Leeds and Melbourne Storm have featured heavily in recent years, but that shouldn't take the edge off our anticipation
*1) Up for the Challenge*
For some reason, this year's World Club Challenge – the 14th on the bounce in this country, which is a pretty impressive record of consistency given rugby league's poor history of sticking with a concept – has taken a while to catch the imagination. Maybe it's familiarity breeding a little ennui – this will be the fifth appearance in the fixture in six years for Leeds, and their third against Melbourne Storm. Perhaps it's the fact that the Rhinos beat Manly last year, making it easy to forget that Australian clubs had won each of the previous three.
But the sight of Craig Bellamy, Cameron Smith and Gareth Widdop sharing the top table at Monday's press conference in the Taverners at Headingley with Brian McDermott, Kevin Sinfield and Danny McGuire was a reminder of the potential treats that lie in store.
Billy Slater, Ryan Hoffman, Brett Finch and Cooper Cronk were back at the Storm's hotel in the middle of Leeds. Jamie Peacock, Rob Burrow, Kallum Watkins and Ryan Hall were eating their lunch in the Carnegie Cafe Bar. The expensive new Headingley pitch will be graced by the cream of rugby league from either hemisphere, and under the famously competitive and grouchy Bellamy, the Storm never start a match anything other than fiercely determined to win. What's not to like? Reading Don McRae's fascinating, and occasionally hilarious, interview with McDermott cranks up the anticipation another notch.
But the involvement of Bellamy, Slater, Smith and Cronk makes me pessimistic about the Rhinos' prospects of retaining their crown. There must also be questions about their build-up in the first three rounds of the Super League season – a decent opening hit-out against Hull, followed by a scrappy derby defeat in the mud at Castleford, and victory on cruise control against Salford (I've not seen either of the last two games, so feel free to correct these second-hand conclusions below). There does not seem to have been a game of the quality or intensity of the defeat Leeds suffered at Wigan the week before their Manly triumph last year. In addition, there has been attrition – they have lost Zak Hardaker, who has rapidly become a key figure at full-back, and Ryan Bailey, who has risen to the World Club Challenge in the past.
Sure, Melbourne haven't played a competition game this year, are missing several key members of last year's squad, and have to cope with the usual problems of acclimatising from late Victorian summer to lingering Yorkshire winter, in addition to a hostile Headingley crowd. But unpopularity will hardly be a new sensation for the Storm, who have grown accustomed to travelling north to Queensland or New South Wales as the bad guys every second week, whether because of their wrestling tactics or salary cap misdemeanours. Class acts such as Smith and Slater will rise to, rather than run from, the challenge. Leeds will need to match, and probably surpass, the quality and passion of their performance against Manly if they are to have any chance of another famous win.
*2) Don't take it away*
It wouldn't be a World Club Challenge without a debate over the future of the fixture. A working-party would now appear to have settled on exporting the game to Australia (or New Zealand) this time next year, and then staging an expanded Challenge involving the top three clubs from each hemisphere in Europe in early 2015, with a view to taking the games on the road in future years. That all sounds pretty positive, but it does run the risk of squandering something that has shown such unusual durability. And not hosting the NRL champions next February will be a major loss. Isn't there any chance of having one game in each hemisphere next year?
*3) Worth the Waite*
This is very un-rugby league, but I wanted to take a minute to soak up some of the good things that happened last weekend, and have largely been overlooked. If you didn't catch Sky's full-time highlights package or the Super League Show on the Beeb, check out Ben Cockayne's second try for Wakefield at London, or a couple of crackers from Josh Charnley and Jermaine McGillvary in Huddersfield's stirring win against Wigan. Jordan Tansey's performance at full-back for Castleford in defeat at Bradford offered huge promise for the Tigers, and even Salford scored two terrific tries in their latest drubbing at Leeds.
It seems a little un-PC to say so, but I also loved the rather old-fashioned approach taken by the Catalan Dragons in their televised game at Warrington last Friday. "Horribly messy," said the Wolves coach Tony Smith. But what does he expect? Are teams supposed to turn up and admire Warrington spreading the ball to the wings, as they do so well? He'd probably moan then, as well, about the lack of competitive games in the Super League.
The Dragons decided to get among the Wolves, and see what happened. Olivier Elima was wonderfully niggly off the bench. Brent Webb played the part of pantomime villain to perfection, goading Ben Westwood on his way to a second stint in the sin bin. The loveable old rogue David Ferriol may have retired to his Limoux vineyard, but his spirit lives on.
