119 The Dentists Diary
SHAMBOLIC!!!!!!
That was abysmal, not poor, not even bad, but down right abysmal, and possibly the worst performance I have ever soon from an FC side! There can be no real excuses because it was, remember, a record defeat!
If it’s the bad times that make the good times good, then we are in for some good times, because quite frankly that performance was shocking!!!!!!
The lack of effort, total disregard for possession and down right lethargy in the ranks was just amazing, and for the first time in writing 119 Diaries, I find it impossible to be enthusiastic about anyone!
The poor “Wembley Crazed”, cash strapped fans, who made the journey over the Pennines, (and there were about 1100 of us there on Friday), should all get their money back because they went to see their team play rugby and were robbed under the trades description act!!
The Pie Dome is never the best of places for any team to go and certainly not a happy hunting ground for us, but this time we never performed or even tried!!
Players stuck their hand out at passes on the fifth tackle to knock on and award another set of six to the opposition, on not one, but at least 5 times. The ball was lost just about every time we had it, no one took the line on and our tackling was shocking.
For most of the match we played a game so narrow that the two wingers were usually about 15 meters from the touch line when we had the ball and we showed no attacking ideas whatsoever!!!
It just beggared belief and was, for those who attended a total rip off!

I have always said that I don’t mind as long as we try, but on
Friday we certainly did not, and those players who went out on that field should hang their heads in shame!! If we play like that at Wembley we will be beaten by a record score, which will live to haunt us for decades to come. BUT, of course we won’t, because as always, some of us have seen this sort of stuff before! Rarely has it been as bad, but cast your mind back to that 71-0 at Bradford a couple of years ago, that was on the back of a Challenge Cup win and a great defeat of Warrington in the playoffs! That night we had Kearney’s sending from the field of to blame for the shambles, this time a lot of players would have been better off not entering it!!
In this weeks Diary we will look, briefly, at that performance
(because by and large there wasn’t one), at Raynor (The
Fugitive) Graham Horne, the Pies, pies, Queuing for tickets and
Ashley Thackerey. Then there is a bit about the playoff’s next year, Liam Colbon, Nick Scruton, Calderwood, Crocker the international and Airliebird! Plus a few lines about Wembley,
Toulousse, corner flags and the “McKintyre final eight”!!!!!
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As I drove on my own to Wigan I reflected on the fact that we never ever really did well there, even when we needed to, and with our current situation, at least on this occasion, we really did not need to win at all!! I also thought that no doubt one or two of the players would be starting to believe their own publicity after last week’s exploits. All this pointed, for me, to a tough game, a below energy performance and perhaps, in the end, a 30 point defeat. As long as they tried, I felt then that would be sufficient.
Nothing though could prepare me for what I encountered at the
Piedome as we produced the most inept performance I have seen for years! In the first half we were under the kosh from the first minute and our display in that period was summed up for

me by one single act. We got possession back on our own line after a kick. The tackled player got up to play the ball about 4 yards from the try line, with about 4 forwards within passing distance, the acting half handed the ball to Briscoe, who got rattled by two forwards, lost the ball and they scored!! That’s what it was like all night really.
When in the second half one fan near me shrieked out that we should try to open play up a bit and run the ball, I hadn’t the heart to tell them that we simply did not have anyone who could do that! The try we scored was a crash over by Thackerey who was so wound up that he targeting the tackler rather than the try line and just fell over the line as he bounced off the defender.
Mr “Sicknote” Dykes was injured again (Oh what a surprise).
Whilst “The Ginger One” was still at home waiting for the postman. Actually he was on the pitch before the game but you get my drift, I am sure! I really think though that this Dykes stuff is now getting beyond a joke, he is not injury prone, so much as just permanently injured! Even when he played last week you could tell who he was in the warm up, he was the one that was limping! Washy whilst trying hard had absolutely no pack platform to work from, whilst out wide it was just a comedy of errors with Sing, Horne, Yeamo and Raynor at times resembling a failed juggling act from Billy Smarts Circus!! Berro made some good positions and ran a few good lines, for the rest to drop his passes, and in the end he gave up, whilst Tommy Lee tried hard but lacked any support whatsoever.
The forwards showed no penetration and met few attackers with a head on tackle. In fact all night we seemed intent on letting their forwards get level with us before we tried to tackle them!! It was pathetic really! If Michael Crocker sees the video he will have nightmares! A gar’s tactics and selection were interesting too! For me there are starting to be one or two question marks surrounding our new coach’s calls I am afraid. The use of Hall at full back was a disaster really, and at one point he even

