Teams line up for the anthems
Rugby League, in particular Super League, really hasn’t done it for me for a while – from a peak in 2004 when I went to every Bradford Bulls home and away game, and often additional matches involving other teams as well I managed to drag myself along to a mere 2 League and 1 Challenge Cup game in the 2011 season, oh and a freebie trip to Wembley for the final – and I can remember precious little about any of them apart from the fact I didn’t find the games too enthralling.
So, it was somewhat bizarre that I decided to head along to Leigh to see the first ever “England Knights” (pretty much an England U25′s team) in their first ever game against the full France side yesterday. My only rationale was that I had nothing to do for most of the day, I was going to be in Manchester to meet someone for drinks later – and someone tweeted that admission was £3 so I thought I might as well pop along.
Leigh’s fairly new Sports Village is one of those new, out of town, soul-less grounds that people in Rugby League wet themselves over nowadays – the cost of playing there has already sent the town’s football team bust and the RL team aren’t in much better shape – hence a collection towards their survival fund being held outside the turnstiles. Towns like Leigh, and their RL fans, like to make a lot of noise about how they are the heartlands and lifeblood of Rugby League but the ground was practically deserted, just over 2000 turned up (a few latecomers had obviously stayed in the pub to watch the end of the Man Utd/Liverpool game) and people started leaving after about 10 minutes of the second half.
I can’t particularly blame them for that, it wasn’t much of a game, the Knights played some good stuff at times, but the French looked largely uninterested – despite a strong team on paper, and the young England team cantered to an easy victory. What really summed things up for me was when, halfway through the second half, a France player chased the teams water carrier (who was leaving the pitch) not to take some liquid on board, but to ask how long was left. The impression was they couldn’t get out of there quick enough (well, it was in Leigh).
England’s senior side play at Leigh in the Four Nations tournament in a couple of weeks, I had been thinking about making the trip, but after yesterday I’m definitely not inspired to do so, I can’t quite put my finger on what has changed for me and the game but, just a few years after I’d happily make trips to places like Featherstone or Widnes to watch random “international” and representative age group games I suddenly can’t think of many things I’d rather not do.
