Charlie_Mullan
Contributor

Offline, last online: Nov 20 2008, 13:53 PM

So we bid a fond farewell to the 2008 Super League season and congratulations to Leeds Rhinos on winning back-to-back Grand Finals.
In America they call it a dynasty where a team wins successive championships and it's something we haven't seen in rugby league in the modern era.

I doubt if the celebrities interviewed in a hospitality suite before the Superbowl would reach the heights of Saturday at old Trafford where Andrew Henderson, a player who will play for Gateshead next season was asked for his expert opinion.

Or Johnny Vegas who is now known for making rubbish TV adverts with a little monkey. And the coup de grace Duncan Preston. Who?, I hear you ask. That bloke from Victoria Wood's 'sitcom' dinnerladies!

Hopefully next season, Sky will forego the laboured build up and just go with a five minute build-up before the game gets under way.

I applaud Sky for their coverage, but Phil Clarke's comparison of the Grand Final to the Big Bang that happened 14 billion years ago clearly wasn't worth the research done on microscopic articles and the dark matter holding the universe together. Viewers were in dire need of something to keep their attention span together.

As for the game itself, for the second year running the Rhinos proved the critics and the bookies wrong by beating St Helens 24-16.
In a way, Leeds did to Saints what Saints have done to every team in Super League for the last four months or so.

When Saints opened the scoring I, like many others, thought that was going to be the first of many tries.
But Brian McClennan had the perfect game plan on a dreadful night weather wise and proved how important versatility is in the modern game.

With Brent Webb ruled out through injury, McClennan had the confidence in Lee Smith to perform the full back duties and his performance was worthy of the Harry Sunderland award for his outstanding contribution. His 40/20 was clearly the game's key moment, with Danny McGuire scoring from the resulting scrum.

But the lasting image of the final will be Daniel Anderson's half-time impression of Newcastle United's caretaker coach Joe Kinnear.
I think he might have beaten Kinnear's record of using the 'F' word in the shortest space of time.

As for issues 10,500 miles away in Australia, it seems 2007 was the right time to pick apples from the Melbourne Storm tree. Rovers secured the services of Clint Newton and Garret Crossman after the Storm beat Manly Sea Eagles. Hull FC have signed 28-year-old Michael Crocker and he arrives in Hull after a demoralising 40-0 Grand Final defeat by Manly, who gained revenge for last season's 34-8 drubbing by the Storm.

Crocker was twice guilty of jumping of the defensive line to hit the play-maker only for his side to concede tries to Michael Robertson and Brent Kite.

Watching Setanta's coverage, I couldn't help notice a few things. Craig Bellamy needs a new and improved deodorant, for Sure! The Australian commentators don't harp on about suspicious forward passes as much as Sky Sports' two so-called commentating experts!

The NRL introduced a couple of nice touches during the presentation ceremony with each player on the winning side getting a commemorative silver ball presumably with the results of all their side's games that season. The players already had these souvenirs when they went up to collect their winner's rings from an under-8s team who won a national competition. What a highlight for those kids. Maybe at Old Trafford next season we will could see Beverley Braves under-8s hand out the rings to the winning side.

And finally, why are Manly Sea Eagles called Sea Eagles? Aren't Sea Eagles, Seagulls?