appeared to be running away from the chap that he was supposed to be tackling! Then we move Raynor back there, what was all that about? I would have selected both Burnett and
Wheeldon to inject some freshness into the troops too! For me
Berrigan and Houghton were the only bright lights and they fizzled and spluttered rather than shone out!
The meat pies at half time were excellent though!!
Many folks may not realise it, and many more not want to, but that was an all time record defeat for the club, it was the biggest margin of defeat in our history! Our previous record was 58 that we registered twice in 1999, including a 58-0 home defeat by, yes you guessed it, Wigan!
Of course it is all to do with the Cup and the fact, like it or not, that our coach, and probably our senior players, are targeting
Wembley. To be honest looking back I should have expected it really! 7 of our players lost over half a stone in fluids last Sunday and a five-day turn round was too short for them! For me it seems that if the game is not a “targeted” one, as was the case over the last two weeks, we can expect these dumb performances. I am still convinced that we will do really well in the final, we have the players to do it, but until then, prepare yourselves for some frustrating times! I am!
The “C” Grade “must try harder” boys across at Caravan Park, are making a lot of winning their home game and our defeat. If that’s what floats their boat they can get on with it, but in the end win or lose, at the weekend of the 30th we are going to
Wembley and they are not. There is not one of them that would not swop their situation for ours!! That really rankles them, something that was emphasised by neutral supporters who watched their game on TV commenting on their incessant chanting about us!!! It shows their mentality when they chant
“Are you watching Hull FC” when to anyone with half a brain the

answer has to be no! 1100 of the Faithful were at Wigan and the rest were listening to the radio!!
I went in the club shop at the KC on Saturday Morning and was in the queue behind a couple of young Fathers with their kids.
The first chap spent £150, and the other £95, all on stuff for the final; the club are coining it in. Although I totally appreciate what a good job they are doing on the commercial side, in the end, their efforts will be performance led and completely geared to what is happening on the field. Whether this “Just targeting the final” strategy will sell next years season passes remains, however, to be seen! A big defeat in the final will certainly test their marketing resolve! Still I have to say that the quality of our current range of merchandise is second to none and if you have not been down to the shop you really should take a look!
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The performance on Friday night got me thinking a bit about next season though. Lets face it we have signed up most of the out of contract players we have, and also got Crocker, a new prop from NL1 and possibly a new winger in Calderwood. We have lost or are to lose Sing and Carvell at least, but with the cost of our new recruits and the increased spend on new contracts, we have little if any room for additional players, especially if Webster signs on again. That situation was hinted at by Richard Agar when he said this weekend “I am not far off completing my squad”. So with the exception of possibly
Calderwood we can expect little movement in the transfer market this close season, unless the sale of Carvell frees up some cash.
Now this is something of a conundrum really! The fans have been baying for the re signing of Kingy, Hally, Tickle, Manu,
Radford et al but now with the exception of a couple of additions, notably Michael Crocker, we will next season have about the same group of players as we have got this! Friday performance makes me question the attitude of our current

