You do have a way with words Jake. Shakespearian even. Well done.

He seems to have been gone for a few days now. Probably queuing for his Wembley ticket, wants to make sure he gets a good seat for the big day!!!

It's such a shame. He had his heart set on a big day out. Like they said last year, there's always next year.

Thank you.

Yeah, the LLS is a strange one. I want to see it as a major trophy. For the clubs for whom it is difficult to win trophies who have lifted it, it feels mean to discount it. But it is like if your mum bought you trainers with the wrong number of stripes from back of market when you were a kid. They were definitely, undeniably trainers… just not the ones you wanted, and nobody was impressed.

Part of me would like to see a 14 team top flight with the first-placed team named Champions and an 8-team straight knockout Premiership. I know a Premiership final wouldn’t be the same as the GF, but I feel that more games would matter more overall. And the GF has got more than a bit Groundhog Day imo, anyway.

I’d obviously tweak your narrative slightly to fit a Rovers perspective but much of it I agree with. I particularly feel that Radford’s achievements as Hull coach in ‘16 and ‘17 are undervalued by some Hull fans.

As an aside that kind of reflects how I’m feeling…
Number of clubs who became champions in the roughly 40 years between the end of WW2 and 1985: 18
In the roughly 40 years since: 6 (3 of them currently in the second tier, 2 of them last did it in the 80s)

Times change, I know.

On their "secret" board they're saying that the semi final defeat is just a part of building experience as Peter's tinkers towards achieving the masterplan!

I would speak to the NRL and make it a 4 team tournament - LLS winners, and GF winners, agaisnt the 2 NRL grand finalists. If the LLS and GF winners are the same, then the losing GF team will take the last spot.

Just gives a bit more incentive to the LLS

We had a short spell, did we not, around ten years ago when the WCC weekend was expanded to three games (albeit not in tournament format), think it was abandoned just at the point we would have had a game as Cup holders!

The problem in these instances is that the NRL tend to have an attitude of 'what's in it for us'. They usually need a reason to commit, and the reason is normally cold hard cash! They never seem particularly interested in giving the British game a helping hand unless they stand to gain somewhere.

There was also, of course, the expanded World Championship of 1997, but from a UK perspective, the less said about that lop-sided humiliation the better I think!!!

Is Abdul having twins?

He's really struggling with the pace of the game. The kebabs in the south of France must be good

Cartwright must be panicking after saying "I'll get them fit and hungry" if he's watching Abdul currently.

Burgess has improved wire so much in such a short space of time, we'd be 30-0 down now if Catalan had that much pressure on our line

Abdul will be fine with the hungry bit, the fit part may be more of a challenge. He'll be a waste of money if he doesn't get into shape