Game, Set and Matched

Author: Iain Fletcher
Publisher: High Stakes
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GAME SET AND MATCHED

league team and I felt totally relaxed.

Rugby League for Christ's sake! A game from up north that soft southern shandy drinkers like me 'know bugger all about'.

But I had karma - peace that I only usually feel near the sea, or in picturesque open spaces where nature's beauty and rhythms soothe me.

Then the game started.

The settled feeling left me instantly, replaced by adrenalin and I, eyes out on stalks, watched the screen with the same unblinking intensity that a snake does a rodent.

I shall spare your blushes and not repeat my early gloating as the Warrington forwards powered through, over and round their Salford counterparts, or as the backs, led by the supremely talented Lee Briers, broken finger notwithstanding, threw expan sive, ambitious passes.

It was brilliant to watch. Sixty minutes of that and the game would be over and the money as good as in the bank So domi nant did they appear that 40 minutes might suffice.

Except a certain try was bombed when a long miss pass missed the winger, Richard Varkulis.

'Com'n you bloody idiots!'

And they did in the 16th minute. First try, converted and the ball back in Warrington's hands from the restart.

More tackles for the Salford forwards to make, more energy sapping chasing back and more chance of them running out of puff in the last quarter which is when I really felt the Warrington side would win the game.

Another try on 28 minutes and a 70-yard dash for the line by Nathan Wood and that should have been the game. At 0-12 up and completely dominant in all areas of the field, Warrington had done everything to make my money safe.

I even relaxed, sat back in the chair and opened a beer. What was I thinking of? There were still 50 minutes left. My life has never been that easy.

Half an hour, two scores and £1000 - I'm not that lucky.

It started to go wonderbra (tits-up) almost immediately. Varkulis dropped the ball over the try-line a minute later - a score

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