The Heineken Cup started last night, it’s the biggest thing in Northern hemisphere rugby outside of the world cup, so perhaps I should mention it!

Last night it was Northampton vs. Toulon. Toulon doesn’t have a wage cap as they are French and spend £5 million a year. Northampton being English do and have a MAX of £1.5 million

Result: 56 – 3 to Northampton.

Money can’t buy you everything.

The Heineken Cup is well worth a watch, here’s the fixture list.

It’s been a nagging voice at the back of my head “watch the rugby..ooooohohohohooho…..watch the rugby”. Nagging voice in my head or SteveO, I don’t know but either way I decided not to watch the football on Saturday night and watch the Rugby League final between St Helens and Leeds instead.

To start of with I really enjoyed it, plenty of “contact” and blood. Yer man splitting his head open and then wrapping a bandage around it and carrying on was right up there, even the wife was impressed with that. A very grumpy wife after having her Strictly Dancing rubbish relegated from the TV pecking order. To make things a bit more interesting, and seeing as how I hate Leeds in any sport I sided with St Helens. They were the strong favourites before the game so I hopeful of winning on the winning bandwagon.

Didn’t quite turn out like that did it? From my “I don’t know what the hell is going on” stand point it looked like the strong favourites who are “capable of breaking the line” in the blink of an eye were actually pretty bad, is crap too strong a word? Maybe it was down to the weather but by 60 minutes in the game seemed to have descended into a competition to see who could drop the ball the most. St Helens won this but unfortunately as a result lost the game by a mile. Maybe not in terms of the final score but in terms of play they were well beaten.

I think that if I watch enough rugby league I’ll probably get into it but as for all this majestic handling of amazingly gifted athletes that SteveO bangs on about, I didn’t see it! More a case of grown men struggling to catch and hold on to a ball. To be fair though next time I’ll try and watch a game where 3 feet of rain hasn’t fallen during the 80 minutes.

Sale Sharks RUFC are currently being labelled parsimonious, yeah I had to look it up as well. Basically they haven’t conceded a try in 4 games which is a record for the Guinness premiership. Sale really disappointed me last year, but I have a good feeling this year. We just have to wait and see how many of their squad get called up for the Autumn Internationals. Just one last thing, next time you watch Sale play have a look at Chabal’s arms, they are freaky long. I remember a Sky Sports commentator mentioning that when he sits on a chair his knuckles can actually touch the floor. They don’t call him the Caveman for nothing.

Tonight sees Wigan take on Leeds at Headingly. This will be a cracker of a game. Leeds have played consistently well over the season and were only beaten by 1 point to the top spot by St Helens. They were however royally frashed last week by the Saints, which could be bad news for Wigan, as they may be all worked up to take revenge. Saying that, since Wigan got publicly slated by their own Chairman saying they had no pride or passion for the shirt, they have played exceptionally well.

My head says Leeds but my heart and everything else says WIGAN. In fact no, its unanimous, Wigan will win. Even if you have never watched a Rugby match before, take 10/15 minutess and I promise you, you won’t be disappointed. This will have everything and the players will give everything, who ever loses this walks away with NOTHING. I honestly can’t wait.

I thought it couldn’t get any better than Friday nights play off between St Helens and Leeds. It was a cracking game. Some excellent handling from both sides, but St Helens just slowly pulled ahead till they were miles in front of Leeds. They are such a complete team: Power, Pace and Finesse. It really was a treat to watch.

Then came Saturday. Catalans had 10,000 supports, and Wigan had 200 hardy souls, including a couple who had travelled from Singapore purely to watch the match. For the first 20 mins Wigan didn’t touch the ball, Catalans threw everything at them, but couldn’t cross the line. Once Wigan had the ball, they scored, but Catalan kept at it and with 20 mins or so to go it was 20-20. Then Wigan just exploded and scored 10 odd tries. Yet again it was a cracking game.

So nothing is going to stop me watching the final eliminator next Friday with Wigan against Leeds who have a second bite at the cheery. Come on you Pie Eaters.

Tonight sees Wigan play Catalans in the eliminator for the Play offs. Unlike the St Helens/Leeds game this is a real eliminator and will be the last match of the season for one of these teams, hopefully it will be the Snail Eating Froggies from Catalans. Paleaaesina is always a joy to watch, all 18 stone of him on the charge. Although after 2 runs he needs oxygen. Hopefully Barrett, Leuluai & Higham will pull all the strings and create havoc for the opposition. I unfortunately haven’t a good thing to say about Catalans. So to call this a win for Wigan is easy, I just hope the lads don’t let me down. It will of course be another cracking Rugby League Game whomever wins.

Tonight sees St Helens v Leeds play off in the eliminator for the Play offs. Actually it’s not an eliminator, who ever wins goes straight in to the Final and the loser gets a second chance by playing the winner of the Wigan vs. Catalan game tomorrow. If they win they get a rest week to recover.

Although the great Shaun Edwards is famous for saying “Rest is Rust”. These two have provided all three players short listed for the Man of Steel Award. One is the Challenge Cup holder and the other World Club Champion. They also have 5 players each in this years’ Dream Team, so there is plenty of talent on display. It could go either way and if Sinfield, Diskin, Senior & Burrow are playing well then Leeds might just do it. However, St Helens are just so hot at the moment and I could name nearly every player in the side as a game breaker, but Price, Long & Cunningham are the main ones. They slacked off in the draw against Wigan in the final game of the season but by then everything was in the bag.

I’m not too bothered who wins as I just know it will be a cracker, the beer chilling as I speak type.

Sometimes you have to remember that whilst we sit here wasting our working days reading the internet and thinking the most important thing in the world is the latest football/rugby signing, that half way round the world our soldiers are fighting a War. Not the Halo make belief one that we all think we rock at, but an honest to goodness real DEATH giving, widow making one.

So the Rugby lads that are true Patriots and selfless have organised a Rugby Match this Saturday at Twickenham, Help for Heroes. It’s basically all the English Greats (and Dan Luger) against an International XV, which is Captained by Scott Gibbs (the ex Dual Code player and former soldier) and also includes Big Jonah Lomu.

They are hoping to raise 1 Million of your English pounds to give to Forces Charities. So if you can buy a ticket, I know I wish I could go, or at the very least switch on and support from the comfort of your armchair? If they do provide a number to give donations, how about digging deep and giving at least the cost of a round. Honestly it will make you feel good!