Episode 6 Super League Show

The top dogs have been crowned at Crufts, and six weeks

into the season, we are starting to find out who is biting

and who is just barking in super league.

The table topping Widnes Vikings are out to prove their pedigree

It's the Grand Final rematch, as Wigan defend their perfect

We remember the time when the answer to that question was Wakefield.

The Castleford number one Luke Dorn is with us.

He's alongside the man who's been topping the Championship charts,

The flying start made by Widnes has been one of the stories

The Vikings were out to prove they're the real deal against Hull

Widnes, again, having to defend.

In these early stages, it's being kept alive here.

Driven in by Bowden, who is going to be held

Danny Houghton looking left. It s Pritchard!

And the Tank has just rolled right through those Widnes footsoldiers

Houghton. The next tackle will be the last, so

Oh, and it's been knocked forward.

And picked up by Sica Manu.

And Sica Manu is over to score.

Well, Hull thoroughly deserving that second try,

They have been the dominant force

The tackle in the air is what they're

Was there contact there before Stefan Marsh's foot

hits the ground? I think there might have been.

So no try, which is a shame for Hull. Because they deserve that

Building up the numbers again on this right-hand side.

It's taken on by Chris Dean and the insidd ball

from Mellor. Joe Mellor scampering in. Putting Widnds on the

board for the first time with 1 minutes played.

Hull, knocking on this door again.

It's an interception by Kevin Brown.

He's not got the legs to go the distance,

But he's closed down and cut off.

But Widnes still have a wonderful opportunity.

Look at that for a kick from Kevin Brown!

And Corey Thompson is over.

Look at the vision here from Kevin Brown.

Corey Thompson was just behind, but not just the

vision, the execution from Brown is perfect.

And Thompson is in, and the try is given.

It's his ninth of the season.

It has gone back to Brown.

Steps back on the inside, looking for a way through.

Mellor, his kick, this time. It's another

It's ten tries for the Australian flyer.

And boy, did he fly on that occasion!

Widnes taking a real stranglehold of this game at the moment.

Within sight of the nine, ten yards away.

This is the sixth tackle. It's Kevin Brown's kick again.

It is kept alive by Houston and finishdd

That was left onside for Houston, and his little

offload is wonderful and it's the fifth Widnes try of this first half

from Hanbury. Rhys Hanbury's fourth of the season.

Shaul misjudged that. It has gone to ground.

That ball just drifting in the air and

Jamie Shaul just couldn't qtite get there.

Looking to power their way forward again, here.

Up to his feet. Heremaia again. Goes for that left-h`nd side.

Kevin Brown puts the little stop on, and Kevin Brown is over!

He's created a bagful this season and now he's

And it was wonderful footwork from Kevin Brown.

Back for Heremaia, who covers a bit lore

Whitley gets the pass away.

Here comes Mellor, who gets it again. There's a

It is put down but within striking range again.

Heremaia goes left. Kevin Brown with the pass, `nd

Stefan Marsh with his second of the night.

But we hesitate to see whether the video referee is going

to give this. The grounding is what they're looking at.

That looks OK. That looks OK, in the context of how

they are judged these days, that was just fine from Stefan Marsh.

Whitley has cut through some rather pacx

And the youngster Matt Whitley with his first

try of the year. Not a night to be the Hull coach.

Widnes have cut Hull to ribbons on so many occasions and

they are looking to do it again here.

Thompson is on a hat-trick, of course, but not this time. Has to go

This is Hanbury. They have got so many

numbers and they have got a hat-trick hero in Stefan Marsh.

Wow! What a performance

Widnes have posted tonight. They have taken Hull apart.

It has to be said, the mascot seeming to sum up

The coach, the players, the fans, it just looks likes a very happy

It certainly is, and why wouldn't it be?

They are playing a fantastic style, fast, attacking.

The skill level is exceptional at the moment.

Whether that be their passing, as you have seen, there kicking,

everything they are doing is on the money, and they are playing

I know that you are a huge fan of Joe Mellor, but we're

He was on a drip for part of this week.

And he just ran the middle of the park, didn't he?

He is a sensational player, he really is.

I personally believe he's bden underused in the international game.

Decisions like this, this is tackle one.

He sees the space, because there's been a scramble

He sees the space and he absolutely puts it on a sixpence.

It's a great kick, and it shts up for Thompson.

And that vision and the ability to carry out skill like that is really

He can do the long cutout pass, he can do a short pass

And again you see it, what he's done, they've

lost their hips, he shows, goes, steps in again,

He is in absolutely ten out of ten form.

Mellor's in good form, Lloyd White is in good form,

There isn't a weakness at the moment, is that?

Not at all, no. They are a joy to watch.

They really are. It's an exciting team to watch.

