Hello

Morning everybody.
Yes, I'm still here. The season kicked off yesterday (rant here, proper preview here). We start on Saturday away at Castleford.

One feller we won't be seeing for a while is Jamal Fakir. Here's why we'll miss him as he continues his rehab from a second serious knee knack:

French cathedrals

Our trip to France was not pure pleasure. Some of it was a bit of a pilgrimage. Some people refer to the ancient city of Carcassonne as a citadel. La Palais de les Rois de Majorque in the centre of Perpignan is often called the same. Well my citadels are different.
First one to visit was the Stade Gilbert Brutus.

Gates like these are a recurring theme at treiziste venues across the Rugby League playing part of France. We were in Perpignan for a game - a splendid sign-off for the departing legend Stacey Jones as we defeated the Harlequins for the first time in four attempts this season. It was another bumper crowd in a season which has seen the average crowd for a Super League game break 10,000 for the first time.

We'll miss Jones - which side wouldn't? - but there's more to this club than one man.

On our journey back up to get the plane home from Carcassonne, we had a quick stop off in Limoux for a bit of a look around.
It's a tidy venue. No game going on though, as the French league season doesn't kick off until October.
The cinder track was apparently used for athletics back in the day. A board testifies to one chap running the half-mile (cf the modern day 800m) in 1 minute 47 seconds and another doing whatever the equivalent of 200m used to be (220 yards, I think) in about 22 seconds. Good going on cinder is that.

They've a nice clubhouse as well, the steps of which I took the above picture of the main stand from. You just don't get venues like this in Blighty.
And so up the road to the venue I really wanted to see - Stade Albert Domec, home of AS Carcassonne.
See the traditionally ornate gates again.
Why here, you may ask? Well Carcassonne were the first French team I ever saw play. Way back when it was. They played Wigan in a Challenge Cup match in their traditional yellow kit (they're known as the Canaries) and that sort of sparked the interest in the French game which now manifests itself in following the Dragons and the French national side.
Back in the early 1950s, the Albert Domec was the stage on which performed the greatest: Puig-Aubert.
A full-back, his deeds have gone down in legend. He never tackled, reasoning that it was everybody else's job to do that. He often took the field with a cigarette bolted to one corner of his mouth and a bottle of Ricard. He'd back-heel conversions he felt too easy and invariably kicked them as well. His party piece was placing the ball where the corner flag goes and still putting it through the posts.
And now I've met him.

You have little idea how proud I am of that picture. Pathetic, I know, but there you go.
I really could see myself live out there. It's bloody great. My next trip out will hopefully incorporate an Élite league match as well as the Dragons. I shall peruse the fixture lists.

Another round-up

Been a while hasn't it. I've still been going to games, y'know. Since the Harlequins game, the following happened....

We won the semi-final! After 20 minutes, we were 22-0 up and had totally blown Wigan away. The following week, the traditional cup hangover kicked in as Huddersfield kicked our sorry hides and a below strength Warrington beat us the week before the final. These were punctuated with homes wins, which just adds to the frustration one feels following the Dragons around.
Sadly, I switched phones in the meantime and the photos I had are no more. Whoops.

And so, to Wembley!

It was however-many years late. It cost three-quarters of a billion quid. And it's utterly magnificent. You get legroom! This was a rare commodity in the old Empire Stadium. It's not without fault though. It's still in Wembley which means that the transport links are still rubbish. Really rubbish. So rubbish that, after a quick drink in the Warrington Hotel in Maida Vale, we made the stadium with seconds to spare before kick-off.
We lost, but were not humiliated. Younes Khattabi became the first Muslim to score in a cup final as well, which was a moment that went largely unheralded. We made a weekend of it as well. Stayed in a Travel Lodge (might not actually have been one of them, but you get the general idea) and had a night on the drink in Shepherd's Bush on the Friday. The post-match was in a Sam Smith's pub just off Trafalgar Square. And it was red hot. And despite it being a good weekend, it's always a nice moment when you see London growing ever smaller in the rear view mirror.

