In between the Millennium Magic I switched to the RU. The game was Munster v Leinster. There was an incredible world-record 82,208 attendance for a club match. This shows that RL should not underestimate the draw of the game no matter how much us RL fans find in boring to watch.

However in the few minutes I watched the nastier side of the game was on show with a close up of eye gouging, something thankfully not in our game.

My eyes were opened, and not in a good way, when I moved down to London to work in the '80s. I got involved with Ealing ARLFC, now no more, and a lot of our players also played union. They lived in fear of someone from their club finding out they'd played League, because that would get them banned sine die. They could have been professional footballers, professional cricketers, professional golfers, or whatever, but amateur Rugby League players, never. Things have changed now, but that experience of irrational discrimination has coloured my own POV for good, I think. Still, if you are going to have a prejudice, it's a pretty harmlesss one.

Apparently John Hopoate is coming to the UK looking for a contract. Nobody's paying him yet, he's going to work his own passage.

He will be putting the 'feelers' out then?

He has his fingers in a number of pies, that's all I'm saying