They are playing a great brand of Rugby League.

Helped, I think, by the pitch, but the good thing this year is,

they're winning away from home as well.

They've got Wigan, Warrington, St Helens,

Catalan next.

It's going to be a test of exactly where they are at.

Justin Horo cuts through swathes of cover.

And a try made in Australia,

finished in Perpignan. And Catalans back ahead.

They're into a groove at the moment.

Chris Hill and Joe Westerman hung on too long in that tackle.

It is an easy shot for the two.

Pat Richards, no problem with that one.

And the gap moves out to eight for Warrington.

It is a charge down. Ratchford against

Gigot. And Gigot will pouncd on it, but it has squirted away.

And Warrington have turned the ball over

And here is Sandow. Sandow onto Ben Currie.

And he will drop the ball down.

And that is a fine breakawax try for Warrington.

the little chip over the top from Myler.

He is taken out in the process.

James Child has pulled play back.

There is a scuffle, and right at the heart of that, Remi Casty.

As Richie Myler goes to chip, there is Chris Hill.

Former team-mates, of course. No love lost,

there. And that one goes on report.

Stuart has seen this shape before from Catalan.

Stewart plays the ball. Mitchell Dodds is down. Here goes Pelissier.

Childs has stopped the clock year. And as Juli`n

Bousquet goes through,, Mitchell Dodds

And that looks a painful one.

Mitchell Dodds only had his debut two weeks ago.

He had a wrist injury that kept him out.

Stuart out to this left-hand side.

Here is Todd Carney. Gets it away

to Vincent Duport. And they move further ahead.

Moves the pass out of this left-hand side.

There's Matthew Russell.

He's run out of options, down the cul-de-sac

Can they work the ball out to this right hand side?

Evans has got space in front of him, and he's got the ball now

And the gap reduces again.

Brad Dwyer thinks so!

And Joe Childs has gone to the video referee.

It looks as though Pelissier has got a hand

Whether they can say this wasn't the try

That does look as though George King has the required

And that is a very disconsolate looking Laurent Fresinou. Catalan,

looking for a late route back into this game. That is a loose pass Can

Sandow put the final word on it It looks like he has, as he scampers to

the line. Not 100% of control there, but Chris child has awarded the try,

the line. Not 100% of control there, but James Child has awarded the try,

and Warrington get a preciots win on foreign soil.

My thoughts with Mitchell Dodds because that did look

remember when Kirk Gidley was in with us on week one,

I remember chatting off air and remember him saying how

impressed he had been with the conditioning that

And yet again, in the last 20 minutes, they have come good.

Is that as much down to fitness as anything else?

Joe Clarke was singing John's praises.

He had an impact that the Warrington Wolves.

It helps with your condition if you look after the ball `s well.

And I think Warrington dominated possession in that game.

When you look after the ball, it is a lot easier, then,

to look fresh and energetic when defending.

So, yes, the conditioning is very important, but also,

tactically, how you play is important.

And how important, given the season they had last season,

We spoke about Widnes being the team everyone is sitting up

We expect Wigan, season in, season out.

But Warrington have been revitalised.

That is two games they have been beaten at home.

It will be concerning for them, the fact that they had

They bank on winning most of their home games

in years gone by, and it will be a concern for them.

And maybe it is a bit of their personalities,

trying to gel the Australians with the French guys.

Maybe that is not at its best yet, I'm not sure.

Brian Smith walked out on Wakefield last week,

with a warning that costs were being cut to the bone

at the club, and that they were in a serious situation.

The chairman Michael Carter is expecting

after what he said were a frosty few months

I sat in the office working, and I kind of got a strange text

message from the CEO of another club,

offering the services of one of his coaches,

and it came as a bit of a surprise for me.

And probably an hour later, Brian walked into the office

and said he was terminating his contract and walked out,

Scott has just scored a ?1 million try!

Prior to Christmas, I thought myself and

Brian had a good relationship and we had worked well

But since Christmas, it has been very frosty.

I guess there are varying reasons for that.

I have tried to back Brian to the hilt.

Unfortunately, he has deciddd that for whatever reasons,

what we are providing isn't good enough.

We have to rally together, get behind the team as much

as we can, and let's hope wd can see some improvement in our fortunes

Luke, were you surprised to see him walk out in the manner that he did?

I don't think anything Brian does is overly surprising.

I was a bit surprised at how quickly it came,

But you always expect something unusual with him.

And it was obviously a relationship on the decline.

Do you think that hastened his departure?

If the working relationship was untenable, there

As a coach, John will have better insight than me,

but if you don't have power or control with your CEO,

it is probably not a place you want to coach.

Were you surprised that he went to the beginning of the season

Allegedly, it was from Christmas time, and we are now in March.

