2017 Match 3 (Batley Away: Championship)fevnut's musings
Rivalries
As I see it, matches between Fev and Batley used to be just
another match but in recent years the rivalry has developed and intensified to
the extent that it has almost become a fixture that qualifies for the label of ‘derby’.
I did say almost, because, of course, the real Fev derby is between us and Cas,
but we so rarely get to play them that as fans we almost have to search for an
alternative and what better than the nearest Championship club - Batley. No, it’s
not really a ‘derby’, because Batley do still have their own traditional one
against Dewsbury (The Heavy Woollen Derby) and they play them at least twice
this year.It got me thinking about the difference in ‘Derbies’ for players and fans. For us fans, winning or losing a derby game can be at least as important as silverware. The passions get to their highest level and then, the chances are that, if we lose, we will have our noses rubbed in it by workmates and in the supermarket. And if we win, we will have the joy of crowing about it to those very same workmates!
We expect our players to feel as passionate about it as we do, but do they really? I was prompted into such thoughts whilst watching the opening game of the super league season. There was talk about Saints missing Matty Smith through injury (who had been a Wigan player for the last 6 years) and then the camera went to Saints assistant coach, Sean Long, who started his career with Wigan. For fans the very idea of changing one’s loyalty from Wigan to Saints or Fev to Cas is utterly preposterous, but not so for the players. I believe they do get quite passionate about defeating the local rivals but suspect it is more to do with keeping face with their supporters than an intrinsic horror at losing to the opposition.
I began to delve into players moving between deadly rivals. I don’t have the information to go back before those who played in the summer era, but I nevertheless found a lot of players who had made the transition. Despite my starting point of Matty Smith and Sean Long, there were 18 who had switched between Saints and Wigan. But that is rather small compared to other big rivalries. 40 have swapped between Leeds and Bradford and a fairly startling 49 between the Hull clubs. 42 players have played for both Cheshire clubs (Warrington and Widnes) and 40 for both Leeds and Bradford. That’s before this season and doesn’t include all the Leeds players who have gone on-loan to Bradford this year. Batley and Dewsbury, despite that Heavy Woollen derby tag, have shared an astonishing 71 players. Finally we come to the situation between Fev and Cas. Remembering that this is limited to those who put on their boots during the summer era we found 56 players who played for both. In that number are a whole host who would be thought of as iconic players for Fev. Brendon Tuuta and Paul Newlove certainly fall into that category. There are also 3 Fev captains who played for the other team as well: Shaun Irwin, Liam Finn and Tim Spears. Amongst the many, many others there are Andy Kain, Tommy Saxton, Anthony Thackeray and John Davies.
So you can only conclude that major rivalries are about the feelings of the fans whilst the players get on and try to please their current fans but basically put in the effort because it’s a job and it’s what they do.
T'Other Side: Batley
Head Coach:
Matt Diskin
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| Matt Diskin |
Matt Diskin was took over
as head coach of the Bulldogs for this season, following in the footsteps of
John Kear who had held the post for 5 years. He has a difficult standard to
match after Kear took Batley into the Qualifiers last year. It is Diskin’s
first post as a head coach although he did take charge briefly of Bradford
Bulls in a caretaker capacity in 2014 between the sacking of Francis Cummins
and the appointment of James Lowes.
As a player he was a
renowned hooker starting his career in 2001 with Leeds Rhinos. He stayed with
the Rhinos for ten seasons making 264 appearances. In 2011 he moved to Bradford
Bulls making 86 appearances before retiring at the end of 2014. He also played
Great Britain, England, England A and Yorkshire.
As a player he was a
renowned hooker starting his career in 2001 with Leeds Rhinos. He stayed with
the Rhinos for ten seasons making 264 appearances. In 2011 he moved to Bradford
Bulls making 86 appearances before retiring at the end of 2014. He also played
Great Britain, England, England A and Yorkshire.
New Signings for 2017
t Danny Bravo (Huddersfield Underbank Rangers ARL)
t Joel Farrell (Dewsbury Rams)
t Macauley Hallett (Swinton Lions)
t Brad Hill (Featherstone Rovers)
t Dane Manning (Halifax)
t Trae O’Sullivan (Coventry Bears)
Batley also
have three Castleford Tigers on loan - Jy Hitchcox, Tom Holmes and Will Maher.
The most high profile
signing for Batley in 2017 has to be Dane
Manning, a powerful and skilful second rower who arrives from Halifax. He
is a product of the Leeds Rhinos Academy and he previously played for Batley in
2011 before having five years at Halifax.
