• Rabbitoh granted NRL dispensation to appear in 99th game for club

• Forward will join 100 club next week against Roosters

Jai Arrow made a brief but heartwarming return to an NRL field on Saturday as the forward brought up his 99th game for South Sydney Rabbitohs in an emotionally charged appearance that paves the way for him to reach his 100-game milestone next week.

Arrow was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) earlier this year and immediately announced his retirement from rugby league, leaving him on 98 appearances for the club.

The UK prime minister clearly still adores the band. Perhaps he’s attracted to songs about sham justice and murderous meat factories, shot through with nihilism and exquisite despair

As an origin story, Andy Burnham: Smiths Fan has a lot going for it. It’s plainly authentic: he can name the time he saw them live (Salford University, Queen Is Dead tour, 1986). A cynical young man in a hurry might fake that now, but not back when he first said it, in 2013. Asked by Labour Uncut for his desert island tracks during his 2010 leadership bid, three of the eight were sung by Morrissey (two Smiths singles and one off Viva Hate), which is superfan territory.

That’s a softball exercise to endear yourself to Labour members; you have eight chances to hit every base, and to blow three lives on an artist who had already, by then, been dabbling in nationalism for 18 years (we’ll come back to this) was dicey and brave. You’ll recall that Burnham did not win that election. If you were an enemy state, amassing this hinterland for an asset, you’d have basically done a really good job.