Sha'kin all over

The Supporters' Club alone are taking three coaches to The Shay for the quarter-final tie against Halifax and hundreds more members of "Richard Agar's Blue and White Army" are likely to join them in making the trip to West Yorkshire.

"I've said it before, they're probably the form fans of rugby league," said Knights boss Agar.

"They've got behind us superbly all year and we've had some good days out up to now and we hope this will be another great day out for them regardless of the result. We hope we can give them something to cheer about."

He added: "It's always lifting for the players to see so much colour and noise when they run out and the receptions the players have had have been brilliant."

Centre Aaron Wood was quick to add his praise too. "They're fantastic," he said.

"The York supporters get behind us wherever we go and I'm pretty sure there will be a whole heap of people coming up tomorrow."

HIGH demand for seats on the York City Knights Supporters' Club coaches to tomorrow's big Arriva Trains Cup quarter-final at Halifax has meant three coaches will now be utilised.

The first will leave Holly Tree Lane, Haxby, at 10.45am and pick up at Huntington Stadium at 11am for fans who want to have lunch in Halifax. This coach is already full.

The second will pick up only at the Stadium at noon.

The third will pick up at New Lane (opposite Anthea Drive) 12.05pm, Dodsworth Avenue (opposite shops) 12.10, Clarence Street (opposite vets) 12.15, Exhibition Square (outside theatre) 12.20, Blossom Street (opposite Odeon) 12.25, Tadcaster Road (outside Marriot Hotel) 12.30.

All coaches will return at 5.30pm and may stop off en route to meet the players.

Prices are adults £7, concessions and 12-16-year-olds £5, under-12s £1.

Contact Mike Miller on 07860 105399 for details and/or bookings. No bookings will be taken after 10.30am tomorrow.

SHOULD tomorrow's tie end in a draw after normal time, an extra ten minutes each way will be played.

If scores still remain equal after extra time, then the teams will change ends and the tie shall be decided by a 'golden point'.

Rochdale's Spotland Stadium will host the 2004 Arriva Trains Cup final on Sunday, July 18.

It will be the second year in succession that Spotland, which has also staged the National League Grand Final, has been chosen to host the NL's exclusive cup competition finale.

Gary Tasker, the Rugby Football League's director of development andmarketing, said: "Spotland is ideally located near the Lancashire Yorkshire border for fans at most National League clubs and its capacity of around 12,000 is perfect for a prestigious fixture of this kind."

All four quarter-finals of the Arriva Trains Cup will be held tomorrow, including the Knights' visit to NL1 big-guns Halifax.

ONLY a few places remain on the Supporters' Club's weekend package for the trip to London Skolars in August.

The one-night package is completely sold out, with the remaining tickets only available for the two-night stay. This comprises coach travel to Holiday Inn, Chingford on Saturday, August 28; dinner, bed and breakfast that night; coach travel to and from the match on Sunday, August 29; bed and breakfast back at the Holiday Inn that night; and luxury return coach back to York on the Bank Holiday Monday afternoon.

The price is £110 per person, or £55 for children under 16 sharing parents'/guardian's room.

Contact Knights secretary Leanne Cooper in the club office (01904 656105) for further details and bookings.

WORKINGTON Town, the Knights' NL2 rivals, have pulled off a massive coup with the capture of New Zealand 'A' international Lusi Sione.

The 28-year-old full-back, who famously scored a hat-trick against the full Great Britain side at Headingley last year, is the third Kiwi 'A' player to sign at Derwent Park until the end of next season, following hooker Johnny Limmer and prop John Tuimauluga.

Sione is expected in the country later this month, meaning he should be available for Town's home match against York on July 4.

Roe-ing in a different direction

THE fact that rugby league is a game of opinions was highlighted in a faux pas kind-of-way in trade paper League Weekly this week.