So for the two primary people to be unable to work together,

So it is a bit of a surprise and it will be interesting to see

Without wishing to put you on the spot, who do you think

who is well aware of the situation is and circumstances at Wakefield.

It is never going to be a club with vast resources and the best

environment with regard to training, etc.

I remember when I was there, I was ringing up local schools.

We had peripatetic trainers everywhere.

But you have to accept that and just get on with it,

and not take that as a hindrance, but embrace it and say,

we are up against it, we will show that siege mentality

Do you think they made a mistake going to Brian Smith?

No, because he kept them in the Super League.

That was the main requirement for him.

So that was a success, but in the fullness of time,

the frosty relationship, perhaps it took too long.

The end of the last season might have been the time to go.

Stuart Dickens was in charge of Wakefield for the trip

The Wildcats have never won at Langtree Park

and no real surprise at how this one went,

They look a dispirited bunch at the minute.

A lot of these tries, as you'll see coming up here,

they did come from near the try line.

There's the injury to Adam Swift, which is never great to see.

You see a Wildcat player straight away, holding his hand up.

He'll be missing for a considerable amount

You see they're playing the balls near the Wakefield line,

so online defence is an issue at this moment in time,

although you've got to say that there's some

deft interplay from St Helens as well.

There just seems a lack of trgency and a lack of work ethic in that

That should be where it's at its greatest.

And for St Helens, Keiron Ctnningham said they were professional.

I suppose that's all they needed to be here.

As John said, in this part of the field, they're clinical.

They run these shapes and last week, they did

They know their strengths and how to play to

At this stage of the year, they just want to get the points

They'll worry about the performances later.

Is there anything you can learn from St Helens

When you're not at your best, you can still

Saints have been good at it over the last few years.

They get to a grand final and play their style and they stick

to it, no matter what is going on.

They have some halves that play really well.

You can learn to stick in the game as long as thesd

guys do, and they'll find ways to score.

As you said, you just watch Wakefield's defence.

That's where they need to go back to basics.

Yes, it needs to be simplified in every way.

With St Helens, James Roby is instrumental

When he was missing, they did stutter and stall.

But when he's out there, they are a heck of a task

Wakefield fans can come out from behind the sofa now,

because we've got a reminder of happier times at Belle Vte.

This is from 1983, when Rugby League royalty came to town.

The ban on the signing of players from Australia has been lifted

and as a result, some clubs have been

splashing about an awful lot of money on stars from down under.

Surely the most remarkable signing of them all has been Wakefield's

acquisition of the man you saw making that pass,

Wakefield's turnout for the debut of the man billed as the world's

number one was double its usual size,

deal for the club, even thotgh the Australian's wages

are the highest in rugby league history.

With a few days like today, we'll make the money back

Lewis was first to show his class by setting

up a try for his travelling companion, his kid brother,

A lot of players can pass a long ball, but a lot of them

From the stand-off half position in the

middle of the field, Wally Lewis will see plenty

His expensive mission is to keep them in the First Division,

although defeat on his debut leaves room for improvement.

What about the man himself, possibly the best player

in the world, almost certainly the best halfback?

I can remember playing a game in Brisbane with my club side,

We played a side there which was the usual regular stand-off.

They brought up a guy into the third team,

and he made me look like a complete goose.

So one could say that he was rated the best

I don't really agree with world ratings.

The difference in class between this fellow and the bread and butter

players of the English rugbx league, we're not concerned.

We were playing rugby league and he was playing Wallyball!

He really was the fulcrum of everything Wakefield did.

I think he played 12 or 14 games for the Wildcats

or Wakefield Trinity, as it was then.

I remember it was Boxing Day at Castleford, and the ground

We came away with the win, even though they had

Time for episode one in the Super League box set

They met five times last year, with the Rhinos winning the season

RETRO COMPUTER GAME MUSIC. Stadium on Friday.

Wigan's Sean O'Loughlin will not be a Pac-Man tonight.

He's in because of a late injury to George Williams,

Leeds desperate to climb the leaderboard with only one

It's a game in which Leeds have been under the cosh,

So they can take some consolation from that.

Burrows might have been searching for a 40-20,

but he found instead Dominic Manfredi, looking to return.

Manfredi suddenly travelling downfield by a distance.

And Hardaker eventually pulls him down.

Wigan finally get the score, with nearly half an hour

Bateman has got the pass away here to Sutton.

Wigan again gathering a little momentum.

They've spent a lot of time down here without scoring.

And Manfredi has scored himself this time!

The referee is going for the video replay here.

It looks as though it has touched a bit

That was embarrassing from the Leeds defence.

Gelling scores without a hand being put on him.

Not a night to remember for the Australian's debut.

