HUNGRY LAWES HAS APPETITE
WHAT a farce that we’re four days away from the new season and nobody has any idea what the game is doing.
We’re told the format will remain the same and the Super 8s and Million Pound Game will definitely go ahead.
But things are vague when it comes to the structure for 2019 meaning that this year’s set-up could end up being a futile laughing stock.
Super League clubs are agitating for more power, with many in favour of a 14-team top flight. But, if two more teams are going to be added to Super League, that does away with relegation automatically.
So will the losers of the Million Pound Game actually go down after all? And what happens if one of the teams that finishes in the top three in the Middle
Eights doesn’t suit the new power brokers at the Super League clubs?
They are valid questions that shouldn’t be hanging over the sport.
The media were also told last week that Toronto Wolfpack wouldn’t automatically get promoted to Super League if they won through via this year’s Championship.
Days later interim chief executive Ralph Rimmer appeared to backtrack on that.
It’s typical of the grey areas that don’t do the game’s players any favours at all. And they are the ones who make our sport the great spectacle that it is. They literally put their bodies on the line every single week and it’s time the men in suits showed the same courage.
The clubs are muscling up for a fight for more control, effectively forcing out RFL boss Nigel
Wood and the ineffective chief commercial officer
Roger Draper (below).
The RFL are now hunting a new chief executive and it’s essential they get this appointment bang on.
They need a strong character who can handle the club chairmen. Whoever gets the job also, ideally, needs to come from outside the sport.
The game is crying out for fresh ideas and innovation. The changing face of broadcasting – with the Sky deal ending in 2021 – also calls for a strong hand on the tiller. PREDICTIONS Grand Final winners: St Helens Grand Final runners-up: Castleford League Leaders’ Shield winners: St Helens Man of Steel: Leeds Widnes WARRIOR SPIRIT: Jamie Jones-Buchanan celebrates a win on the way to last season’s Super League title under-nourished and lacking his usual powers of destruction when the whistle blows for England’s first game against Italy on Sunday.
Londoner Lawes, 28, has become a pivotal player in the Red Rose pack with some impressive displays over the past 12 months.
And Jones wants him ready to feast on the Italians in Rome. He said: “Courtney was one of our leading players in every game in last year’s Six Nations. He went on the Lions tour and every time he played for the Lions he was sheer quality and added value to the game.
“It’s the same at Northampton. He makes an impact on the game all the time. He’s always been a great defender and now he has become a really effective ball carrier.
“The thing which has impressed me with him is his consistency. He does his set-piece work pretty well and the opportunity for him now is to cement that. Once you get into that position