fevnut's blog: London Home

2017 Match 10: London Broncos Home
(Championship)  

fevnut's musings  

Discipline

Many, many years ago I was the youngest person in my school’s cricket team. I was there because I could bowl useful off-spin and that was pretty rare in school cricket. I loved it. But then we had a problem. In our team was a very fast bowler and our wicket-keeper just couldn’t cope. Other people were asked to try but most of them were frankly scared. I was known to have fast reactions (goalkeeper in both soccer and hockey) so I was asked to have a go. I loved the fact that I was involved with every ball bowled and I didn’t mind coping with fast bowlers too much of a problem so I carried on keeping for about 30 years. But in those early days I did have a real problem. I had quite a fiery temper and got easily wound up. As a wicket keeper you have to keep calm and concentrated to a high degree or you let your team down lack of concentration can lead to getting injured especially with fast bowlers. So I had to learn, and learn quickly, to keep calm in order to be effective.

That was amateur sport. How much more important is it in professional sport for players to conduct themselves in the best interest of the team. Over the last couple of seasons I have become increasingly frustrated by how many times Fev players give away utterly needless penalties, either putting our defence under increased pressure or giving away field position and possession when we are attacking.

What is, of course, even worse is when players get themselves sin-binned or sent off. How fortunate were we last week that we were up against weak opposition. What’s more, it was weak opposition who got easily frustrated and hence themselves got four player sent to the bin. Had we kept our discipline I have no doubt we could have put 60 points past them which could have taken us above Toulouse on points difference. Instead of that, we end up with a player sent off in 24th minute for an utterly stupid reaction to an action by an opposition player that was inevitably going to lead to him going in the bin. The stupidity was compounded by the fact that our player was already up on a charge before the disciplinary this week for throwing punches in the previous game. If I’d been Jon Sharp I would have told him to get changed and get walking home because there was no place on the team bus for people who so badly let down the team! It’s absolutely no use being a good player if you end up being a liability.

Of course, we ended up having a second player, rightfully, sent off for a very dangerous looking tackle. From where I was sat it looked unfortunate but accidental. A matter of ensuring that his technique is improved to ensure there are no repeats. A very different case to the first half dismissal.

It’s not what we need as we come into the Easter period with matches against London, Hull KR and an improving Bradford!

T'Other Side: London Broncos

 

Head Coach: Andrew Henderson

Andrew Henderson

Andrew Henderson is an Australian who was born in Devon and played internationally for Scotland! He took over as Broncos coach in March 2015 following the departure of Joey Grima. In a long career (2002-2015) in England he played (primarily at hooker) for Barrow, Castleford, Gateshead, Sheffield and Broncos and 23 times for Scotland. He is often tipped as a future Super League coach. Henderson also has evident media skills having proved very popular as an excellent pundit on Premier Sports TV.

Daniel Harrison

Captain: Daniel Harrison

London Broncos signed Daniel Harrison from Manly Sea Eagles for the start of the 2015 season. This year he was appointed as club captain, succeeding Wes Naiqama. Harrison is a second row forward and last season played in 30 of the Broncos 31 matches. Although he had started as a junior with Manly he spent several seasons with Canterbury Bulldogs but didn’t ever play in the NRL for them. He also had a season (2013) with Parramatta Eels and played 7 NRL games there.

 

New Signings for 2017

 

Amongst the ‘new’ signings that Broncos have made for this season are three players who are returning to the club after a time away. Michael Channing has returned from Fev but has not yet played this year because he is still recovering from an injury picked up last year. He is a Welsh international. Kieran Dixon is a highly rated winger who can also fill in at fullback. He has spent the last two seasons at Hull KR. He has played three times for England Knights. Jarrod Sammut, a Maltese international, is London’s main goal kicker and is also their leading try scorer so far this year. He usually plays at stand-off. He spent the last two years with Workington. He originally came to the UK to play for Crusaders RL and has also been in the squads at Bradford Bulls and Wakefield.

