Digits, dogs and a rowing challenge
Post categories: Rugby League
|17:34 UK time, Thursday, 28 January 2010
As Super League XV prepares to get under way on Friday, it's the coaches rather than the players who have dominated the winter headlines. Well, one coach in particular.
Fair play to Terry Matterson for doing his bit to edge rugby league into the national spotlight in the run-up to the new season.
The nation winced last week when the Castleford coach revealed he had lost a digit on a pre-season training camp in France. So much so that there was a flood of texts asking me to drop the story from the sports bulletin on BBC Radio 5 live.
"We were just tidying up after training when I saw a ball on the other side of a steel fence," Matterson told me when I caught up with him for a chat.
"I pushed off the fence, got the ball, threw it back, looked at my hand and saw the finger had gone. I looked around for it, couldn't find it and couldn't get back over the fence. The players located my finger, which was stuck on top of the fence with my ring!"
Hi, I'm George Riley. You may have heard me flying the flag for our great game on Radio 5 live, where I now present the sport on the Breakfast show. I also pop up on television presenting the Breakfast sport on BBC One and BBC News. Raised in Yorkshire, rugby league has always been a big love for me. I hope to use this blog to share my insight and behind-the-scenes gossip from every game I go to. You can also follow me on 
