France Elite Teams By Season : 2003-04

Saint-Gaudens is a strong RL town

For this season there was a new team included, Lyon Villeurbanne Rhône à XIII if you want the full title. This was the first year of the Elite 1 Championship. Paris Châtillon and RC Carpentras XIII were relegated, making one less team this season for the Elite 1.

League: UTC (St Estève XIII Catalan) took the title with 48 points, just pipping RC Saint-Gaudens to the winning post by two points. Toulouse Olympique XIII were third (42) with SM Pia and AS Carcassonne sharing 40 points.

Finals: Details are becoming harder to find. In one quarter final AS Carcassonne defeated Toulouse Olympique 40-20. In the other encounter, the Limoux Grizzlies were eliminated.

In the first semi final Saint-Gaudens overcame SM Pia and in the other UTC were too good for AS Carcassonne, winning 40-22. In the grand final, Saint-Gaudens upset UTC 14-10. It was held at Perpignan in front of 7,500 spectators.

Lord Derby Cup: In one match UTC comprehensively outplayed Palau 68-6. FC Lézignan and Villefranche XIII lost but the fourth team I am unable to confirm.

The first semi final featured UTC and Toulouse Olympique, the former running out the victors 34-12. In the other game AS Carcassonne defeated Pia.

The final was a high scoring affair, played at Carcassonne (strangely) with 10,500 in attendance. UTC took the silverware courtesy of a 39-24 victory against AS Carcassonne.

Summary: UTC were the best side this season, winning both the League and cup. That gave them 56 points in the system I use to rank teams. AS Carcassonne were next with 40 points due to a solid season but without taking any trophies. Saint-Gaudens got 38 points along with Pia, the former taking the finals series and Pia another consistent performance without silverware.

	Rk	Team	Rnd	Fls	LD	Tot
	1	St Estève Cat	20	16	20	56
	2	Carcassonne	12	12	16	40
	3	St Gaudens	18	20		38
	4	Pia	14	12	12	38
	5	Toulouse	16	6	12	34
	6	Limoux	11	6		17
	7	Lézignan	9		6	15
	8	Villefranche	7		6	13
	9	Villeneuve	10			10
	10	Lyon Villeurb	8			8
	11	Palau			6	6
		Total	125	72	66	263

For the 2004-05 season, simply click here.

UK Elite Teams By Season : 1997

The second year of the Super League competition was held in 1997. The Paris St Germain club had it second and final season. The Salford City Reds came in to replace Workington Town.

The League. The Bradford Bulls won with 40 points, seven more than the London Broncos. St Helens were next with 29 points and the Wigan Warriors on 28 points. The Leeds Rhinos were next with 27. All twelve sides went into the finals series.

The Challenge Cup. At the quarter finals stage, Oldhan lost out to Bradford 12-38, Warrington likewise against Salford 10-29, Keighley were defeated by Saints 0-14 and Leeds were victorious against Featherstone 32-12.

In the semi finals, St Helens easily won 50-20 in their match with Salford and Bradford prevailed against Leeds 24-10. The final attracted 78,000 fans to Wembley Stadium to witness Saints take the cup 32-22 at the expense of Bradford.

Cup semi final Saints v Salford. (Pic St Helens Star)

The Premiership Finals. The top four had a week off which the lower eight battled it out. The results were: Sheffield Eagles 26-16 Warrington Wolves, Halifax Blue Sox 18-23 Castleford Tigers, Salford 48-6 Paris St G, Leeds 42-16 Oldham Bears.

In came the top four to play the winners of the first round: Saints 26-12 Salford, Bradford 12-25 Castleford, London 16-58 Sheffield, Wigan 38-22 Leeds. So two of the top four lost.

The semi finals arrived. St Helens 32-18 Castleford and Wigan 22-10 Sheffield. Third and fourth from the league made the grand final, the two Lancashire arch rivals. Wigan took this one 33-20 and along with it the silverware. 33,000 were on hand at Old Trafford for the occasion. The crowds are much larger now.

Summary: St Helens took the Challenge Cup and being heavily involved in the other two competitions took 52 points and were the top team with my points system. Bradford were next with 42 points, with a league title and losing finalist in the cup. Wigan were the grand final winner but a poor cup run hurt their score 34 points.

	Rk	Team	Lge	CC	Fin	Total
	1	St Helens	16	20	16	52
	2	Bradford	20	16	6	42
	3	Wigan	14		20	34
	4	Leeds	12	12	6	30
	5	Salford	11	12	6	29
	6	London	18		6	24
	7	Sheffield	9		12	21
	8	Castleford	7		12	19
	9	Warrington	8	6		14
	10	Oldham	5	6		11
	11	Halifax	10			10
	12	Paris St Ger	6			6
	12	Featherstone		6		6
	12	Keighley		6		6
		Total	136	60	84	280

To see the 1996 season, simply click here.
To see the 1998 season, just click here.

