XIII Oceans

Incredible! Here we are just two games away from British sport’s biggest domestic climax.  Last week Castleford and Wakefield said goodbye to love.  This week we circle around two more do-or-die battles.  Please don’t let the winners expend too much energy ahead of the semi-finals because we demand two belters next week.  We want our blood!

Huddersfield vs Catalans
Wrestlemania is back in town and boy am I looking forward to this one.  If there’s no biff, bang, bosh in this I want my money back.  Big boys duffing up other big boys has been top class entertainment for centuries and across all social classes.  Us hungry RL morons are one and the same.  We abhor violence.  Put some big collisions, high shots and punch-ups in any game and we are abhorring it.  Ruined it I have.  Instead of the coliseum headliner I foresee a tight game liberated from excitement by loose handling, flopping around and bombs.  This deserves my “this can go either way” comment with references to Catalans, at times, flowing distribution being flattened by strong Giants defence.  Walters’ team have the intelligence, skill and approach to test Nathan Brown’s team.  Is it capable of performing at its best, which is what it will need to be.  I doubt it.  It would be absurd of me to ditch Huddersfield after singing their praises through most of the season.  With Brett Hodgson whizzing around the pitch, Mongo squashing oranges in the pack and Fulton giving some game-winning inspiration it is a solid home outing keeping some distance between the two.  I would love Catalans to make a fight of this and I am holding out on them being in a final fling mindset to give us good Friday night viewing.  Huddersfield by 10.

Hull KR vs Wigan
One big question for this game.  Was Hull KR’s collapse at Leeds indicative of the way their season is ending or merely a switching off before inevitable conquest by the league’s bully boys?  The pundits have made their opinion clear. It was the former.  The manner in which the first admirable team from Rovers country capitulated was a reflection of how their campaign has progressed.  A good crust to open with offset against a soggy middle before some flavour kicks back towards the end.  Neither the crust or the flavour has been enough to overcome that soggy middle.  There’s a downbeat journey here.  You can’t say the same for Wigan.  Brian Noble’s annual spurt has most observers predicting a Wigan trip to St Helens thanks to a strong second half of the season.  It has been strong.  It has not been that strong though.  Who are we trying to kid here?  I’m amazed the visitors didn’t dismantle Castleford to the tune of fourty-odd points last week.  It is the play-offs I guess and you don’t write Wigan off, something that I learned a long time ago.  The difference is it was a long time ago that I also decided to write off not writing Wigan off.  Here we are all in danger of writing off a Rovers team which can be very deadly when it forces those errors.  Wigan are a team which volunteers errors and I think we’re primed for a blow out either way.  At Leeds the stresses and strains of a long season came to the fore and it is difficult to avoid looking there for your result.  There are all sorts of permutations possible from this one and if Rovers do out-percentage Wigan I hold little hope of them progressing further if they have to go back to Leeds.  Look, it isn’t because I believe Leeds are simply superior.  It is this has to be a battle-weary win for Rovers and I am going to plump for the exhilaration of a potential semi-final wooing Craven Park to an ugly death at Headingly.  Hull KR by 2.

Play-off predictions rate, 2-2.