Even the most devout sometimes need a reaffirmation. And rugby league fans – and the Challenge Cup especially – were given the greatest fillip after two magnificent and contrasting semi finals that put the sport front and centre, re-emphasising all that is finest…
It wasn’t meant to be an instant panacea. The instigation of the Super Eights, in its first year, was never proposed as a cure-all for the sport….
There was a time, not long ago, when owners and chief executives were seldom seen or heard. Anonymous, shadowy figures, they plotted, schemed, wheeled-and-dealed away from the spotlight.
The architects of Super League’s brave new world must be secretly rubbing their hands together with glee in their darkened Salford lair as the split into inaugural eights comes into sharp relief.
It’s heresy, no more, no less, the thought that the only real, genuine, inter-city derby in rugby league will, most likely, be no more other than at senior level….except.
A pat on the back weekend for rugby league after 35,000 fans turned up to watch a riveting set of Ladbrokes Challenge Cup quarter finals.
Ben Roberts is the perfect on-field epitome of Super League; unquestionably talented, highly entertaining and prone to mistakes – his inconsistency can make him as frustrating as he is captivating.
The way the Super League fixtures fell this weekend, with only a handful of matches left before the inaugural split into eights, every minute was going to matter more than most than had preceded; a litmus test for 2015.
How much the marquee player will be an inexact science was illustrated this weekend.
By common consent, however you measure it, Magic Weekend was a success. Whether it was an avowed one and, perhaps more importantly, how we capitalise on it, is another issue.
