 3 month old rotten kipper. About time the details came out about the back door dealings, no one is clean in all this, but the RFL need to be challenged about their role in this mess and be held to account for it, as well as the previous regimes at the Bulls. All provided there’s no gagging order, of course.
So the week starts looking up, finally!