Not as cunning as I thought

The big local derby is always an affair to remember and this was no exception. Four times are the Dragons pitted against the old enemy from London - the Harlequins - but only once at their home at The Stoop. Naturally, the fans turned out in numbers, with a good 50-odd from France. It also kept nice, which was a bonus as it's been wall-to-wall rain in the lead-up to the game.
We had a bleedin' mare getting down. I thought I was being cunning, but it backfired. With the Live Earth concert at Wembley, the Grand Prix at Silverstone and the Tour de France starting in London, I thought it would be more strategic to go down the M69, A46 Coventry ring road and M40. It also means that I'd use less of the M25, which is one of the worst roads I've ever encountered and always attempt to use as little as possible. And it was all going fine until we got near the point where the A46 meets the M40. The last two miles took about 90 minutes to cover.
This is the other side of the jam we were stuck in when we actually got moving. It was seven miles long. I'd like to point out that I didn't take that picture as I was driving. Rather the missus did from the passenger seat.
And so we only arrived about half an hour before kick-off, not giving us much opportunity to avail ourselves of The Stoop's generous bar facilties. £3.40 for a pint of Heineken though? I know it's that London and everything, but bloody hell.
After the game, which our rivals won 30-22, was much easier to take in the bars and we had a few pints with some of the natives.

Regular viewers may remember that The Stoop is a hefty gob from The Seat Of Evil that is otherwise known as Twickenham. So, when in Rome.....


And so homeward bound. We eventually got back home about half past midnight, which makes it a long day. It was all a bit much for some.

Catch up

I am getting slack at this. It's not that I've not been going anywhere, just that I can never seem to find time to update you, my viewing public. Anyway, here we go.

June 10. Challenge Cup quarter-final time and a trip to Hull FC's KC Stadium. We weren't expected to do anything considering we were down to our last 17 fit players, and yet we did it! A first semi-final for the club in only it's second year is great, especially factoring in the injuries.


That semi-final pits us against Wigan at the ever-so-neutral venue of Warrington, a startling but not surprising lack of imagination from the RFL there. Coincidentally, the next league fixture was at Wigan. It didn't quite go right as we lost 30-0. Most noticeable was Justin Murphy's spectacular somersault over the advertising boards and into the steps at the bottom of the stand. Scary stuff, but he's one tough hombre and came through with no more than a grazed hip. Also noticeable was the huge turnout of support from France. Around 300 had come over for the game, which made the result so much more disappointing. But we won't read anything into that result for the semi-final.


A large contingent of those French supporters came over to Huddersfield the day after for a trip round the Heritage Museum, so it was good to go along and meet them all. Also, kudos to Stevo for his efforts regarding their visit.
Finally for this update, last week saw the league take another break, this time for a GB v France Test match at Headingley.


France stepped into the breach at late notice after New Zealand declined the invite if they couldn't field a full-strength side. With NRL clubs not giving a flying one about the international game, that was never going to happen, so France stepped in. Over 12000 attended, the biggest crowd for a GB v France game in many a year, but lessons learned from the game are few and far between.

Coming up: A trip to London next week for the massive Quins v Dragons derby at The Stoop. And my flights are booked for September to attend the reverse fixture at the Gilbert Brutus. Liverpool to Carcassonne for a penny. Marvellous.

Fakir-ed

Yet another trip to Wakefield today. It's an unhappy hunting ground for our Catalan heroes. We're now 0-3 here after an 18-12 defeat. We weren't helped by a serious injury to Jamal Fakir. Having only come back from a serious knee injury - ruptured patella tendon if you must know - last week, it looks like he's done it again. Bugger.
And it was pissing it down. In fact, it only stopped after we got home (having stopped off en route at the Hare & Hounds, Grange Moor, for a roast Sunday dinner), which was as annoying as it is inevitable.
There's one other constant besides defeat that we've encountered at Belle Vue and that's abuse on a grand scale. I thought as I was drifting off to sleep last night that if the Dragons kicked towards the Doncaster Road terrace in the second half, then the idiot quotient would be low, and so it proved. So while we got nothing but the odd snide comment of "you don't deserve to be in Super League anyway", it was nothing like the unbelievable vitriol we've had on the previous trips. The smaller crowd (blame the rain) also accounts for some of that, methinks. Instead, we had a Hull KR-esque level of Rugby League knowledge. I think it was Johnny Carson who described a 'New York minute' as the time between a traffic light turning green and the guy behind you pipping his horn. Well today I define a 'Wakefield minute' as the time between the ball carrying arm of a Trinity player hitting the deck and the guy behind you going "reffurreee!!!! 'Oldin' dooooowwwnnn!!!". It got tedious, but I'm not going to complain as, compared to the previous two trips, it made a pleasant change.

And thanks to Drago for the tickets. Another week - another freebie.