Although Danny Bravo has been signed from the
amateur game he does have professional experience having played nine games for
Oldham in 2011. In the same year he was picked for Jamaica in World Cup
Qualifiers against South Africa and the United States. Joel Farrell usually plays at loose forward and has been very
impressive playing for Dewsbury against Rovers in the last two years. He, too,
is a Jamaican international.
Macauley
Hallett started with Hull KR in 2014 and then played for
Newcastle Thunder under dual registration in 2015. Last year he joined for
Swinton where he became a regular starter and scored 17 tries in 24
appearances. Brad Hill is having his
first year in the Championship having played in League One with South Wales
Scorpions and Gloucestershire All Golds. He has also played for the Wales
Academy. Trae O’Sullivan, a young prop, played for Coventry Bears in 2016 and
Batley see him as one for the future.
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| Dane Manning |
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| Joel Farrell |
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| Macauley Hallett |
The
Fev connection
There are five players in
the current Batley squad who have played for Featherstone. You have to have a
good memory to recall Dominic Brambani
playing in a Fev team because it was 12 years go in 2005 when he had a seven
game loan spell with us from Castleford. Rather more recent was Jy Hitchcox who Fev brought over from
Australia in 2015. He played at fullback and on the wing, and although popular
with many fans he never really settled and moved on the following year to
Castleford. He is currently at Batley on loan.
Dane
Manning, who we have already mentioned above, played 23 games
for Fev on loan from Leeds in 2010. Dave
Scott is a regular Scottish international (and a genuine one, complete with
Scottish accent!) He started his international career back in 2011 whilst a
junior at Hull KR. Rovers signed him in 2013 but he only played one first team
game before going on loan to Doncaster, where he stayed for a further two
seasons before signing for Batley.
Sam
Smeaton came through the ranks at Featherstone Lions before
Rovers signed him in 2009 and he was a regular in the team before a horrific
injury caused him to miss the whole of the 2013 season and he only came back
for 2 games at the end of 2014. He moved on to Sheffield in 2015 and Halifax in
2016 where he went out on loan to York and then signed for Batley in July. Sam
played 84 games for Rovers scoring 41 tries.
There is one further player
in the Batley squad with a Featherstone Rovers connection. Although he signed
for Rovers last year, Brad Hill was
a regular member of the Fev reserve team until its disbandment, but never
played in the first team although he did appear in four out of the five
pre-season games.
Today: Previously - February 19th
Rugby
League
The first time that Rovers played a match on February
19th was in 1927 when they beat Barrow 17-5 at home. There have been
2 matches against Hull Kingston Rovers, both with heavy scorelines. In 1955
Featherstone were the winners by 45-3 in a home league match. The Fev try scorers
on the day were Ken Elford, Mick Clamp (2), Ray Cording, Joe Mullaney, Don Fox,
Ken Welburn and Willis Fawley (2). Don Fox kicked 9 goals. They met again in
2006, also at Post Office Road, in a Northern Rail Cup group match but this
time Hull KR won 32-6. Fev’s most recent match on February 19th was
against Dewsbury. It was also a Northern Rail Cup group match which we won
38-6. Three tries were scored by members of our current squad with two for Kyle
Briggs and one for Ian Hardman. Sam Smeaton (now at Batley) also scored that
day for Fev. In all four of the 2017 squad were playing that day: Hardo and
James Lockwood were in the starting 13 and Kyle Briggs and Andy Bostock were on
the bench.
On February 19th, 2012 there were signs
that the once powerful Bradford Bulls were falling from grace when they went
down by 54 points to 16 at home to Wigan.
There don’t seem to have been any representative
matches played on February 19th.
World Events
In 1600, Most violent
volcanic eruption ever recorded in South America at Huaynaputina in Peru.
In 1878, Thomas Edison
patents the phonograph (gramophome).
In 1942, 150 Japanese
warplanes attack Darwin, in Australia.
In 1980, Ian Botham
scores a century and takes 13 wickets in a test match in Mumbai
In 1995, Linford Christie
breaks the world indoor record for 200 metres
Birthdays
1473 Nicolaus
Copernicus, astronomer who produced the theory that the planets orbit the sun
1717 David
Garrick, English actor and producer
1924 Lee
Marvin, film star
1953 Cristina
Fernandez de Kirchner, former Argentinian president
1962 Hana
Mandlikova, Czech tennis player
1986 Anthony
Thackeray
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