Well, I’ve not a huge amount to report, but for those that are interested in what is happening in my life, here is a bit of an update.

Last weekend started off disappointingly, with Wigan losing to Leeds in the Final Eliminator of rugby league’s Superleague. After 3 excellent victories against St Helens, Bradford and then Hull (the latter 2 away from home), playing at Headingley against a full-strength Leeds team was just too much for them. The team had nothing left in the tank and it was showing after the first 5-10 minutes. So it will be a Leeds-St Helens final on Saturday at Old Trafford in the Grand Final. Will be hoping for a Leeds win (although don’t really want them to win either!), although family loyalties still hope that a certain Saints player has a good game.

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As most people know, rugby league is one of my biggest passions.  And some of the biggest thrills for me come not from a length of the field try (Wigan score very few of those anyway these days, but that’s beside the point!), but a big tackle.  Managed to find this little video of some of the best hits from Australia in 2007.

Hold onto your chairs - there are some big ones in here!

4 years late, a succession of financial and legal problems, and a price tag of 798 million pounds for the stadium itself… it could only be a British project! But the world’s most expensive stadium is open for business, and from my first experience there for the 2007 Challenge Cup final, it has certainly been worth the wait.

Wembley Stadium, formerly the Empire stadium, has been the spiritual home of the rugby league Challenge Cup and football’s FA Cup since 1923 when it was built. In comparison, the old Empire Stadium cost ?  750,000 quid was to build and was constructed in 300 days - who said productivity is higher these days! The old stadium had an original capacity of 127,000 but things like capacities and health & safety didn’t stop people in the halcyon days of sport; for the first FA Cup final between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United (known now as the White Horse final), between 240,000 and 300,000 were crammed into the stadium, and another 60,000 were locked out outside the ground. The crowd were overspilling the seats and were covering the pitch at one point. After 45 minutes the crowd were moved back to the touchlines and the match was allowed to take place. Can’t really imagine that happening these days, can you?! This game, incidentally, has the highest ever unofficial “non-racing” sporting attendance of any event in the world. Other famous occasions at the old Wembley Stadium include Bobby Moore’s World Cup win in 1966 (a game which my father attended, incidentally) and Martin “Chariots” Offiah’s length of the field try against Leeds in the 1994/95 Challenge Cup final. My first Wembley experience was in 1992 when Wigan played Castleford in the Challenge Cup final. The stadium has an amazing aura about it, although even then it was starting to feel old. Views were obstructed by the stanchions and seating was cramped at best. The seats at the very bottom of the stands didn’t even have seat backs. That was certainly going to change for the new stadium.

And so in 2000 Wembley was closed and scheduled to re-open in 2003 with grand plans and an entirely revamped stadium due to be unveiled. 2003 came and 2003 went without any signs of the stadium being completed. News reports of the budget rising became an almost daily occurrence as dismay spread about what was turning into another farce of almost Millennium Dome proportions. The Challenge Cup finals were played at the Millennium Stadium in Wales, Murrayfield in Scotland and even Twickenham (the home of rugby union) for one year. In 2006 it looked like the stadium was almost ready, but then further delays put the opening back one year. Finally, we get to 2007 and the new Wembley Stadium opens, and what a stadium it is.

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That’s where I will be from tomorrow evening until Monday morning, or rather Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe to be precise. As long-term readers of this blog might remember, I went to the Kansai region back at the end of March last year, and loved it there. Kyoto is such a beautiful city, and if I wasn’t in Okinawa then I’d probably choose to be there. I could have spent hours sat by the canal in Gion on an evening, watching the tourists and businessmen go by, while the occasional maiko or geisha will pass on their way to an appointment. Hopefully I’ll be able to take in some kabuki (traditional Japanese theatre) and do a few other cultural bits & bats (you can tell I’ve planned this really well!). It will also be my first time to visit Kobe and so I’ll go and see the museum about the Great Hanshin earthquake that struck the city in 1995, killing over 6,400 people and causing over $200 billion in damage. For those economists and businesspeople out there, you might recall the Nikkei 225 dropped 1,000 points in the day following the earthquake. Indeed, this earthquake was one of the main reasons Barings Bank collapsed, due to Nick Leeson’s speculations in Japanese derivatives.

The worst thing about going to the Kansai region this weekend is that I sincerely doubt I am going to be able to listen to the Good Friday rugby league derby between Wigan and St Helens at the JJB Stadium. The game will be a 24,000 sell-out and is thought to be one of the closest derbies in recent years. Wigan have a 6 point start with the bookmakers, but when it comes to a derby like this, all form goes out of the window. Having been a Wigan supporter for around 13 years now, I will be cheering the “Cherry and Whites” on against their old rivals. But even as I want every St Helens player to have a shocker, I’ve got to hold some small reervations. My cousin, despite being a Wigan supporter as a child, is now playing in the St Helens team. Consequently, he usually gets the “boo/cheer” from my family and friends when he plays against Wigan (much to the puzzlement of the crowd around them!). I’m going to go for a 22-18 Wigan victory, with plenty of big hits, and a sin-binning or 2 in there for good measure. If you’re not familiar with rugby league, then you should click this link for a short video clip showing some of the big tackles involved in what I believe is The Greatest Game.

