Sport / Rugby league

Hull KR miss out on Lee Radford but move closer to signing Willie Mason

www.guardian.co.uk - North Queensland Cowboys forward would be major coup Hull KR unable to persuade Radford to leave rivals Hull FCHull KR have failed to persuade Lee Radford to cross the city next season, but are close to announcing one of the biggest overseas signings in Super League history. Willie Mason, the hulking North Queensland Cowboys forward who has long been established as one of the most colourful personalities in the Australian game, is thought to have agreed terms to play at Craven Park next season, with an announcement expected in the next few days.Mason, a 30-year-old who won 23 Test caps for Australia, is best known in this country for flooring Stuart Fielden during the 2006 Tri-Nations series - and for the expletive-laden appearance at the disciplinary hearing that followed. He has always been keen to play in England and Hull KR were pushing at an open door with two of his former Sydney Roosters team-mates, Mark O'Meley and Craig Fitzgibbon, already settled in the city after a season with Hull FC.Mason is now almost certain to make his Rovers debut against them as a Hull derby will be included in the opening round of fixtures at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff next February. Radford will line up alongside O'Meley and Fitzgibbon in black and white, rather than in red and white with Mason, after signing a new two-year contract with Hull that will also involve coaching the club's under-15 team.Radford, 31, was Hull's captain when they lost at Wembley in the 2008 Challenge Cup final but was replaced this season by Sean Long, who will return to their team for Saturday's home game against Leeds after two months out with an elbow injury. Long is set to resume his half-back partnership with another former international, Richard Horne, who is also back in the squad for a game that Hull must win to secure a place in the top four.Wigan will be presented with the League Leaders' Shield as reward for finishing top of the table after Friday's home game against Bradford, when their Australian wing Pat Richards needs 15 points to break Andy Farrell's Super League record of 388 in a season. But the game at The Stoop is arguably more significant, with last weekend's Challenge Cup winners Warrington needing a convincing win to boost their points difference as they battle with St Helens for home advantage in the first round of next weekend's play-offs - and Quins expected to make an announcement that will ease fears over their future.The game will be a celebration of 30 unbroken years of professional rugby league in London since Fulham played their first game at Craven Cottage in September 1980, and Harlequins will field a record number of seven players who have come through their own junior ranks after calling up Joe Ridley, a 19-year-old from Colchester, to replace the injured Danny Orr. It will also be Brian McDermott's last game as the Harlequins coach before he returns to Leeds to work with Brian McClennan next season.Hull KRRugby leagueAndy Wilsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds More... (Rugby league)

Pat Richards and Adrian Morley cross swords in battle for Man of Steel | Andy Wilson