Weird NZ Anti RL Stories : Part Three

My nephew went to a primary school in Auckland, New Zealand. This is the first school you go to and covers about the first six years of schooling. It was a smaller than average school for a city this size and it didn't have much going on with school sports teams. Normally all schools would have Rugby Union played and gradually some are allowing Rugby League in too, usually on the proviso that the RU team has first pick on any players it wants.

My nephew and some of the boys there all liked Rugby League so decided they wanted to form a RL team to play other schools. I don't think many games would have been played due to not that many schools offering it anyway. The teacher they approached agreed to coach them in RL but had to get the headmaster's approval first.

The boys were excited, but were dismayed when the teacher came back and said the answer was no. The reason the headmaster gave was if a sport was to played in the school it was to be RU. If they wanted to play that fine, but there would be no RL team. They all said they didn't want to play RU and that was the end of the matter, neither sport was played there.

The schooling system has been involved in some atrocious behaviour, some of which will come to light later in the series. It shows how bigoted NZ is when it comes to RL.

For Part Four in the series, simply click here.
Part Two is seen from here.

France Elite Teams By Season : 2004-05

The same ten teams from 2003-04 turned up for the Elite One competition too.

League: Top of the pops were the St Estève XIII Catalan or UTC with 53 points. Toulouse Olympique XIII were six points behind them, with the Limoux Grizzlies a further six points down with 41. SM Pia concluded the season with 40 points.

Finals: The first round knock out match was a closely fought affair, with Limoux prevailing 12-10 over AS Carcassonne. The next week Toulouse easily got past Limoux 46-18 while UTC defeated Pia 22-6. The final was held in Narbonne in front of 5,000 fans. It proved very on sided as UTC was far too good for Toulouse, winning 66-16.

Lord Derby Cup: For the quarter finals, Sales (division 3) defeated top side Villeneuve 24-10. The other matches I cannot find, can anyone help with that? In the semi finals, UTC defeated Toulouse 34-12 and Limoux overcame a surprise package in the form of Salses 86-20. The final was held at Carcassonne before 11,000 people, with UTC taking the silverware with a 31-12 victory at the expense of Lézignan. At half time, they lead by just 10-8.

Summary: UTC (St Estève XIII Catalan) won the treble this season, which gives then the maximum 60 points that my scoring system allocates. Toulouse (46) and Limoux (44) were the only other teams that came close. 18 points were not allocated due to my not being able to find three quarter final results in the Lord Derby Cup. I have asked around but amazingly this sort of information isn't readily available.

	Rk	Team	Rnd	Fls	LD	Tot
	1	UTC	20	20	20	60
	2	Toulouse	18	16	12	46
	3	Limoux	16	12	16	44
	4	Pia	14	12		26
	5	Villeneuve	11	2	6	19
	5	Carcassonne	10	6		16
	7	St Gaudens	12	2		14
	8	Salses			12	12
	9	Villerfranche	9	2		11
	10	Lézignan	8			8
	11	Lyon Villeurb	7			7
		Total	125	72	66	263

To see the 2003-04 season, simply click here.
For the 2005-06 season, please click here.

UK Elite Teams By Season : 1998

Regarding changes for the third SL season, the Oldham Bears and Paris St Germain had left the league, replaced by Hull FC and Huddersfield. No side was to relegated this year, as the number of teams was to increase from 12 to 14.

The League.  The top five were to go into the finals series. They were the Wigan Warriors (42 points), Leeds Rhinos (38), Halifax Blue Sox (36), St Helens RLFC (29) and the Bradford Bulls (24). Huddersfield came last with just 4 points. Ouch.

The Challenge Cup. Taking up the action in the quarter finals, the results were as follows (home team listed first). London Broncos 46-18 Hull KR, Salford Reds 41-10 Hull Sharks (FC), Castleford Tigers 22-32 Sheffield Eagles and finally Wigan 20-22-10 St Helens.

In the first semi final the Sheffield Eagles defeated the Salford Reds 22-18. The other was much easier as Wigan overran London 38-8. This was to be a win to Wigan but no one told the Sheffield team. In front of over 60,000 fans, Sheffield shocked the RL world with a 17-8 victory. One for the record books and it stopped a rampant Wigan from securing the treble. (see match below).

The Finals. In the elimination game, Saints were too good for Bradford, winning 46-24. The qualifying match Leeds overcame Halifax 13-6. In the next round eliminator, Halifax were shown the door by St Helens, going down in a high scoring affair 30-37. The qualifying match that weekend, Wigan powered into the final, defeating Leeds 17-4.

Leeds had to then earn a final spot against Saints. This they achieved, winning impressively 44-16. So Wigan and Leeds met in the grand final game. 43,500 came to Old Trafford to see Wigan lift the trophy with a tight 10-4 victory.

