The Challenge Cup is now into its 5th round, this year the Championship teams have not performed as well unfortunately. Jamaica’s season has got off to a start as has Papua New Guinea’s. The Canadians have new champions in their domestic season as well and the NRL had a shortened round while France’s Grand Finalists have been decided.
Well, three articles ago I discussed about the rant that Nick Bryant, the BBC’s Australian Correspondent, had about Union being the far superior sport to Rugby League etc… if you didn’t read the article you can have a read of it here. Anyway I ended my little piece with a comment that said:
Its funny how, when ever there is Rugby Union World Cup or the sport is struggling in places around the world that all this rubbish starts to get bandied around by them. As an excuse to try and beat their chest at Rugby league. Usually when these kinds of articles start coming out it means there is something wrong in the world of Rugby Union.
Well today we found out what is wrong. It turns out that Rugby Union participation numbers have fallen quite significantly since 2009, to the point that Sports England are cutting the money that they allot them each year by a good 1 million pounds. The sports participation numbers have gone from 230,000 in 2009 to 177,990. That is a drop of 23%! So 1 in 4 people that used to play don’t play the sport anymore. Turns out that they have neglected their grass roots and so its come and bitten them on the rear end. Anyway I just figured that is some food for thought, next time you see one of these silly articles come out you know that Union is struggling somewhere out there and are trying to deflect any attention away by having a shot at The Greatest Game.
While Lezignan was in England playing the Challenge Cup, Limoux and Pia played out the Preliminary final in Perpignan. Its was a tough match but the Limoux Grizzlies were able to come away with a good win against the Donkeys 26-12. This sets up another mouth watering Grand Final between two local rivals in the Aude Region of France. Lezignan and Limoux will fight it out on Saturday afternoon in Narbonne.
This illustrious tournament had its 4th round on the weekend. No real surprises in this round, with the championship clubs really underperforming compared to last year where they were able to upset a couple of the Super League clubs. Results were: St Helens 52-6 Sheffield Eagles, York City Knights 22-64 Hull Kingston Rovers, Featherstone Rovers 42-16 Lezignan, London Skolars 18-62 Widnes Vikings, Leigh Centurions 16-22 Catalan Dragons, Wigan Warriors 52-0 Barrow Raiders, Leeds Rhinos 30-20 Crusaders, Batley Bulldogs 18-28 Huddersfield Giants, Dewsbury Rams 38-44 Swinton Lions, Halifax 34-46 Bradford Bulls, Hunslet Hawks 2-68 Salford City Reds, Rochdale Hornets 10-72 Castleford Tigers, Gateshead Thunder 0-70 Harlequins RL , Warrington Wolves 80-0 Keighley Cougars, Hull FC 82-0 Oldham, Doncaster 10-50 Wakefield Trinity Wildcats
The 5th round draw has been made as well and is as follows: Huddersfield Giants v Catalan Dragons, Warrington Wolves v Swinton Lions, St Helens v Featherstone Rovers, Leeds Rhinos v London Harlequins, Wakefield Trinity Wildcats v Castleford Tigers, Bradford Bulls v Wigan warriors, Widnes Vikings v Hull FC, Salford City Red Devils v Hull KR. the games to keep an eye on for me are the Huddersfield and Catalan game, both teams should be in good form and that will be a close one. The Wakey v Cas match, being a local derby and with the whole licence thing coming up should have some spite to it and the Bull v Wigan Match could be an interesting one as well. if there was to be an upset it might be Widnes beating Hull FC.
Canada this year has new champions. Last years finalists, well the only two teams, Toronto City and Niagara (last year they were called St Catherines) faced off. Toronto won last year, but this year it was the turn of Niagara to run out champions. They defeated Toronto 30-26 while in the 3/4 play off York Region were close victors over Scarborough 30-28. Canada now look to its internationals this year with a demo game against the New York knights, then an international against the Jamaican’s and the Colonial Cup.
I am chuffed this year that I have been able to catch the PNG Digicel Cup right from round 1, and unlike previous years I have found the full schedule for the season as well! You can see it here. Round 1 has been played and the results are as follows: Kundiawa 4-4 Hela, Lae 20-21 Mendi, Goroka 22-6 Agmark, Enga 16-19 Mt Hagen and Port Moresby 24-14 Gulf Isapea. The Table stands as
| Team | P | W | D | L | B | PD | Pt | |
| 1 | Goroka | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 2 |
| 2 | Port Moresby | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 2 |
| 3 | Mt Hagen | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| 4 | Mendi | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 5 | Hela | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 6 | Kundiawa | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 7 | Lae | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -1 | 0 |
| 8 | Enga | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -3 | 0 |
| 9 | Gulf Isapea | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -10 | 0 |
| 10 | Agmark | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -16 | 0 |
In The NRL round 9 saw a shortened round with only 4 matches played over the weekend. This is due to the rep games on Friday. Results are: Brisbane 22-29 Melbourne, St George/Illawarra 22-8 Nth Queensland, Gold Coast 14-34 New Zealand and Manly 20-0 Canberra. While Canterbury, Penrith, Sydney City, Parramatta, South Sydney, Cronulla, Wests and Newcastle all had the bye. The table stands as:
| Team | P | W | D | L | B | PD | Pt | |
| 1 | St George / Illawarra | 9 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 111 | 16 |
| 2 | Melbourne | 9 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 112 | 14 |
| 3 | Brisbane | 9 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 71 | 14 |
| 4 | Manly | 9 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 51 | 12 |
| 5 | Nth Queensland | 9 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 40 | 12 |
| 6 | Canterbury | 9 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 14 | 12 |
| 7 | Wests | 9 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 32 | 10 |
| 8 | New Zealand | 9 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 15 | 10 |
| 9 | Newcastle | 9 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| 10 | South Sydney | 9 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 1 | -37 | 8 |
| 11 | Parramatta | 9 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 1 | -104 | 8 |
| 12 | Sydney City | 9 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 1 | -41 | 6 |
| 13 | Cronulla | 9 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 1 | -45 | 6 |
| 14 | Gold Coast | 9 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 0 | -59 | 6 |
| 15 | Penrith | 9 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 1 | -63 | 6 |
| 16 | Canberra | 9 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 0 | -100 | 2 |
It will be delayed by a day this week due to some technical issues from my end. So rather than on Tuesday 20:00 AEST (11:00 GMT, 06:00 USET) it will now be on Wednesday. Sorry for any inconvenience. Remember you can catch the show live on http://www.hkcradio.com
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