Haven

I'm obviously getting a bit slack at this. It's a week since we went to Whitehaven and I'm only getting round to writing it up. The fifth round of the Cup saw the Dragons drawn up on the West Cumbrian coast. We set off in glorious sunshine and that stayed with us all the way up the M6 and across the Lake District. Arriving in the town we set off in search of sustenance and found the Whittington Cat on the advice of a contact my partner had made at the club - a contact who also sorted us out with free tickets, which was above and beyond the call of duty. Pints and food ordered in the pub, chat was had with locals who all wanted to talk rugby to us. A very convival atmosphere indeed and when the food arrived, we were astonished by the quantities. You try eating like that for a fiver anywhere else.
And then it was off up to the club. Whitehaven have been on the fringes of promotion to the top flight for the last few seasons and various plans have been put forward to allow them to join the big boys because the Recreation Ground isn't much to write home about. It's rusting corrugated iron, delapidated terraces and 'unique' toilet facilities.


And yet, I love the place. There's no pretention of being something it's not. They're not trying to ape a blueprint from elsewhere or stick rigidly to a formula. There's no vans selling £5 rat burgers. There is an ice-cream van and as three of our party got their 99s, the heavens finally opened and heavy rain was set in for the rest of the day. That was at half-time in a scrappy game. The Dragons managed to knock-on a total of seventeen times, which gives you some idea of the nature of the match. Whitehaven couldn't capitalise though, and the Dragons survived 24-14 to progress to the quarter-finals.
I wish our hosts all the very best. I want them to succeed and I would love them to be a Super League side this time next year. More power to their elbow.

Millennium Magic

Super League were made an offer they couldn't refuse to take an entire round of league matches to the Millennium Stadium at Cardiff. It was yesterday and today and after a last minute change of heart, I went yesterday.
A last minute change of heart because I had fully intended to be in Carcassonne for the Coupe de France final scheduled for May 6. However, with French Presidential elections called for that day, the FFRXIII moved it to May 1 and I then couldn't be bothered re-arranging my plans. However, when a couple of spare tickets came available for a very reasonable no pounds down and nothing per month, I figured why not.
Stopping for some breakfast at services on the M5, we bumped into a few Warrington-supporting chums and on arrival in Cardiff at 11am, debunking to the Prince of Wales saw us meet up with a cast of dozens of mates - too numerous to name you all, but you know who are - supporting myriad different clubs. Six massive derbies, it was billed as and the Dragons kicked us off with the huge local derby against Harlequins. A cracking game which saw Quins edge it. We were in a huge minority as Dragons fans, but the neutrals around us from Leeds, Salford and Wigan joined in and made sure we weren't singing on our own. My voice was all but gone at the end of it.
Good to see Drago leading the chants as well....


The Hull derby followed and we'd manage to shift ourselves up near the Dragons official party, courtesy of 'Drago', for which many thanks. Another tight game saw Rovers edge out FC in another very entertaining encounter. However, by the time Saints kicked off against Wigan, I was getting a bit of 'rugby blindness'. Three games back-to-back is a bit much and shortly after half-time, we headed back up the motorway and I got home about 1am. That makes it a very long day, but I'm glad I went. I'm not sure I could have put myself through the three Sunday games as well though.
The theory is to analyse this and see about making it a regular feature. If it's to be a bank holiday weekend, maybe put two games across each of three days - I'm not sure. It'd be a shame to scrap it after just one year, as is typical of Rugby League initiatives.

A Headingley double

Two trips to Headingley in the space of a couple of days last weekend. First on Friday night, an instantly forgettable drubbing for the Dragons at the hands of a rampant Leeds. A pleasant night, with much beer flowing. No issues to report as my previously aired theory that the novelty of the Dragons has worn off for many.

The Sunday after, I was back for the BARLA U18 Championship final between Siddal and West Hull (see picture). It was a stinking hot day, but as I was there DJing, I got to sit in a nice, cool control booth. It was a cracking game. I don't think I've seen teams suffer so much with cramp in a single game as almost everybody needed help stretching out at times throughout the game. Absolute blood and thunder stuff as these kids were not messing about and were a real credit to the sport. It was harsh that there had to be a loser, but just as West Hull seemed they were going to pinch it, Siddal somehow managed to muscle up in defence for one last effort and they held on for a 10-8 win. A really good game and a privilege to watch. For my part, I'm afraid I fell into the archetypal RL DJ role. Blur's Song 2, U2's Elevation among the tunes played after scores. A distinct lack of imagination. D-