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I like to cover a range of topics, and today we’re moving back to rugby league. This article, courtesy of Guardian write Andy Wilson, regarding the move at the end of this season of Chris Ashton from Wigan Warriors Rugby League to Northampton Rugby Union. It makes for very interesting reading:

It seems unlikely that Chris Ashton will have read a column in The Australian newspaper by Wayne Bennett, the long-serving and hugely respected coach of the Brisbane Broncos, before making the decision to leave Wigan and double his money in rugby union with Northampton later this year. But as British rugby league clubs confront the growing threat of losing talented young players to union, they could do much worse than post Bennett’s latest words of wisdom on their dressing room walls.

“Life’s experience has taught me that if you’re not happy - no matter what money they give you - it’s not worth it,” he wrote, in reference to the protracted recent contract negotiations of two of the biggest names in southern hemisphere rugby, Lote Tuqiri and Sonny Bill Williams. “Lots of people make bucketloads of money but are terribly unhappy with their lives and themselves. What makes you happy is being in good organisations and being there for the right reasons. The greater the money, the greater the expectation. No one’s a miracle man every weekend.”

Wayne Bennett

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Well, whether it’s 8 or 9 depends on what part of the world you’re in. I, for example, will be getting up at around 4:45am on the morning of Saturday 10th February to listen to GMR online and coverage of Wigan’s first Superleague match of the 2007 season. It will be a home fixture against Warrington Wolves and there is a huge crowd expected. Most think around 20,000 and there are some saying it could be close to a sellout. That would be an awesome start for the season and would set the tone for the rest of the year. It’s very possible though: last year was a struggle as any Wiganer would confess, but the crowds were there every week supporting the team, even when it looked like relegation was on the horizon for us. Now that we seem to have the makings of a decent team, they should get even better and I can see the team pushing for silverware, or at the very least get to a final this year.

But what is the Wigan team of 2007 going to be? Well, judging by squad numbers I have tried to show you below. Bear in mind that I’ve been out of the country for 2 and a half years now, so if I make any mistakes with my details or judgments about players, please comment and let me know! The player pictures are courtesy of the Wigan Warriors official club website

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1. Chris Ashton - Came out of nowhere last year after Kris Radlinski’s shock retirement. It has to be said that he did a sterling job too at full back. Good, if not outstanding in defence, and excellent in attack, his pace and good running on angles brought him 14 tries in 200. He’s only 19 though, and will need to improve his defence (hopefully learning from Michael Withers) if he is to become a great. I think we should get Kris Radlinski to coach him in defensive positioning as he was one of the best in the game. Maybe a season in the centres would do Ashton a world of good.

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As most of you regular readers know, I spend a lot of time here on my blog talking about diving here in Japan. It’s true, diving is my main passion in life at the moment and something I could go on and on (and on and on and…) about. But it’s been far too long since I’ve mentioned the other passion in my life, and one which still takes up a fair amount of my time here in Japan: rugby league.

I’m a big Wigan supporter and have been since around 1995. My first game was actually a Challenge up Final in 1992 against Castleford, and although winning, the passion that my father was hoping to instill in me in that event didn’t transpire for some reason. And the less said about the next match I attended (the 1993/4 Regal Trophy Final against Castleford at Headingley), the better. Memories of that still haunt me! But then on December 26th 1994 I went to Knowsley Road for the big local derby game against St Helens. A full house of 17,300 was in attendance, and myself, my father, uncle and 2 of my cousins (one of whom now plays for St Helens) were all at the game supporting Wigan. I remember it pretty clearly that we were stood in the middle of the St Helens supporters at the home end of the ground, but unlike football matches, we never felt uneasy about where we were. Wigan won the game 32-25 and I recall Gary Connolly getting either sin binned or sent off (I think it was the latter). I don’t know exactly what clicked inside me that day, but from then on I was hooked. That year was also the year I went to see my first Ashes Tests between Great Britain and the Aussies. I also managed to see us beat them in a single Test (something not too many people can say these days!) - a great win at Wembley following Shaun Edwards’ attempt to decapitate Bradley Clyde resulting in him being sent off in the first half, and a Jonathan Davies try in far left hand corner from where we were sat. I remember as Edwards made that tackle the entire stadium inhaled in a “oh dear… that’s not good” kind of way!

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