Return of the Rugby

Friday nights are back! Last night saw what, for me at least, was the unofficial start of the new Rugby League season.






With the change to summer rugby, with the season starting in February (Rugby League does unusual things like that), the pre-season campaigns are already underway.
Most clubs so far have run a few friendly games, but mainly involving the academy players. Last night however, Leeds' first team took on their Huddersfield counterparts at Headingley.

The game was a joint testimonial game (Rugby League does funny things like that) for Paul Reilly, who was celebrating 10 years service at Huddersfield, and Keith Senior, who wasn't celebrating 10 years service at Leeds.

Senior had instead been awarded a 'four month' testimonial (Rugby League does funny things like that) "for services to the game". To date he is the only player to have played in every year of Super League, is the Super League top appearance and try scorer and has been a Great Britain regular. His testimonial was fully deserved.

Over the testimonial period, the players essentially try and raise as much money as possible and a nice little kitty. Some donate the money to charity, others use it as a way of funding a career away from the game. They'll usually hold a dinner event, golf day, release a special edition shirt and hold their own benefit game - hence my attendance at Headingley yesterday.

In essence, a testimonial game is an opportunity for the marketing men to dress up a pre-season kick about as something much more important. Aside from the extra fanfare before and after, they're pretty run-of-the-mill.

Anyway, Leeds won 50-0. They scored some cracking tries (especially given it's pre-season) and on this form, will challenge anyone, expect it's Leeds we're talking about, so the form will probably last until the last two months of the season.

The Super League season kicks off proper next week, with Huddersfield playing St Helens in Round 3 (Rugby League does funny things like that). At least I'll have something to update The One Pointer with.

The Power of Radio

Some of you who have read my other blog The One Pointer might have noticed the news that Featherstone Rovers have agreed naming rights deal for their stadium with Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles.




Well thanks to Mr Moyles, The One Pointer has seen it's hit's jump like never before.

Already as of the 16th, November hits have almost reached double the number of hits the same site got for the whole of October - and the numbers are still ticking over.

Chris Moyles: The Saviour of Radio One and the kick-start for The One Pointer

No Rugby for you Here

Some of you may have noticed a lack of Rugby League content of here lately. That's because I've decided to move it to it's own dedicated blog. It's been listed in the links section for a while now, but I figured that not all of you would look there. In fact, I know few of you look there, because my stat counter shows that very few of you have found it by clicking the link on here. So because of that, I'm thrusting this advert right infront of you!

If you haven't visited it yet, I think you should.

Happy reading!