After last weekend's exciting and entertaining but ultimately fruitless rugby union, the real news isn't that the southern hemisphere countries on paper dominated the rugby world cup, but the sad demise of a once proud industry. Over the last few weeks we have seen the steel industry closed down in Redcar, and now Scotland. The town of Scunthorpe (a town we all know well) will be decimated with the loss of 900 jobs, let's face it, there isn't much in the town to start with, so this will have a massive impact. The Tory Government have just watched all of this happen with little if any interest. Cameron blames cheap Chinese imports of steel, while Osborne offers the Chinese any major construction contract it wants! A communist country devoid of human rights and freedom, a country that occupies Tibet and executes more people than any other country in the world. If this was the banking industry or Cameron's posh mates he would throw money at the problem to help them, but it's industrial workers who he couldn't care less about; or if this occurred in the south east like when the Thames flooded last year he was quick to help, but this is in the north. He knows Scunthorpe though, because his in-laws are from Normanby Hall - shame on you Cameron!! Once the industry closes there is no going back, and under this and previous Conservative Governments there is a shameful record of destroying Britain's manufacturing base.

Scotland came so close to knocking out Australia in the rugby world cup - there were two disgraceful decisions in the match. The first one was the yellow card awarded against Sean Maitland for deliberate knock on, when he clearly was trying to intercept a pass, you can see this when you look at his other hand. It should have been a scrum to Australia, instead Australia scored a try from the subsequent line out. The second decision was the penalty near the end when again it should have been a scrum to Australia. It seemed to me that the southern hemisphere referee ensured another southern hemisphere team progressed - the question is, would he have given a penalty if it had been the other way round? I doubt it!! The Mariners have a break from the league this weekend with a tricky trip to John McDermott's Harrogate Town in the FA Cup, but hopefully we can keep the unbeaten run going.

UTM
Captain New Zealand