For that, I suspect we have David Waite, who has returned to Perpignan to assist the Catalans' new French coach Laurent Frayssinous, to thank. Waite, the Australian who became Great Britain's first overseas coach back in 2001, is urbane, intelligent and bilingual, although occasionally hard to understand in English, never mind French. He's also a pleasingly old-fashioned rugby league coach who has never been averse to sending his forwards out to cause a bit of mayhem. Très bien, Monsieur Waite. Encore.
Meanwhile France's appointment of Richard Agar as coach of the national team for the World Cup also strikes me as a shrewd one – and it will need to be, given their tough draw in a group involving Samoa, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. But probably the most heartening thing I've read this week concerned another Brit who has coached the French, Bobbie Goulding. I've had my moments with Bobbie in recent years – in fact I don't think we're talking any more – but Ian Ridley's interview with him in last Saturday's Daily Mail suggested that the former Great Britain scrum half is ready to put some tough years behind him, after showing the courage to seek professional help from the Sporting Chance network fronted by the Arsenal legend Tony Adams.
*4) Child's play*
There is one more bouquet to deliver from the weekend, although it won't be popular, so it comes with a bit of a brickbat. James Child contributed hugely to the quality of Saturday's Huddersfield-Wigan game with a restrained, unobtrusive refereeing performance. Yet he still left the field to a chorus of boos at half-time, and the reaction to my suggestion on Twitter that he's had a good game – "What a load of tripe" - was depressingly predictable. Still, everyone is entitled to their opinion. What really irritates me is the witless, abusive and arrogant chant of "You don't know what you're doing" to which a minority of supporters so regularly resort. Perhaps it's wrong to be irritated – one can only admire their combination of faultlessness in their own professional lives, an exhaustive knowledge of the laws of rugby league, and perfect vision to know exactly what's going on from the back of the stand. Or maybe they're just hypocrites.
Now I'm not saying the refs are perfect. Let's pick on Steve Ganson, because he's old and ugly enough not to be overly concerned: he didn't have his best game at Bradford last Saturday, with some really tough calls on Castleford. Similarly Sky's coverage confirmed that the early offside penalty that Richard Silverwood awarded against the Catalans at Warrington, thereby setting the tone for the early exchanges, was harsh. But does that mean they don't know what they're doing, or that anyone watching the game – whether from the terrace or the press box – has the right to hurl abuse on the assumption that he or she could do any better? Apparently, depressingly, yes. Modern society, I suppose.
*5) Gimme five*
Right, we need cheering up after that lot. How about a Festival of World Cups? Launched in Leeds last Wednesday, this is, slightly confusingly, only tangentially linked to the main Rugby League World Cup that will be staged in the UK and Europe this autumn. There will be five more lower-case rugby league World Cups held before that, during a two-week period in July: for women, students and police in Yorkshire; for the armed forces in Colchester; and for wheelchair rugby league in Gillingham, the stronghold of the Medway Dragons amateur club.
We'll try to provide regular details of the build-up to those competitions in the coming months. Any contributions below the line would be very welcome. It's your forum, and I know regular bloggers would be interested to learn more.
*6) Global grafters*
There's much more upbeat stuff to rattle through in tackle six. The University of Gloucestershire All Golds have just been crowned national student champions, defeating Loughborough University, one of the traditional powerhouses of the student game, in the final. That's a perfect boost to the ambitious All Golds ahead of their entry into the new semi-professional Championship One competition – and they have also signed a partnership deal with the Bristol Sonics, who operate a couple of levels down in the Conference League South. With the World Cup coming to Bristol, when the Cook Islands face the USA at the Memorial Stadium in October, there is a feeling of momentum in the south-west.
Three schools from the rugby hotbed of Gloucester – St Peter's High, Churchdown and Chosen Hill – were also represented at the Midlands finals day in the Carnegie Champion Schools competition, with three from Derbyshire and others from Telford and Wolverhampton. Small acorns, but hugely heartening all the same.
Meanwhile, Warrington have hosted a delegation from Deutschland Rugby League , the Ukraine has a clutch of newly-qualified coaches and referees, and Lebanon's under-18s gained revenge on Saudi Arabia.
All these developments, both nationally and internationally, are almost entirely reliant on the enthusiasm of league nuts from either Australia, England or both. That's a long way from the superstars of Melbourne and Leeds, where we came in. But unsung heroes, the lot of them. Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.
