Stevo slams “disgraceful” loophole exploited by Wigan Warriors

We will see Wigan Warriors and Hull KR collide tomorrow after St Helens meet Catalans Dragons in tonight’s semi-final.

Both semi-finals will be terrific and also full of stars but tomorrow’s semi-final could have been without a number stars due to bans to Bevan French, Kaide Ellis and Harvie Hill.

But due to the reserves loophole, all three can play and former Sky Sports commentator Stevo has slammed this on the Eddie and Stevo podcast:

“Of course it’s got to change. It’s a disgrace. It’s an embarrassment to our wonderful game of rugby league.

“You cannot bring in laws that allow you to ensure that someone who has been put in a position where you can’t play, you’re suspended because you’ve done something wrong.

“Yet because they’ve done something wrong they can change the rules and the laws of the game to ensure that they play. It’s a disgrace and as I say it again it’s an embarrassment for our game.

“The sooner the people who are running the game sort that out the better. Trouble is it’s too late, they’re allowed to play.”

He also provided his predictions for the semi-finals:

“Wow, toss a coin, simple as that. It’s going to be very, very tough.

“Also depends on the weather. At this time of year, it can still be quite hot down in the south of France and that may well be an advantage to the Catalan players.

“But if it’s overcast and maybe not as warm as what they expect, then I’d have to say that St Helens would have a good chance of just snaking through. When I mention snaked through, I don’t think there’s going to be many points between them.

“I’m going to go Wigan and St Helens.”

He also spoke making sure the final is a sell out:

“Look, in the olden golden days, even I can remember the fact that at the start of the season you started saving up to go to Wembley. Now we’ve got to get that same attitude about we’ve got to go to Manchester, we’ve got to go to Old Trafford.

“People like IMG have got to start promoting it more than a couple of months before the Grand Final, they should be doing it in the off season of saying, we are going to give you great value for money if you purchase your grand final tickets now!

“Don’t wait six months later and find out who’s going to be there. Put them in a situation where you get a family ticket, et cetera, and so forth. We’ve got to come out and give something back to the fans instead of just clobbering them with saying, oh, we’ve got to put another 15% or 10% on top.

“Let’s start taking 20% off and let’s get the crowds back in there and get them back into the swing of things. When I was a young kid, my dad would take me down to Wembley and I’d look forward to it, and we didn’t even know it was going to be there.”