On one page we had Barrow boss Peter Roe claiming in his column that the sport was "struggling (and don't let anyone try and kid you) big time in London", while on the opposite page, noted commentator Ray French was lauding the state of the game as a whole in the capital, in an article on the Broncos' battle against relegation from Super League.

"Rugby league in London has never been more prominent... there have never been more thriving clubs in the South East... a very healthy situation," he wrote.

ROE'S penchant for promoting expansion of the great game was again well hidden when he implied in his aforementioned column that rugby league should remain a regionalised sport.

"We have attempted to push the barriers outwardly but failed miserably," he moaned - ironically after watching his side struggle to beat London Skolars, a club which didn't even exist ten years ago but have grown quite remarkably.

His prose won no awards for diplomacy, either.

Whatever one's view on last week's decision to allow UTC Perpignan into Super League in 2006, to use terms like "this French mob" and bleat on about "berets and people carrying bunches of onions around their necks" hardly enhances the debate.

And, on the back of that, it would perhaps now seem contradictory for rugby league folk to demand that southern-based media jump lose its outdated "chimney tops, flat-cap and ferrets" stereotype of the sport.

Not good.

AS regards the UTC decision, there are clearly pros and cons, the full extent of which will only come to light when the mechanics of their inclusion are disclosed.

However, for the likes of Roe to show such unbridled negativity towards attempted forward-thinking intended to boost rugby league as a whole - his words included "abso-lute disgrace", "financial disaster", "seriously damages our game" - is hardly the best marketing tactic for the sport.

Unfortunately, such negativity sometimes appears rife in the lower reaches of "regionalised" professional rugby league, which is perhaps one of the reasons some traditional clubs - like Barrow for example - struggle these days to attract crowds little over 600.

Jacko heading the Knights' charge

SKIPPER Lee Jackson has opened up a gap at the top of the Evening Press/ Collier Plant Hire player-of-the-season standings after his man-of-the-match display against Swinton last week.

And it's a good job he is on form following the news that fellow hooker Jim Elston is now out injured.

Jackson (pictured left) put on a sublime show last week which earned him not only the three player-of-the-year points as the Press' top performer but also the bonus counter after being a runaway winner of the fans' vote, which in all took him five points clear of his nearest challenger, Scott Rhodes.

The remaining points last week could have gone to several players but in the end went to the two centres, Chris Langley and Aaron Wood. The duo were virtually inseparable and so a toss of the coin was needed to decide who got the two player-of-the-year points and who had to settle for one. Sorry, Aaron, you had tails.

Langley had been the big mover in the table the previous week after the defeat of Gateshead. The 23-year-old notched two tries that day to take him to double figures for the season and joint-second in the Knights' scoring charts and gave a fine all-round display to pick up two player-of-the-year points. He also picked up the bonus point awarded via fans' votes and his weekly total of three lifted him four places in the standings, which became six places after his two-point haul this week.

Man of the match against Gateshead, Damian Ball, collected the three points and he thus jumped up to joint-third in the table, while the remaining point went to try-scoring debutant Austin Buchanan, who has given promising first impressions.

Latest player of the year standings: Jackson 20pts, Rhodes 15, Friend 14, Ball 14, Callaghan 13, Brough 11, Langley 9, Graham 7, Elston 7, Forsyth 6, Godfrey 5, Stewart 5, Cain 3, Sozi 3, Briggs 2, J Smith 2, Wood 2, Hayes 1, Andrews 1, Walker 1, Buchanan 1.

DON'T forget to send in your votes for your man of the match in each game. These votes decide not only who gets the bonus player-of-the-year point but also who wins the new Evening Press-sponsored Player of the Month award.

Furthermore, everyone who sends in a vote goes into a free draw to win a pair of VIP match tickets plus the chance to present the player of the month with his award.

Votes can be emailed to peter.martini@ycp.co.uk or sent in on a postcard to Peter Martini, Sportsdesk, Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York, YO1 9YN. Please leave your name, address and daytime contact number.

Updated: 10:27 Saturday, June 05, 2004