squad and therefore I wonder if another new coach, who did not know the players so well, would have gone for a big clear out and a start again position. Mark my words it is no use the same people who have called for the club to sign up all our out of contract players, starting to bay for lots of new blood at the end of the season, because with the cap, it is just not going to happen!!!
I am afraid however I cannot dwell any longer on that nightmare at the JJB and our failed season in the Super League, so onto last week.
Talking of Michael Crocker I see that he has been picked in the
Aussie world cup squad despite his moving next year to a British club! Good news that, as long as he stays injury free!
Gareth Raynor’s court appearance last Monday saw a change of heart when he decided to take his medicine and pleaded guilty.
There is absolutely no excuse for his behaviour and I will certainly not be offering any! The fact that these chaps are role models for supporters both young and old, means that they have a great deal of responsibility, and should always be aware of that.
Players have over the years always had scrapes with the law and violence is, although quite unforgivable, certainly not that unusual. However I would like to think that with big wages and long contracts comes a certain modicum of sobriety and social conscience. I know that this is not the first time that Gareth has been in trouble, but for me it had better be the last. Perhaps, if it is not, then next time he will not have James Rule in the dock to fish him out with a character reference and get him off the hook!
He could also then find himself sowing mailbags instead of stitching up defences, and chatting up pole dancers. It was a sad episode that I feel our international winger, needs to learn from, and quick.

The news of Graham Horne’s signing up again for another year was, I guess, good for the club. I am still not 100% sure about his credentials to really star in the team but that could be because of his regular breaks for injury, and also because he seems to find it hard to hold down one position in the team.
Utility players do have their worth, although you can have too many and, I honestly believe that had Sharpy stayed then we would probably eventually have ended up with around 20 or so.
You see, although I believe they are good to have, I still think that there is a big need for specialists in our ranks too! Wing,
Scrum half, hooker and full back are all, for me personally, specialised positions that require particular individual skills. Still no one can criticise the progress and determination that we have seen from Grahame over the past few weeks so I think he deserves a new deal, and hopefully the one-year will give him the incentive to improve further!
Talking of Sharpy, if he had survived that day of the long knives following the Quins game, I believe that after Friday night’s display, he would have been off anyway! That was the sort of performance that sees coaches walk, something that Richard
Agar, although still in his honeymoon period, should take notice of! It was a poor, poor effort, which was made worse by the fact that Richards half time team talk seemed to me to have no effect whatsoever!!
So Wigan are after Carvell are they? Right then, well as far as I am concerned, and taking into consideration all that has gone before, can they get on with it please! I like Gareth, and nothing would please me more if he were to stay, but he isn’t going to, and so lets get him sorted and spend the £120,000 his leaving will free up, before everyone who is any good gets snapped up!!
I hear that Wigan are short of funds though and are considering offering a Player exchange deal!

What price Wembley?? Well we all knew that there would be a bonanza on the merchandising front, as the club and the fan’s gear up for the great day. However the magnitude of the demand for Wembley outfits etc. even took our shop staff by surprise last week. On Tuesday, despite none of their new stock having arrived, they completed more Internet sales transactions in one day, than in their best WEEK ever at Christmas!! We should have that RL fine paid off in no time!!! I rather like the new Wembley stuff they have got in stock now though, and Mrs
R snapped up a couple of the new ladies T-shirts!
The great corner flag debate was a talking point early in the week, but not half as much as it would have been, had that late
Wakey try been given by the Video Referee. When Blanch went around the blind side and touched down he would obviously have hit the corner flag had it not been broken and hanging away from the touchline. The flag was broken in the first half and should have been repaired or replaced at half time, but it was not and it could have caused a real fuss! Luckily Blanch’s leg touched the sideline first but it was so, so close. An interesting one that perhaps, I though, some of our refereeing experts could give an angle on!
With that in mind I consulted the Diaries resident Referee and he told me, “Flags should be upright, but the Engage covered ones are garbage and regularly end up at the angle seen at the
Keepmoat. For officials it can be a nightmare - especially where they lean into play. If a player touches one that is leaning in - he is deemed in touch, even if he is 2 foot inside the line.
The rule also applies to a flag that has been removed from the ground (or fallen out) and is lying half in play, half in touch. I had a game last year where the winger leapt over a damaged flag to score and got battered by the defender for his trouble”
“If you watch sky games, notice how many times the corner flags are leaning, this is something most Touch Judges

