Castleford fade as Dragons show what they are capable of

 Where to start with this one eh?

I was about ready to take my foamy cool beer and head out into the garden to take in some rays rather than watch this match. 

Castleford were hitting us at over a point a minute until the quarter hour mark before we managed to battle our way back into it. 

The performance of Israel Folau on the left edge and his desire to include Tom Davies outside him was key to the swinging of momentum. 

The Cas sin bin before half time also helped leaving them short handed in the boiling heat of Leeds. 

The second half was more of the same and as terrible as we were against St Helens last week, we were awesome against Cas this. 

So what can we take from this performance? 

Not a lot really, I think that we are in for a roller coaster ride (as usual!!) for the rest of the year. 

Dragons hammered as Superleague returns

 

It was a case of same old same old on the road for Catalans who put in a mystifying display as Superleague resumed. 

Despite a decent first 10-15 minutes where we were trading sets with Saints it soon fell apart and if it hadn't been for a neat ball pump from James Maloney late on we would have seen another 0 next to our scoreboard on the road. 

Of course the majority of the the talk off the park was about the taking of knees, I think that might have helped cover some of the players deficiencies on the park for the 80 minutes to be honest. 

Fixture change this weekend

 Following postive Covid 19 tests post Salford's win over Hull we will now be playing Wakefield Trinity on Saturday. 

Its Tony Gigot derby time !!!!

The Secret Diary of Israel Folau, aged 31¾

 Monday.

A neighbour comes round and asks to borrow a cup of sugar. I inform him that in Alan chapter 17, it says sugar cannot be traded on a Monday and then I insinuate that he has no right to exist as a human and is lower than vermin. Nice chap.

Tuesday.

Shocking scenes in Beirut with that enormous explosion. It's probably because they claim to have recorded civilisation there going back 7000 years which is impossible as the earth could only plausibly be 4000 years old. It says so in this book, probably. Anyway, I'm hoping there will be some sort of show of solidarity with the Lebanese at the game this weekend that I can make all about me.

Wednesday.

Day of rest due to a misprint in the bible.

Thursday.

Golf on the telly. This is outrageous and ungodly. If god had meant for us to play golf, he would have given us putters for fingers. I throw my TV out of the window and send the PGA the bill.

The state of Israel

I was away yesterday and hadn't even considered following any rugby by any means. Setting off back home, my phone peeped into life. A message. "Exactly how much of a c--- is Israel Folau?"

A bit of back and forth and I got the story of the day. And the answer, it transpires, is a lot of c---.

I'm not sure how you avoid knowledge of the Black Lives Matter movement and the global outpouring of support following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Clearly 33 players before the St Helens game had managed to give it some thought and make the universal gesture of support before kick-off by taking to the knee.

For a game with the history of ours, this is important. See the stories of black Welsh players, seeing their opportunities in rugby union stymied by systemic racism, come north and make their way in our game for one instance. See Clive Sullivan go (they're saying go, go, and he goes). And let's not pretend there aren't issues within the game or that the communities in which our clubs exist are havens of enlightened thought, behaviour and culture. This matters.

Folau has, at time of writing, not explained his action - or lack thereof. We see other knobheads say they'll only kneel for prayer, the Queen and when they proposed to their wife. It's a weak argument made by weak, wannabe hard men (and it is men, and I'm looking directly at Dominic Raab here). It doesn't take much to extrapolate his previous bullshit to think this is what it's about. It wouldn't be very christian of him to take a stand - literally - on this.

We have to make a stand here. Folau does not represent what we at sang-et-or are about. We're already chipping in to the Anthony Kennedy Trust, as we've talked about before. Now, we're doubling our commitment and every time he does what he did on Sunday, we'll match our AKT donation with the same amount to Rainbow Noir.

Rainbow Noir is a volunteer led social, peer support and community action group, which celebrates and platforms people of colour who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer and/or Intersex (LGBTQI). We're sure Israel will be pleased to help raise money for this valuable cause.