CONGRATULATIONS to Thornhill Trojans, the amateur players conducted themselves in a very professional manner, and did their club proud with a great effort in Sunday's Challenge Cup game.

The standard of amateur Rugby League has progressed tremendously over recent years and full credit must go to all involved in the amateur game.

The defeat of Whitehaven by amateur Wath Brow was a classic example of how the gap at the top end of the amateur game and the NFP is closing.

LAST week saw an historical move in our game when BARLA agreed to come under the RL leadership.

At long last we now have a unified game with the amateurs and professionals coming together. This system has operated successfully in Australia for years and I feel that everybody working together must be the way forward.

IT APPEARS we have a 'celebrity lookalike' among our squad this season.

You'll have to guess who I'm referring to, but a couple of our lads were out one night when somebody though one of them looked like 'that bloke off Eastenders'. You can imagine how he felt, his chest puffing out at his new-found status, until the person clicked as to which soap star he reminded them of.

"You're a dead ringer for Barry," they said, finger pointing at our boy, at which point they decided it was time to move to another venue.

There's a free drink from me for the first person to guess our star 'celebrity.'

OUR new signing Andy Robinson is making quite a name for himself on and off the field.

You can't have missed the size of his legs and with his blockbusting running style he has earned the nickname 'Inga the Winga' after Va'aiga Tuigamala the famous New Zealand and Wigan player.

Andy was playing amateur last season and represented Great Britain at amateur level against France. I'm pleased he has now committed himself to the Cougars and feel he has the potential to really make the grade in the pro game.