www.guardian.co.uk - Wigan's left wing only 15 points from Super League record Image of Adrian Morley with Challenge Cup may tilt voteEven out on the left wing, Pat Richards will be the centre of attention when Wigan complete an outstanding season that few would have predicted with a home game against the Bradford Bulls tomorrow evening. Richards, the tall Australian wing with strong Irish links and who is in his fifth year with the Warriors, needs 15 points to set a new record for the 15 seasons since the switch to a summer Super League in 1996.The record is currently held by Andy Farrell, an all-time Wigan great, who scored 388 points from 164 goals and 15 tries in the 2001 season. Richards may have some way to go to match Farrell's place in the cherry-and-white pantheon, but he must already go down as one of their better overseas signings, joining a distinguished recent list including such luminaries as Dean Bell, John Ferguson, Gene Miles and Brett Kenny.However as a wing, even a very good one, would he be a worthy successor to Farrell as the second Wigan player to be crowned Man of Steel in the Super League era? Or, to put it another way, is he the best wing since Martin Offiah, who made such an impact in his first season in league after joining Widnes from Rosslyn Park in 1987-8 that he became the first and so far only specialist to win the award since it was introduced in 1977? Joe Lydon played a fair amount on the wing when he became the eighth Man of Steel, in 1984, but Widnes also used him at full-back that season - as Wigan have Richards this - and he had switched inside to centre when he scored the two spectacular tries against Wigan at Wembley that probably sealed it for him.Farrell won the award, given to the player who "makes the greatest impact on a Super League season" in 1996 and 2004, when it was determined by an anonymous panel drawn from the media with a bit of expert advice. Now it is the players who make the decision themselves, in a secret ballot that will be completed in the next few days, with one of the disadvantages of the new system being that no play-off performances can be taken into account.Richards is widely seen as the frontrunner. Wigan's assistant coach, Shaun Wane, joked that he is in "a shortlist of one", but that was a throwaway comment, because it is hard to remember a season in which there have been so many strong contenders.There are no guarantees that Richards will even be crowned Wigan's player of the year, as he recognised himself when replying to a recent tweet from Offiah suggesting he had the Man of Steel award wrapped up. "Thanks mate but I can't go past @sam_tomkins or @seanol15," said patrichards5, the latter a reference to the loose forward Sean O'Loughlin, who has epitomised the extra aggression that Wigan have shown this season while retaining his clever play-making abilities.In the last month alone, Tomkins has scored the try of the season (against Warrington) and produced the most thrilling individual performance I've seen (at Hull KR), and if the Man of Steel award were determined by pure edge-of-the-seat excitement, then it would be a toss-up between his recent brilliance at full-back, and Kyle Eastmond's early-season exuberance at scrum-half for St Helens.But I don't reckon the gnarled old Super League pros will be as easily wowed, either by England's brightest young talents, or the prolific Richards out wide. After making an Aussie full-back (Brett Hodgson) the Man of Steel last year, they might be a bit reluctant to vote for another former Wests Tigers glory boy (not an appropriate description for either Hodgson or Richards, but you get the point).In addition to O'Loughlin, there are four more strong homegrown contenders who have been outstanding for the two teams who have pushed Wigan the hardest at the top of the table.James Roby and James Graham are both previous winners, in 2007 and 2008 respectively, but they have arguably been even better this year than they were then in sustaining the challenge of a Saints team so badly affected by injuries.Across the M62 at Warrington, while Lee Briers and Michael Monaghan have been consistently crafty and watchable, it is the forwards Ben Westwood and Adrian Morley who are the most likely Man of Steel contenders. Westwood, who joined the Wolves as a centre from Wakefield but has become a non-stop second-row, was the ultimate unsung hero until he took over the goalkicking duties from Briers in recent weeks, regularly earning plaudits from the coach Tony Smith when us ignorant journalists had hardly noticed him.But Morley is a likelier candidate. He has been one of British rugby league's leading forwards for 14 years now, since he toured Papua New Guinea, Fiji and New Zealand as a teenager, and became one of a select band to make a big impression in Australia during four seasons with the Sydney Roosters.He appeared in three consecutive Grand Finals for the Roosters, standing up to the New Zealand Warriors enforcers in their only win, and has played in two Super League Grand Finals - losing with Leeds in 1998 before joining Bradford in 2005 for a brief stint that ended in victory over the Rhinos. Last Saturday he enjoyed a third Challenge Cup-winning final at Wembley, but like his old friend Keiron Cunningham, he has never won a major individual award.In previous years, when the media made the decision, cup performances were not permitted to be taken into account. But now the players are not instructed to make that distinction, and any of them who voted this week will have had the image of Morley lifting the Challenge Cup fresh in their mind.It is arguable that Richards has made a more obvious impact on the Super League season with his 27 tries and 133 goals. But Morley would nevertheless be a popular and deserving Man of Steel.That award won't be announced until Grand Final week at the end of the month, but the Engage Dream Team will be revealed next Monday, following the completion of the regular season. After taking on board your suggestions when I asked for a bit a of help a few weeks ago, here's the Guardian Dream Team - with a couple of late changes, as Thomas Leuluai nips in ahead of Michael Dobson at scrum-half, and Sam Tomkins has to be split between full-back and stand-off.Your thoughts on any of the above, plus any nominations for coach or young player of the year (must have been 21 or under at the start of the season), and any Cup final reflections, are welcome as ever below.1 Wellens (St Helens)/S Tomkins (Wigan); 2 Briscoe (Hull), 3 King (Warrington), 4 Senior (Leeds), 5 Richards (Wigan); 6 S Tomkins (Wigan)/Brown (Huddersfield), 7 Leuluai (Wigan); 8 Morley (Warrington), 9 Roby (St Helens), 10 Graham (St Helens), 11 Westwood (Warrington), 12 J Tomkins (Wigan), 13 O'Loughlin (Wigan).Rugby leagueChallenge CupSuper LeagueAndy Wilsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds More... (Rugby league)