Zak Hardaker will score a late, late try.

It barely reaches the level of consolation for Leeds.

It's been a poor night for them but Wigan won't mind a jot.

Much has been made of all the players missing for Leeds

with all the injuries they have got, but Wigan

George Williams went out in the warm-up.

They are such a physical side when you play them at home,

They were probably lucky in the first half

that Wigan did not put a few more tries in.

They dug in there and they just ran out of gas in the end.

Much was made in the last couple of seasons about Joe Burgess,

but how impressed have you been by young Manfredi

I first noticed him when he played up at Workington,

He is strong and powerful, but also very quick.

Anyone who can see off Zak Hardaker, I know he got chased

I also thought he showed great composure, because although they

chased him down, he just got up and played the ball

quickly, and allowed Bateman to go over.

I don't think he will be far from Wayne Bennett's England side

in the coming 4 Nations.

They are unbeaten and Sean Wayne was happy with their

When they get some of those players back, that's looking frightening.

They're just unfortunate to have a few

But when they get back to full capacity, they

He will be unhappy with the defence, but in attack, it's just

Paul McShane is going to scamper into space, almost up to halfway.

Castleford are going from defence to attack.

And Castleford Tigers are right back in the game.

Gale continues...and the gap is reduced to four points.

Salford, responding here through Griffin.

That might be the nail in the coffin.

It is a kick downfield, a chase between Adam Milner

and Justin Carney.

Carney will get there and rub salt in the wound.

What was said in the review this morning about that one?

We were just disappointed in our own performance.

Our energy levels were not where they need to be when you play

We were disappointed in how we put ourselves

together offensively and defensively.

You are having a tough time injury-wise as well.

Yeah, they have all happened in the last seven days.

We are all early in our injtry recovery, so we will need a bit

But Daryl has developed a big squad and that is going to come

Yes, like Widnes, they have been one of the packages to really take note

I think they have gone from a group of individuals to a team.

Tim Sheen is directing the ship with Iain Watson alongside him.

They are having a positive effect on them,

and they have got some good players and they are playing as a unit.

That is the difference from previous years.

Having narrowly lost out on a couple of games,

how important for them to be seeing games out now?

It is important, but the good news is that

they are in with a shout right till the end.

Over the course of the year, I feel that they will end up

I think they are one team to watch for

possibly getting into that top four and breaking that cartel up.

For Warrington next week, is it going to

be the walking wounded, with reorganisation and a fdw people

There will probably be a few people in different positions.

There will be some new faces and people who will probably come

into the squad that have not played for a bit.

I think we will stick to the way we like to play.

If we can get our attitude and defensive mindset where it needs

Back to back defeats for Castleford, but we managed to find a few smiles

around the place when the Tigers took their turn at Last Tackle.

Anyone as long as I am not on my own.

probably not allowed to say on camera.

I don't like tomato ketchup, if I am honest.

Being stuck in an elevator with Crooks.

Ben Crooks gets a pummelling in that!

That is a real insight into our day-to-day training,

the way Crooksy is dealt with around the place.

I have never come across anybody scared of ketchup.

Anyone you would hate to be stuck in a lift with?

I am quite an amiable chap and I would be happy with anybody

Huddersfield and Hull KR gathered just a point between them

These were the bottom two tdams at the start of the round.

They met on Sunday, and it was pretty much

Yeah, they did pretty well in this one.

They got a few numbers back and they played really well,

Hull KR struggling again with players.

It is a tough place to go, Huddersfield.

The field looks enormous when you go out there.

The coach was saying afterw`rds that both teams were probably nervous

to begin with, but for Huddersfield, a rhythm started.

I thought they looked pretty good against Leeds the week before,

And with other returnees such as Crabtree and Wood,

They played some really good rugby league as it unfolded.

So they will be feeling a lot more relaxed and

especially when you see that one of their main players is going off

Do you think that pretty much did for Hull KR,

that they might have had a way back in otherwise?

He and Kelly are a really good pairing.

They make it difficult for other teams.

It would have taken a lot ott of the team mentally

when they saw him go off and probably

thought their chances of winning that one was gond.

So good news for Huddersfield in having their troops

It is a tough time for James Roby to come into Hull KR.

What does he need to concentrate on, lifting the players?

The first thing is doing a roll call with

They have to go back to basics and establish

firstly, some looking after the ball, secondly defending

and thirdly giving them a good kicking.

Get the principles correct, and then you can look

Huddersfield have got Catalan, a test of the new troops coling

It will be a good game, and Huddersfield are looking

So the Giants are finally off and running.

Let's check on the state of play in the First

Fingers crossed that your injury isn't too bad and you're back out

My thanks to Luke and John for joining us tonight.

We'll see you next week, but for now, goodbye.