complain about. It is not however easily rectified as the springs at the base of the pole inside the sponsor sleeve are often damaged because o f players being pushed onto the flag” So the problem is causing grief for our whistleblowers as well! Come on
RL, surely in a multi-million pound game we can get some flags that work properly, if for no other reason than it really looks tatty and cheap on TV when they stand at 45 degrees or collapsed altogether. How about a spare set at games that can be used as replacements say at half time!
Who would have thought that when I reported several weeks ago that Pickering School’s year 7’s would be playing in a curtain raiser at Wembley this year, we would be joining them!! I am still pinching myself about it all, it’s fabulous!
The real Wembley fun started for me at 2-30am on Thursday morning when I joined the queue at the KC. When the ticket office opened at 8-00 the line spread right around the stadium and contained around 800 people. The usual stuff took place, banter, singing, frying of sausages and collapsing of tents, and once we started moving there were countless rumours about which tickets had run out, and who was buying how many! At least this time there was a refreshment van that was really well received. The problem was though, at hourly intervals, and for no apparent reason, they kept shutting down their serving hatch before reopening it about 5 minutes later. One wag in the queue commented that this was probably because representative from the local Social security Office kept driving by!
In all I queued for around 9 hours before I secured 7, £51 tickets! In that time we went back to the 60’s, Clixby, Broom,
Neale, Sykes, Whiteley and all. Revisited Wembley for those great finals in the 80’s and talked Judas, Justin and everything else concerned with the game! I was exhausted, and not a little hoarse, by I reached the counter!! Great to see a couple of the players talking to folks waiting for their tickets too!

It was great to see Motu Tony getting in a full week of training and I am told he could be back next weekend! He is in great condition and looked this week as if he had really looked after himself whilst he has been out! One thing’s for sure, after Friday, there will be little competition at full back to stop a swift return for the number 1 shirt!
It was great to see that the aggregate attendance for the two semi finals last weekend was a record for the Super League era.
However although the Doncaster venue was great on the day, I still think we would have taken a couple of thousand more had the stadium been larger.
I was also pleased to see that the French RL have been invited to put a team in the National league. You would think that
Toulousse would be a “Shoe in” but out of etiquette the RL have given the choice to the French governing body as to who, if anyone, will take up the offer!!
Just as an aside, the fact that 6 of the ten tries at the Keepmoat last week came from kicks seems to fly in the face of those who consistently prattle on in the media about wanting to remove the word “Football” from our game!!
I hear that Airliebird has a new love in his life, well that is what I presumed anyway, when I spied a certain girl I know quite well, with “Airlie’s Bird” on the back of her shirt. Good luck to you both, nice people!!!
You will remember last week that I talked a bit about the fact that the RL will have to look at the play-off format when the league expands to 14 clubs next season and they have now announced that there will be 8 teams involved in it! The actual way that the play-offs work however will be determined by the
October meeting of the clubs who will choose from two methods.
On of them “The McKintyre Final 8” system, (Great name that,

sounds like an American Football or prison break movie!), is described officially by the RL as follows:
“Week one sees first play eighth, second play seventh, third play sixth and forth pla y fifth”, (so far so good). “The two highest ranked winners automatically go through to week three, whilst the two highest ranked losers go through to week two, along with the other two winners” (Are you glazing over yet).”Those teams then clash for the remaining places in week three, where they will face the two highest ranked winners from week one of the semi-finals, with the winners going through to the grand final” And that’s all there is to it!!! (I’ll wait and see what happens in October I think).
As for the other method no one seems to know what that is, and after that explanation it’s a good thing too!!!!
Rosenberg Junior missed the semi final last week as she was away in Callella near Barcelona with a hoard of her sixth form mates, running riot on the Costa Brava. She told a great story though about Cup semi final day, when on the night they all decided to go to a foam party at a local nightclub. Imagine her surprise when she walked into the club to spot the DJ in an FC shirt!! She approached him, telling him that she too was an FC fan and he told her all about the game, which he had watched on TV that very afternoon. She also got a full evening’s supply of drinks vouchers and her admission refunded. Didn’t see much fun next day I’ll be bound!! Who says that being an FC supporter doesn’t open doors!!
Chatting to a few Pies fans as I left the ground on Friday I was told that their young winger Liam Colbon is on his way to the
Dobbins at the end of the season! One player not going to
Rovers however is Nick Scruton, who I am reliably informed, is off to the Bulls!