Greg Inglis to miss Australia's Four Nations campaign

www.guardian.co.uk - England will not have to face world's best player Centre Inglis to have shoulder surgeryEngland will not have to face Greg Inglis, the strapping Australia centre who has done them so much damage in recent encounters, in the Four Nations series at the end of this season.Inglis will make his last appearance for the Melbourne Storm this weekend before joining the Brisbane Broncos, who have instructed him to have shoulder surgery to ensure his fitness for the start of their 2011 campaign. The absence of Inglis, who won the Golden Boot as the best player in the world last year after carving England to pieces in Wigan, just as he had in scoring a hat-trick in a World Cup match in Melbourne 12 months earlier, is the latest of several blows to the Kangaroos' preparations for their defence of the Four Nations title.His former Melbourne team-mate Israel Folau will not be considered having signed to play Australian Rules football next year, and another Brisbane centre Justin Hodges has already been ruled out with a long-term achilles problem. But the bad news for England is that Johnathan Thurston and Darren Lockyer, the half-backs who have been as dominant in international rugby for Australia in recent years as they have for Queensland in the State of Origin series, both remain hopeful of recovering from injury to play in the tournament.Thurston has ankle ligament damage and Lockyer is currently out with a rib injury. Neither are the Kangaroos exactly short of quality replacements for Inglis, Hodges and Folau. Michael Jennings and the former St Helens centre Jamie Lyon are the leading contenders to play in the centres but Mark Gasnier, who recently returned from French rugby union to St George Illawarra, could also be considered.England's coach, Steve McNamara, has been in Australia and New Zealand liaising with Brian Smith and Jeremy Hickmans, the two key members of his support staff who are based in Sydney, in addition to finalising the tour itinerary and training venues. Kieron Purtill, the St Helens assistant coach who has ended speculation that he may succeed Brian McDermott at Harlequins by agreeing a new two-year contract to work with the new Saints coach Royce Simmons, will take charge of the revived Canada team in the forthcoming Atlantic Cup.Quins will finally be able to make a positive announcement about their future before their last game of the season against the Challenge Cup winners Warrington at the Stoop on Friday, as the Rugby Football League are thought to have helped them secure new investment to ease the burden on their long-term backer David Hughes.Wigan are still hoping to persuade the former Great Britain prop Stuart Fielden to stay at the club. The lucrative four-year contract on which Fielden joined Wigan from Bradford in 2006 expires next month and a number of other Super League clubs, including Hull, are known to be interested. But Fielden was one of several significant absentees from the list of four players - Mark Riddell, Phil Bailey, Iafeta Paleaaesina and Shaun Ainscough - who Wigan have confirmed will be leaving the club. The Samoa centre George Carmont and another experienced prop, Andy Coley, are also out of contract but expected to stay.Bailey and Paleaaesina have already been confirmed as the latest two additions to what promises to be a much-improved Salford squad for 2011, and Ainscough has signed for Bradford. Hull KR's former Wigan wing Liam Colbon has signed a one-year contract extension and Rovers remain hopeful of signing the colourful Australian forward Willie Mason, possibly by the end of this week.Australia rugby leagueRugby leagueEngland rugby league teamAndy Wilsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds More... (Rugby league)