Summary. Wigan took the league and grand final and were in the cup final. That's enough to comfortably make them the team of the year with 56 points. Next were Leeds (34 points) who were second in the league and losing grand finalists. St Helens (32) were next then Sheffield as cup winner fourth on 29 points.

	Rk	Team	Lge	CC	Fin	Total
	1	Wigan	20	16	20	56
	2	Leeds	18		16	34
	3	St Helens	14	6	12	32
	4	Sheffield	9	20		29
	5	Halifax	16		8	24
	6	London	10	12		22
	7	Salford	6	12		18
	8	Castleford	11	6		17
	9	Bradford	12		4	16
	10	Hull FC	8	6		14
	11	Warrington	7			7
	12	Hull KR		6		6
	13	Huddersfield	5			5
		Total	136	60	84	280

The 1997 season can be accessed by clicking here.
The 1999 season can be viewed by clicking here.

Weird NZ Anti RL Stories : Part Two

Many people in New Zealand who watch Rugby Union will also watch Rugby League. There are some similarities, but RU is not the sort of game to interest me. Anyway some years ago I had SkyTV and I would watch RL although RU was also available.

When watching any channel on SkyTV there were always promotions for other things you may be interested in, related to what you were currently watching. I recall every break in a RL game being bombarded with Sky adverts promoting RU games coming up. I remember sitting there thinking "I bet they don't do the reverse when people are watching RU games". The problem was I didn't watch RU games to find out.

Later I was reading a TV magazine where someone had written in. He watched both RU and RL on Sky, enjoying both. He said what annoyed him was when watching a RL game he was bombarded with suggestions to watch RU games but when watching RU games, there had never been a promotion of an upcoming RL game. He felt it was RU bias.

So Sky TV in NZ paid to have both sports on its network but while it saw fit to promote RU to RL watchers, it saw no need to promote in the other direction. Ever, according to this dual fan. Why would a sports channel have such prejudice against RL? I know the culture of NZ and its condescending attitude to RL and wondered if it was part of the Sky culture? Another event confirmed that, as will be revealed in a future article.

Part Three is accessed by clicking here.
Likewise Part One from here.

France Elite Teams By Season : 2005-06

In my historical countdown for the elite French RL, I have started to run out of match results. This means some points will not be able to be handed out after this edition. Still, I will provide what I can and if by chance I am able to add to later I will. For this season, it is OK.

League: Eleven teams lined up, with the addition of RC Carpentras XIII. SM Pia took the league with a 55 point haul, ahead of Toulouse Olympique who collected 52 points. The Limoux Grizzlies came next on 49 points and UTC (aka St Estève-Catalan) with 47. RC Saint-Gaudens came in 5th with 46 points.

Finals: Villefranche XIII and Villeneuve XIII Aveyron were the first to go, defeated by Limoux Grizzlies and UTC 64-0 and 28-20 respectively. The other qualifier of the round had RC Saint-Gaudens easily overcome AS Carcassonne 58-19.

The next round had two sudden death matches in which UTC squeaked home 28-26 against Saint-Gaudens and Villeneuve defeated Limoux 27-16. The demi-finales were between SM Pia and UTC (30-12) and Toulouse against Villeneuve (45-12).

The grand final pitted the top two teams from the league. Again Pia took the honours over Toulouse, this time narrowly 21-18. 5,500 spectators were at Toulouse to watch.

Lord Derby Cup: Starting at the quarter finals Union Sportive Entraigues XIII took on FC Lézignan but lost 14-72. SM Pia were too good for Saint-Gaudens, winning 38-6. Limoux overcame Carcassonne 36-11 and Toulouse beat UTC 44-12.

Then came the semis with Lézignan defeating Limoux by 18-17 and SM Pia too strong for Toulouse 32-6. The cup final was between SM Pia and Lézignan which went 36-20 in Pia's favour. Over 9,300 attended at Carcassonne.

Summary: SM Pia took the treble this year, winning everything and I awarded them 60 points for that effort.. Toulouse Olympique XIII came next on 46 points with a second in the league, losing the grand final and cup semi finalists. The Limoux Grizzlies collected 34 points and UTC 32.

	Rk	Team	Rnd	Fls	LD	Tot
	1	Pia	20	20	20	60
	2	Toulouse	18	16	12	46
	3	Limoux	16	6	12	34
	4	UTC	14	12	6	32
	5	Lézignan	8		16	24
	5	St Gaudens	12	6	6	24
	7	Villeneuve	10	12		22
	8	Carcassonne	11	2	6	19
	9	Villerfranche	9	2		11
	10	Lyon Villeurb	7			7
	12	Marseille	6			6
	12	Entraigues			6	6
		Total	131	76	84	291

For the 2004/05 season, simply click here.
For the 2006/07 season, please click here.