AH CART SPEYK!

Back in February I wrote a blog explaining how I knew it was winter because I’d just watched Leeds get beat twice in the space of three hours. Leeds Rhinos had cruelly lost their Super League season opener against Warrington, and I’d rushed straight from Headingley to catch United’s grim collapse at Everton in one of the final games under Marcelo Bielsa.

I was bemoaning those early months of the rugby league calendar when I can have my weekends ruined by two Leeds teams, but I was so focused on United’s precarious battle against relegation I’d completely forgotten about those weeks when summer gives way to autumn, and the start of the football season overlaps with the end of the rugby league campaign.

Two Saturday 3pm kick-offs, a rarity for both teams, meant I had a choice to make this weekend. Truthfully, it was an easy decision; the Rhinos were playing Castleford — oh the glamour of rugby league! — in their last game of the regular season, with the winner claiming the final place in the play-offs. Brentford could wait, because who cares about Brentford?

For most of the afternoon, this was not a case of wondering whether I had made the right or wrong decision. For most of the afternoon, there were only wrong decisions.

The Rhinos have been the form team in the competition since the appointment of Rohan Smith as head coach, surging from relegation battlers to play-off contenders. Smith is the polar opposite to Jesse Marsch in terms of personality, a reluctant talker who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world — Batley, Dewsbury, Swinton — than in front of a camera. His interviews are boring, but it doesn’t matter, because his team have been playing interesting, entertaining rugby without the pressure of expectation. There was pressure against Castleford, though. Combined with both teams playing through the fatigue of their fourth game in a fortnight, this meant they stunk the place out. The first points weren’t scored until way after half-time, when Cas built a quickfire 8-0 lead, meaning Leeds’ season was over.

Updates from United’s trip to Brentford were spreading throughout the terraces. It sounded a lot more entertaining — they were outscoring the rugby league. The only problem was it was mainly Brentford scoring. The finer details took longer to filter through: a lengthy VAR check, Jesse Marsch getting an inevitable red card, Diego Llorente finally combusting.

That would have to wait. Around the time United were gifting Brentford their fourth and fifth goals of the afternoon, the Rhinos were realising their season was about to end, and finally doing something about it. I’d spent the first 75 minutes of the match wondering why we bother with sport, spending money and scheduling our lives around fixtures, when so often it fails to keep up its end of the bargain by providing entertainment. Then the last five minutes happened, and I was reminded of the answer. The Rhinos scored two tries, the last with the final play of the game, to win the match and ensure their season lasts at least one more week. It was an ending befitting Mick Morgan’s iconic commentary from Castleford’s Regal Trophy fixture against Wigan in the late 1980s. “AH CART SPEYK!”

Ravaged by injury, Castleford fought valiantly. Leeds’ victory was probably undeserved, therefore all the funnier. As for United, I’ve since caught up with the game and don’t really know what to make of it. After seeing the scoreline and hearing about the penalty and Diego’s inner-demons, I was expecting much worse. Instead, Leeds did lots of good things, only for crucial failures to mean they did lots of good things except score more than the opposition. As the Rhinos showed, while Headingley Stadium bounced with renewed optimism and atmosphere, ultimately that’s all people care about.

The Rhinos live to fight another day, and will travel to the south of France on Friday. They will face Catalans Dragons, last season’s beaten Grand Finalists. As the underdogs, they can play once more without pressure. Even if they lose, the good news is United don’t play Nottingham Forest until next Monday, which means I can rest assured that my weekends will go back to being ruined by only one Leeds team for the next few months. That must mean it’s going to be Christmas soon. ⬢