 

Ben Evans has joined London from Warrington where he came through their academy system before becoming a member of the first team squad in 2014 after spending most of 2013 on loan at Bradford. He has played for England Academy level and as a full international for Wales. Matty Gee started his career at North Wales Crusaders in 2014, moving to Salford the following year. Whilst at Salford he also had loan spells with Hunslet, Workington and a return to North Wales. Winger, Dalton Grant, was signed from Dewsbury Rams but has not yet made his Broncos début.

 

Broncos have signed both Jay Pitts and Adrian Purtell from Bradford. Pitts is a back-row forward who started with Wakefield in 2008 and has since played for Leeds, Hull FC, Doncaster before joining the Bulls in 2015. Bradford signed Purtell in 2012 from Penrith Panthers. Last season he was the Bulls’ captain. Junior Roqica has been signed from Cronulla and is a Fiji international.

 

 

The Fev Connection

There are three members of the London Broncos squad who have previously played for Fev. As mentioned above, Michael Channing was at Rovers last season. Ben Hellewell came to Rovers for two seasons from the Warrington Academy in 2013. Ben was a prominent member of the Scotland team in last year’s Four Nations tournament. Jarrod Sammut played just one game for Fev on dual registration from Wakefield in 2014. During that match against North Wales he kicked 10 goals out of 10 attempts!

 

There are 4 members of the current Fev squad who have played for London: Kyle Briggs, James Duckworth, Richard Moore and Jason Walton.
 

 

Today: Previously  -  April 9th

Rugby League

Rovers first match on April 9th came in the 1926/27 season when we travelled to Hunslet and were beaten 11-2. The 1930s were Fev’s least successful season but in 1938 we beat Saint Helens 12-5 at home.

 

1955 produced another good result with a narrow 19-18 win at home against Leeds. It was the start of an amazing culmination to the season with Fev playing 7 matches in 16 days and winning six of them!

 

5 years later the team travelled to Odsal to play Wakefield Trinity in the Challenge Cup semi-final but didn’t make it to Wembley losing 11-2. Trinity went on to beat Hull 38-5 at Wembley.

 

We were also at Odsal in 1989 for a match I remember well. We won 32-23 with a magnificent display. The team was:

Chris Bibb ; Danny Beach, Ian Smales, Paul Newlove, Paul Hughes; Alan Banks, Deryck Fox; Jeff Grayshon, Trevor Clark, Karl Harrison, John Bastian, Chris Burton, Peter Smith.  Subs: Alan Dakin, Glen Booth.

 

What a front row that was! And several other great players scattered through the line-up. The try scorers were Bibb, Beach, Smales, Newlove, Fox and Clark, and Fox kicked 4 goals.

 

The most recent match on April 9th was in 2007 when we were down in National League 2 and we beat Keighley 36-22 at home.

 

Amongst other games to have taken place on April 9th was a Challenge Cup Final in 1932 between Leeds and Swinton. This was before finals were played at Wembley and the match took place at Central Park, Wigan with Leeds winning 11-8. Also featuring Leeds was a 64-6 walloping they gave London Broncos in a Super League match in 2005.

 

We have only been able to find one single representative match to have been played on April 9th and it was a very early one. The match took place at Ebbw Vale in 1910 and Wales beat England handsomely by 39-18.

World Events

In 1413, Henry V crowned as King of England

In 1829, Dike breaks at Gdansk, Poland, killing 1,200 people
In 1872, Samuel R Percy patents dried milk
In 1940, Germany invades Norway and Denmark
In 1962, West Side Story wins 10 Oscars
In 1968, Martin Luther King buried in Atlanta

 

Birthdays

Kris Radlinski

1336 Tamburlaine the Great, founder of the Timurid dynasty

1751 Emanuel Schikaneder, German playwright
1806 Isambard Kingdom Brunel, English engineer (SS Great Britain, Clifton Suspension Bridge)
1891 Julius Patzak, Austrian tenor
1926 Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy
1937 Valerie Singleton, television presenter
1957  Seve Ballesteros, Spanish golfer
1976  Kris Radlinski, former Wigan and Great Britain fullback
1994  James Duckworth, current Featherstone Rovers winger