Morgy can't wait to return to The Jungle

This has been taken from the January 2021 edition of Castleford Tigers' monthly magazine ROAR which you can read for free at castlefordtigers.com/roar

Hi Cas fans!

2020… to quote The Queen; “annus horribilis”, at least I’ve learnt something new; hands, face and space and I have learned new skills such as hoovering and washing up. But getting back to normality would be a big boost to one and all. I’m sure the players feel the same, pre-season training has begun, and the new recruits are settling in and most importantly vaccinations are rolling out for one and all.

All I want to do is get back darnt' the lane and start watching live rugby league again! You can only watch so much Vera and Midsomer Murders… I spoke about Jack Welsby’s last minute try to win the Grand Final in last month’s edition of ROAR and it got me thinking of any other last minute game changers, and I remembered three.

• The first was Wakefield against St Helens at Belle Vue, I had just signed for Wakefield and was invited down to the game. It was nip and tuck but in the very last minute with St Helens trailing by four, Cumbrian forward Dick Huddart broke the line by the left-hand touchline and instead of grounding the ball he decided to try and make the conversion easier and started running round to the sticks, only he had put his foot on the dead-ball line and the ref spotted it and Wakey won the game. Huddart was distraught and didn’t travel home on the team bus, caught the train home, lesson learnt.
• The second was the famous Watersplash final of 1968, Leeds vs Wakefield, my hero Don Fox missing a last-minute conversion in front of the posts to give Leeds a victory. In fact, it was Don who changed direction of the kick-off after the Leeds penalty was converted by Bev Risman it gave Kenny Hirst the opportunity to kick and chase, and he touched down under the posts. We all jumped up and cheered when Ken Traill came out with the immortal words; “Sit down, he hasn’t kicked the flipping goal yet!”.
• Thirdly, I was commentating on Cas’ home game against Wigan when we were getting beat and with about two minutes left Wigan got a penalty 25 yards out, Smith decided to go for a goal to put Wigan five points ahead. Crucially giving Cas the halfway line from the kick-off. Cas regained possession and Luke Dorn scored in the last minute and it was converted to give Cas the victory.

Finally, what this pandemic has taught me is the rugby league saying that politicians could heed: ‘Teamwork makes the dream work’.

Cheers,

Morgy