The spotlight is falling on our club again this season and our profile has once more been lifted in the media with the onset of more cup fever.

Our semi-final appearance in the Arriva Trains Cup along with the staging of the York 9's, means the city of York will receive plenty of minutes and column inches in the weekend's sporting news.

Our second cup run of the season sees us travel to Craven Park in Hull for what is sure to be a great day yet again for our barmy army of fans, and, what is great news for the club, interest in the game is building up very well.

While the quarter-final of the challenge cup saw us pretty much as a forlorn hope against the Giants, there is a touch more realism about this fixture. While again we will start underdogs, there is more expectation about the place and obviously we are not playing full time opposition.

Hull KR deserve the utmost respect, but we will go and give it our best shot and hopefully give our fans something to shout about - not that they need any excuse for a shout.

The injury situation is similar to Featherstone so hopefully it can bring the best out in us again. It will be a big test for the players, both mentally and physically, and one that will be a gauge for future games of this magnitude.

I hope they enjoy the experience.

The set up of the York 9's has intrigued me. The tournament is really taking off and becoming entrenched on the rugby calendar, which is a real credit to the organisers of the event.

There is a real international flavour about it and I think it will be hard to pin a favourites' tag on anyone.

I will be going to have a look and don't be surprised if there is the odd undiscovered gem, turning out somewhere in the mass of colours over the weekend.

A weekend I'm really looking forward too, as I'm sure the rugby fraternity of York all are.

National League One is proving to be the most open and intriguing for a few years now.

Two points separate the top five teams, and the results are getting more difficult to predict by the week.

My tip for the Grand Final is Leigh v Whitehaven - I know, not exactly sticking my neck out - with Leigh maybe at last finding that elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But keep your eye on Steve McCormack, the Whitehaven coach, who has done a supreme job so far in Cumbria. They have recruited well and have proven to be a team that can adapt their game to the circumstances.

Finally, apparently there is a football tournament going on somewhere, which means there will be a curtain-raiser to the weekend's rugby on Thursday night. Good luck to the nation's footballers, who can hopefully kick off a good weekend in style and bring back the feel-good factor. The landlords will be loving it.

Updated: 11:11 Wednesday, June 23, 2004