*1) Up for the Challenge*
For some reason, this year's World Club Challenge – the 14th on the bounce in this country, which is a pretty impressive record of consistency given rugby league's poor history of sticking with a concept – has taken a while to catch the imagination. Maybe it's familiarity breeding a little ennui – this will be the fifth appearance in the fixture in six years for Leeds, and their third against Melbourne Storm. Perhaps it's the fact that the Rhinos beat Manly last year, making it easy to forget that Australian clubs had won each of the previous three.
But the sight of Craig Bellamy, Cameron Smith and Gareth Widdop sharing the top table at Monday's press conference in the Taverners at Headingley with Brian McDermott, Kevin Sinfield and Danny McGuire was a reminder of the potential treats that lie in store.
Billy Slater, Ryan Hoffman, Brett Finch and Cooper Cronk were back at the Storm's hotel in the middle of Leeds. Jamie Peacock, Rob Burrow, Kallum Watkins and Ryan Hall were eating their lunch in the Carnegie Cafe Bar. The expensive new Headingley pitch will be graced by the cream of rugby league from either hemisphere, and under the famously competitive and grouchy Bellamy, the Storm never start a match anything other than fiercely determined to win. What's not to like? Reading Don McRae's fascinating, and occasionally hilarious, interview with McDermott cranks up the anticipation another notch.
But the involvement of Bellamy, Slater, Smith and Cronk makes me pessimistic about the Rhinos' prospects of retaining their crown. There must also be questions about their build-up in the first three rounds of the Super League season – a decent opening hit-out against Hull, followed by a scrappy derby defeat in the mud at Castleford, and victory on cruise control against Salford (I've not seen either of the last two games, so feel free to correct these second-hand conclusions below). There does not seem to have been a game of the quality or intensity of the defeat Leeds suffered at Wigan the week before their Manly triumph last year. In addition, there has been attrition – they have lost Zak Hardaker, who has rapidly become a key figure at full-back, and Ryan Bailey, who has risen to the World Club Challenge in the past.
Sure, Melbourne haven't played a competition game this year, are missing several key members of last year's squad, and have to cope with the usual problems of acclimatising from late Victorian summer to lingering Yorkshire winter, in addition to a hostile Headingley crowd. But unpopularity will hardly be a new sensation for the Storm, who have grown accustomed to travelling north to Queensland or New South Wales as the bad guys every second week, whether because of their wrestling tactics or salary cap misdemeanours. Class acts such as Smith and Slater will rise to, rather than run from, the challenge. Leeds will need to match, and probably surpass, the quality and passion of their performance against Manly if they are to have any chance of another famous win.
*2) Don't take it away*
It wouldn't be a World Club Challenge without a debate over the future of the fixture. A working-party would now appear to have settled on exporting the game to Australia (or New Zealand) this time next year, and then staging an expanded Challenge involving the top three clubs from each hemisphere in Europe in early 2015, with a view to taking the games on the road in future years. That all sounds pretty positive, but it does run the risk of squandering something that has shown such unusual durability. And not hosting the NRL champions next February will be a major loss. Isn't there any chance of having one game in each hemisphere next year?
*3) Worth the Waite*
This is very un-rugby league, but I wanted to take a minute to soak up some of the good things that happened last weekend, and have largely been overlooked. If you didn't catch Sky's full-time highlights package or the Super League Show on the Beeb, check out Ben Cockayne's second try for Wakefield at London, or a couple of crackers from Josh Charnley and Jermaine McGillvary in Huddersfield's stirring win against Wigan. Jordan Tansey's performance at full-back for Castleford in defeat at Bradford offered huge promise for the Tigers, and even Salford scored two terrific tries in their latest drubbing at Leeds.
It seems a little un-PC to say so, but I also loved the rather old-fashioned approach taken by the Catalan Dragons in their televised game at Warrington last Friday. "Horribly messy," said the Wolves coach Tony Smith. But what does he expect? Are teams supposed to turn up and admire Warrington spreading the ball to the wings, as they do so well? He'd probably moan then, as well, about the lack of competitive games in the Super League.
The Dragons decided to get among the Wolves, and see what happened. Olivier Elima was wonderfully niggly off the bench. Brent Webb played the part of pantomime villain to perfection, goading Ben Westwood on his way to a second stint in the sin bin. The loveable old rogue David Ferriol may have retired to his Limoux vineyard, but his spirit lives on.
