WE were all a bit down last week with the news that Luke Gross, our giant USA international lock, was having to retire with a shoulder injury which is taking far longer to heal than had previously been expected.
Off the field, Luke is a real gentlemen and a tremendous asset to the club. In fact, he is one of the nicest guys you could ever wish to meet – he is absolutely great with kids when involved in our community projects.
On the field – well that's another story which is perhaps best left unsaid other than that I never saw him take a backward step. He was an absolute asset to our squad – as player, a replacement or even just as a water boy. He will be really truly missed and we wish him well for the future. I am sure we have not seen the last of him at Castle Park.
The players are all off this week so it is quiet around Castle Park as they recover from a gruelling four weeks of intense fitness/rugby activities. They are back in on tomorrow when they face two consecutive days of full-on contact.
At these sessions they will be joined by Hudson Tonga'uiha, our new Tongan international centre, and our replacement for Luke who I will give you more details next week. Then, on Monday, they are off for an intensive five-day period at an Army Camp "down South". I am going with them so more information, from the "horse's mouth" so to speak next week.
Meanwhile, work on our new £1m plus stand continues apace.
Last Saturday saw the fourth game in this season's Tri-Nation's series and it confirmed my belief that the new Experimental Law Variations are a "cheat's charter", particularly when refereed by antipodean officials.
This last game between Australia and New Zealand saw numerous incidents of ball killing offences, which last year would have been punished by full penalties or yellow cards, now only attracting free kicks.
It will be very interesting to see how the new laws will be refereed by British officials who traditionally are far stricter than their southern hemisphere colleagues. Roll on our first pre-season friendly at home against Premiership club Worcester Warriors on Sunday, August 17th to see how we all get on.
Moving on to the ELV's, last week I wrote about the off-side line at scrums now being 5 metres back behind the rearmost foot of either side. However, there is an exception and that is each side's scrum half as, with the introduction of this new law, there is a need to identify their scrum half lines.
Three examples have been given. Firstly, the non-ball-winning scrum half can follow the ball. However, he must stay behind the ball which
becomes his offside line. Secondly, the non-ball winning scrum half may also move to the offside line at the hindmost foot of the scrum but must not move away from the scrum and must not overstep that offside line. Finally the non-ball-winning scrum half may decide to move to or beyond the offside line 5 metres behind the hindmost foot of that player's team, but once there, must remain behind the offside line until the scrum is over.
Finally, a word about Martin Haythorne our media and marketing manager.
He has been getting more upset as each week goes by as his two Castle Park mice Martine and Marion are getting more publicity than he is!
To try to offset that I can reveal that last weekend he pulled a shoulder muscle stretching for a jam muffin – that's right, no joking. He has been walking around all week looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame so I have started to call him Quasi instead of Marion which is his second name. I tried to get him to see one of our physio's but he is such a softy that he went white at the thought of it. If any of you know him I know he would appreciate a get well e-mail so that he knows that someone out there loves him.
What do you think? Post your comments below. READ MORE Football headlinesMore BladesMore OwlsMore SpireitesMore RoversMore RedsMore MillersMore Ice HockeyMore rugby leagueMore rugby unionMore boxingSports columnistsAll sport categoriesThe full article contains 747 words and appears in Doncaster Star newspaper.
