By DAVE HADFIELD
I’M AFRAID that some of the Salford fans I talked to after the win over Huddersfield last week were getting a bit carried away with it.
Yes, it was one of the better performances of a very mixed season, both on and off the field, and Huddersfield, on the back of their record over the last few seasons, are a bit of a scalp.
Sadly, a Giant scalp is not worth what it used to be. We know that the wheels have dropped off this season, but we didn’t quite realise that there had been a full-scale train smash.
But Huddersfield’s first quarter last weekend was quite simply the worst I’ve seen this season; not just from them but from anyone.
I said a couple of weeks ago that a flame seemed to have gone out at the club. Now, you could hardly warm your feet on the ashes.
Okay, they were short of one or two players, like the admirable Jermaine McGillvary, who could have been relied upon to put in a bit extra.
For the most part, though, they looked like a bunch of blokes who couldn’t wait for the season to end. If they don’t lift their game, it could end with a nasty surprise.
Whose fault is it? It’s always handy to know that.
Well, not Rick Stone. He hasn’t been there long enough, although there has been a notable non-appearance of that old deceiver, New Coach Syndrome, under the rules of which players who have got one coach sacked raise their game, with barely the trace of a sense of irony, under his successor.
I’m taking the risk of writing this before the Giants’ game against Featherstone this week, in which they could, in theory, score 50 and look like world champions again.
That, if it has happened, only proves that the gap between Super League and Championship is indeed a yawning chasm and that Huddersfield were fortunate that Rovers played a resurgent Leeds last week.
It doesn’t say much about Huddersfield’s long-term prospects if they can’t lift their standards and get some oomph back into their play.
Balding is such a loss
I WAS watching the Olympics the other day; it might have been the fencing, it might have been the dressage – both of them are pretty popular in Bolton – when my mind wandered to how much I miss Clare Balding.
I realise that you can’t have a proper Olympics without Clare, and she has her national – nay, international – duties to discharge, so she wouldn’t be fronting any rugby league just now in any case. But I can’t deny wishing that she would be doing some on her return from Rio.
That is no criticism of the current regime. Mark Chapman is a brilliant presenter and a thoroughly good bloke into the bargain.
Its just that, as a posh woman in a world of not particularly posh men, she was uniquely placed to take the game into living rooms it would not normally reach and that just gives her the edge.
Her stint in the job raised the bar like an ambitious pole vaulter on a good day. Now she is doomed to spread her light thinly over every sport known to man; Oh come on, Clare, how much do you really care about synchronised diving and water polo?
THERE was at least one familiar face in Rio. Channel hopping to find the beach volleyball, I stumbled across something called Rugby Sevens, and, do you know what, it’s remarkably similar to Rugby League Sevens, the all-scoring, all-singing, all dancing variation we used to play to usher in the new season. And there, slipping out impossible passes at the Maracana, was the world’s most mobile sportsman, Sonny Bill Williams, playing the truncated game for New Zealand.
At least he was until he did his Achilles, bringing his tournament and, for all I know, his Sevens career, to a premature halt.
Another OneMan Olympics, Jarryd Hayne. didn’t get that far. He wasn’t picked by Fiji and has now scooted off around the Monopoly board to play rugby league once more, at the expense of four or five damn good players who are to be released by the Gold Coast Titans in order to balance their salary cap.
In the meantime, expect a surge of interest in Rugby (union) Sevens, just as there would have been if Rugby (league) Sevens had been included in the Manchester Commonwealth Games.
Unfortunately, our administrators were struck with paralysis at the time when that was a live possibility and one of the great profile-raising opportunities was missed.
I tried to get interested in a few of the other sports on offer, but I struggled a little with some. Judo, for instance, is just not a spectator sport, with all the action that counts concealed within the folds of their padded pyjamas.
It’s about as recognisable as a fight as what passes for an ‘all-in brawl’ in rugby league these days: nothing but a lot of pushing and grabbing.
At least our blokes don’t have to wear belts, which come off everytime they are touched.
So it was back to the Sevens for me, especially when I heard the name Burgess in the Great Britain squad. Surely they hadn’t flown out one of the brothers at the last minute?
No, it turned out to be one Phil Burgess (no relation) although there was a Wiganer in the team in the person of Dan Bibby, although I can’t remember seeing him dashing around at St Judes or lnce Rose Bridge.
Fiji were thrilling in the final against Great Britain. In fact, some enterprising club, like Rochdale Hornets for example, could do a lot worse than importing a few.
Too far-fetched? You’re probably right.