For that, I suspect we have David Waite, who has returned to Perpignan to assist the Catalans' new French coach Laurent Frayssinous, to thank. Waite, the Australian who became Great Britain's first overseas coach back in 2001, is urbane, intelligent and bilingual, although occasionally hard to understand in English, never mind French. He's also a pleasingly old-fashioned rugby league coach who has never been averse to sending his forwards out to cause a bit of mayhem. Très bien, Monsieur Waite. Encore.
Meanwhile France's appointment of Richard Agar as coach of the national team for the World Cup also strikes me as a shrewd one – and it will need to be, given their tough draw in a group involving Samoa, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. But probably the most heartening thing I've read this week concerned another Brit who has coached the French, Bobbie Goulding. I've had my moments with Bobbie in recent years – in fact I don't think we're talking any more – but Ian Ridley's interview with him in last Saturday's Daily Mail suggested that the former Great Britain scrum half is ready to put some tough years behind him, after showing the courage to seek professional help from the Sporting Chance network fronted by the Arsenal legend Tony Adams.
*4) Child's play*
There is one more bouquet to deliver from the weekend, although it won't be popular, so it comes with a bit of a brickbat. James Child contributed hugely to the quality of Saturday's Huddersfield-Wigan game with a restrained, unobtrusive refereeing performance. Yet he still left the field to a chorus of boos at half-time, and the reaction to my suggestion on Twitter that he's had a good game – "What a load of tripe" - was depressingly predictable. Still, everyone is entitled to their opinion. What really irritates me is the witless, abusive and arrogant chant of "You don't know what you're doing" to which a minority of supporters so regularly resort. Perhaps it's wrong to be irritated – one can only admire their combination of faultlessness in their own professional lives, an exhaustive knowledge of the laws of rugby league, and perfect vision to know exactly what's going on from the back of the stand. Or maybe they're just hypocrites.
Now I'm not saying the refs are perfect. Let's pick on Steve Ganson, because he's old and ugly enough not to be overly concerned: he didn't have his best game at Bradford last Saturday, with some really tough calls on Castleford. Similarly Sky's coverage confirmed that the early offside penalty that Richard Silverwood awarded against the Catalans at Warrington, thereby setting the tone for the early exchanges, was harsh. But does that mean they don't know what they're doing, or that anyone watching the game – whether from the terrace or the press box – has the right to hurl abuse on the assumption that he or she could do any better? Apparently, depressingly, yes. Modern society, I suppose.
*5) Gimme five*
Right, we need cheering up after that lot. How about a Festival of World Cups? Launched in Leeds last Wednesday, this is, slightly confusingly, only tangentially linked to the main Rugby League World Cup that will be staged in the UK and Europe this autumn. There will be five more lower-case rugby league World Cups held before that, during a two-week period in July: for women, students and police in Yorkshire; for the armed forces in Colchester; and for wheelchair rugby league in Gillingham, the stronghold of the Medway Dragons amateur club.
We'll try to provide regular details of the build-up to those competitions in the coming months. Any contributions below the line would be very welcome. It's your forum, and I know regular bloggers would be interested to learn more.
*6) Global grafters*
There's much more upbeat stuff to rattle through in tackle six. The University of Gloucestershire All Golds have just been crowned national student champions, defeating Loughborough University, one of the traditional powerhouses of the student game, in the final. That's a perfect boost to the ambitious All Golds ahead of their entry into the new semi-professional Championship One competition – and they have also signed a partnership deal with the Bristol Sonics, who operate a couple of levels down in the Conference League South. With the World Cup coming to Bristol, when the Cook Islands face the USA at the Memorial Stadium in October, there is a feeling of momentum in the south-west.
Three schools from the rugby hotbed of Gloucester – St Peter's High, Churchdown and Chosen Hill – were also represented at the Midlands finals day in the Carnegie Champion Schools competition, with three from Derbyshire and others from Telford and Wolverhampton. Small acorns, but hugely heartening all the same.
Meanwhile, Warrington have hosted a delegation from Deutschland Rugby League , the Ukraine has a clutch of newly-qualified coaches and referees, and Lebanon's under-18s gained revenge on Saudi Arabia.
All these developments, both nationally and internationally, are almost entirely reliant on the enthusiasm of league nuts from either Australia, England or both. That's a long way from the superstars of Melbourne and Leeds, where we came in. But unsung heroes, the lot of them. Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.