Monday 8 February 2016 16:11, UK
Josh Mantellato, artificial pitches, redemption for Chris Sandow and Auckland Nines make our first Set of Six of the season.
Castleford were on the verge of opening their Super League XXI campaign with a hard-fought victory against Hull KR, before Josh Mantellato went over in the corner in the dying seconds of the match and held his nerve to add the extras in difficult conditions.
The conversion came as a big surprise to KR coach Chris Chester who expected Mantellato to miss: "I must admit as soon as we scored I said to Dane Tilse that he (Mantellato) had no chance," Chester said.
"Considering he's only got one eye that's open he did a fantastic job at kicking that goal."
An injury to Leeds skipper Danny McGuire was the last thing the Rhinos needed after their season-opener defeat to Warrington. McGuire took over the captaincy following Kevin Sinfield's switch to rugby union, but has been ruled out for six to eight weeks with a knee injury sustained in the first half-hour of Thursday's defeat.
However, Leeds chief executive Gary Hetherington is confident that the Rhinos have enough talent to cover the loss of McGuire.
"Danny's misfortune is somebody else's opportunity," said Hetherington said.
"We have a 25-man squad for a reason. We knew we were going to have some key players injured this year but we promoted Jordan Lilley, Ashton Golding and Ash Handley with the intention of playing them in Super League.
"It's a blow, there is no question about it, but it is one of many challenges we will face this season."
Leeds certainly did miss the kicking ability of Sinfield but let's not take anything away from Warrington who were excellent for their win against the Rhinos. Wolves new boy Kurt Gidley had a major impact on the way they played while Chris Sandow, who failed to live up to his hype in 2015, showed some wonderful touches and showed what he can do with ball in hand.
"I mentioned last year that it wasn't fair to judge him [Sandow] on last year," said Warrington coach Tony Smith.
"He was a shell of a bloke and he'd been really dragged through it in Australia and he came to us shattered.
"He did really well last year in the circumstances and now he's fitter, faster and stronger - and most of all, he's happy.
"There were some fantastic aspects of our play and most of those were defensive, but we came up with some good stuff with the ball too, particularly from Chris. I thought he was absolutely brilliant when he had a bit of ball."
Summer rugby? Try telling that to Wigan and Catalans as they battled awful conditions at the DW Stadium on Friday night. Hats off to the groundsmen who were always going to be fighting a losing battle against such torrential rain, but is it time to explore artificial pitches across the game?
Widnes are the only Super League team to have invested in such a pitch and while most of their rivals have seen their training schedules badly disrupted by the heavy rain, it has been business as usual for the Vikings, thanks to their i-pitch. Is it time that the rest of the league follow in their footsteps?
The conditions once again underlined Catalans inability to adapt their style. It's one thing winning on the hard, warm fields of Perpignan but Super League is not won in the south of France. It's won in the north of England where more often than not the conditions are challenging.
On paper, Catalan look like the team to beat but this game is not played on paper. They have enough talent and experience on their books to be able to adapt to any conditions - the Grand Final will be played at old Trafford so they had better get their heads around that now.
The Auckland Nines were another huge success ahead of the NRL season as the Parramatta Eels beat New Zealand Warriors 22-4 in the final. NRL coaches are not huge fans of the tournament, claiming it is too dangerous for their players ahead of the season, but the fans love it and there are some serious skills on show. None other than Warrior skipper Shaun Johnson who scored an absolute blinder against Brisbane Broncos.
With less than a minute to go, Johnson's sidestep beat two players and he used his pace to race through a gap before another neat sidestep flummoxed the cover defence and he went over right under the posts.
A Super League Nines would not work at the start of our season but it would be a great way to start the summer and showcase some of Super League's young talent.
