Conspiracy theorists, and other mentalists

With all the hype and hysteria over the upcoming World Cup, you'd be forgiven for forgetting that other sports do actually exist at the moment.
Well thankfully, the BBC acknowledged this fact for about four minutes this morning, by televising the draw for the semi-final of the Rugby League Challenge Cup before shooting off back to their reporter in Baden Baden to resume normal service.



The draw involved my side Leeds Rhinos, St Helens, Huddersfield Giants and Hull Kingston Rovers. For those of you that don't know much about Rugby League, let me put that into some context.

• St Helens are currently top of the Super League and playing some brilliant Rugby. They're favourites to win both the cup and Super League and win probably win at least one of the two, assuming that their annual end-of-season cock-up stays away this year.
  
• Leeds Rhinos are second in the Super League. If St Helens are going to lose one of the two trophies that they look like winning, you'd probably put your money on Leeds to be the team that won it.
• Huddersfield are an unglamarous club. Some people will tell you they play 'ugly' rugby. On their day, they can beat anyone (they're the only team that have beaten St Helens this season) but on their day, they can also lose to Rodley Rockets Under 9's.
• Hull KR arn't even in Super League. They are in National League 1, which if you're a football fan, is the equivalent of the fizzy-pop Championship. They're playing well, but they arn't going to win it.

Now, the mentalists were adament that the RFL were desperate to get a Leeds vs St Helens final. The two best teams, the two teams that arguably play the best rugby, infront of a packed Twickenham crowd on national television. They said that Huddersfield and/or Hull weren't welcome at the game's showpiece event, what with their piddly crowds and ugly rugby.
They said the organisers would stop at nothing to ensure that Leeds and St Helens were kept apart in the semi-finals. Nutty theories included the "hot ball - cold ball" theories, balls imprinted with symbols so the draw master could tell who was who, a pre-recorded draw and some other stupid methods which, if I wrote down, would see the men in white coats come knocking on my door.

So low and behold, what happened in today's draw? Leeds and St Helens were kept apart. Leeds have got Huddersfield whilst Saints have got to brush aside Hull KR.

Obviously, the lunatics are having a field day. "Fix" and "swindle" were the cries the entire length of the M62.
"What a suprise!" was one sarcastic post on a message board.
"No wonder the draw was late!" said another.

Yesterday, someone claimed that Leeds and St Helen's would "miraculously" be drawn apart.

Would that be the 'miracle' that is a 2 in 3 chance of not drawing St Helens? The miracle that a completly fair and impartical system would more than likely, give a result that isn't a Leeds vs St Helens semi-final?

Now I fully appreciate that it's not up there with the greatest of conspiracies. It's certainly not of the same ilk as 9/11 or the crash of TWA800, but it's still reassuring to think that there are people like this in the world. Whenever I doubt my own abilities, I can always remind myself that there are people much more delusional than I am.