Talking of rumour don’t be surprised if Doncaster do not move out of the Keepmoat in the near future. They continue to lose money hand over fist with gates of around 800, and a switch to the smaller Castle Park home of Jimmy Rules Doncaster RU team is on the cards! Still with Donny, and they have this weekend signed our young Under 21’s prop Nathan Freer on loan! Ashley Thackerey has however returned from his loan spell at the Keepmoat with a sternum injury!
So, whilst it is still all doom and gloom after Friday, lets just sit back for a few minutes and see just what it is like to lose in a final, and just how Saints, the big favourites, will feel if we can turn them over! We know a bit about this, because we have been the top dogs going into these games in the past, and usually won. However those who attended the Challenge Cup final in 1983 when we played Featherstone will understand exactly what I am getting at! We have suffered some heartbreaks and disappointments in Finals in the past, but nothing matches the depths of despair produced by that shattering defeat!
We went into the final as Champions, whilst Featherstone had just managed to avoid the relegation dogfight finishing 12 th of 16 teams in the League table. We were on the usual Half Way trip and full of it as we watched the match unfold, sat about 6 seats from the Royal Box. The result, when it came, was the biggest shock at Wembley for over 50 years! It was a close call though, and as both teams had scored two tries a piece the game looked to be heading for another drawn final.
Then Featherstone ‘scored’ with a drop goal only for the referee to rule it out as it had hit a Hull player on the way over the bar!
That was, thankfully, the rule back then! Finally the game was settled by a very late Steve Quinn Penalty goal in the last couple of minutes. You know, we talk about the “Idiots” that support our game these days but even back then we had our morons.
Shortly after the final the club was actually warned by the RL

about their conduct, after the touch judge, who gave the late penalty, received several threatening phone calls at home.
Nothing changes really!
That great Featherstone legend and second rower David Hobbs scored both their tries whilst we got scores with touchdowns from Crooks and Leuluai! Boy, Oh boy, it was a depressing night in London after the game. I remember along with a few of the
Half Way lads getting absolutely blathered and ending up in
“The Sherlock Holmes” in Baker Street. There I met a lad of about 25 who had supported the Featherstone club for 20 years and who just sat at a table by himself and cried, because he could just not believe what he had witnessed that afternoon.
That’s what, somehow, we have to try to do on 30 th , and I still believe we can. It will take a titanic effort, but if Feath’ Rovers could do it to us back then, well we can certainly do it to the
Saints later this month!!
So, that’s it for this week and who knows what next week and the Huddersfield game will bring. As I said in the last Diary, for the next couple of weeks I am giving it, and the readers, a wellearned rest. I will be at the games, and build up to the final but after around 40 editions back to back, week in week out, I need a couple of weeks off! It would seem an opportune time to thank
Ash and Phil for their patience and all you readers for sticking with it!!
This drivel will be back, and rest assured, I still believe we can win at the national stadium. I always believe, however last
Friday was a terrible, terrible show and I make no apologies for not glossing over what was an appalling performance. This diatribe should return well before the final, when I will really get my teeth into the anticipation and excitement that will sweep the west of the City as we prepare to make the trek to the Capital.

In the mean time thanks for reading the Diary this week and see you all at the KC next Sunday at 6-00!!!
Faithfully Yours
Wilf!