fevnut's blog: Batley (home)

Match 24: Batley Bulldogs (Home)

fevnut's musings

Great News again

Last week we lead with the great news about John Davies re-signing for a further two years. This week has brought some news that is at least as good:  the fact that Rovers have re-signed Jamie Cording. The injury he sustained last year made it somewhat doubtful that he would ever be able to play at the professional level again but he’s back and it couldn’t be better news.  Of course, he never went away because he has been working fulltime for the Featherstone Rovers Foundation and he will continue with that as his ‘day job’. To be honest, over the years, there have been players who have worked for the foundation who have given that role nowhere near the commitment it deserves, but that has never been the case with Jamie. He is a wonderful player and a magnificent ambassador for the club and the foundation. Of course, we shouldn’t get carried away because it isn’t going to be easy for Jamie to win back his place in the team in a position in which we are fortunate to have many capable players. But we cannot believe that there is a single Fev fan who won’t be looking forward to seeing him on the field again.

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Whilst glancing through the referee appointments for the coming weekend we saw a name that we didn’t recognize. The referee for the Hemel Stags game against South Wales Scorpions is to be Cameron Worsley and it will be his first match in charge of a professional game. We did a quick bit of online research and found that Cameron is a member of the Castleford and Featherstone Referees Society. So we want to wish the lad good luck for this game in particular and we hope to see him making progress in the future. It amazes me that anyone wants to become a referee. The level of commitment to our sport has to be huge to cope with the inevitable and sad abuse that our officials regularly receive from supporters.

Referees make mistakes. We all make mistakes. But I hate it when fans chant ‘cheat’ at officials. They don’t cheat but they do get things wrong. Even then, they get far less wrong than people on the terraces think. So many times videos reveal that the referee was correct when we thought he was wrong. And, as for cheating, I have a simple test. How many times do supporters think that a referee is cheating to the benefit of their own team? Answer - never! But if a referee were to be cheating it has to be of benefit to one of the teams!

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Regular readers will be aware that we are adamant that reserve grade competitions should be re-introduced and that it should be mandatory for super league and championship clubs to have a reserve grade team. This week we came across yet another reason why this should happen. We were looking at the details from Sheffield’s game against Batley on June 18 and one name stood out. One of the Sheffield substitutes was George Milton. We thought that name was familiar and it turns out that he was there on loan from his parent club Hull KR. But we thought we had come across him playing elsewhere this year so we delved further. What we found was that 21 year-old George Milton has, so far played 7 games this year, for FIVE different clubs. In March he played one game on loan for Hemel Stags. In April he had two games for Hull KR. In May he appeared twice for Newcastle Thunder on loan, and this month, in addition to the game for Sheffield, he also played one match for York under dual registration. Rugby League is a team sport. It’s not about putting 13 players on the field, those players have to work together, to get to know and understand one another and to develop together as a team. How on earth can playing seven games for five different clubs possibly help in the development of a player?

A bit of extra research shows that George Milton is not the only one. Lewis Foster is a 23 year-old hooker who is contracted to Leigh Centurions. He hasn’t yet appeared played for Leigh. At the moment he is on loan at Rochdale, but earlier this year he played for both Sheffield and Whitehaven under dual registration and also played for London Broncos on loan.

Sadiq Adebiyi is a 20 year-old London Broncos forward. He has played for Broncos 5 times but he has also played for London Skolars and Oxford under dual registration and he is currently on loan at Oldham.

If there was a proper reserve grade structure these players would be able to develop in far more conducive conditions. It is so sad that they are being treated like this to get them a bit of game time.

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Sunday's Referee: Fev v Batley

This Week's Referee

There have been many occasions when fevnut has been asked questions like: Who's the referee today? Have we had him before? Where's he from?


So we thought we would answer those questions in our blog.

Below you will find a list of his previous occasions officiating in Fev matches and also his record for this year.

DUAL REGISTRATION 2017 (updated)

DUAL REGISTRATION 2017

These are the dual registration agreements for 2017 that we are aware of. We will update the chart as and when we have any further information.

T’Other Side: Batley Bulldogs

T’Other Side: Batley Bulldogs

Head Coach: 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.

Captain: Dominic Brambani

Dominic Brambani is now in his 14th year as a professional rugby league player. His career started at Castleford in 2004 and has subsequently signed for Halifax, Sheffield (two spells) and Dewsbury, before moving to Batley last year. That looks like an entire career with Yorkshire clubs but in 2009 he spent a season playing for Hinterland Storm in Queensland. He is a goal kicker but has rarely been first choice. However, in 2013 he kicked 168 goals for Sheffield. In 2003 Brambani captained the Great Britain Student team on a tour of Australia.

In the backs

Wayne Reittie is one of many rugby league players who emerged from South Leeds High School (others include Chev Walker, Karl Pratt, Paul McShane and Jason Walton). With 11 tries so far this season, Wayne is Batley’s leading try scorer. He is a Jamaican international. Dave Scott is the regular Batley fullback. He was born in Stirling and began playing rugby league for Easterhouse Panthers in Glasgow at the age of 12. Hull Kingston Rovers brought him to England to join their academy. He played for Fev and Doncaster before joining Batley in last year. He is a Scottish international. Sam Smeaton is a product of Featherstone Lions and was a regular at Rovers until he suffered a long-term injury at the end of the 2012 season which caused him to miss the whole of the 2013 season and almost of the following year too. In 2015 he joined Sheffield and last year he played for Halifax and York before joining Batley in late July.

In the halves

The most common half back pairing for Batley this year has been captain, Dom Brambani with Cain Southernwood, the latter usually playing stand-off. Southernwood started with Bradford in 2010 and has played for Dewsbury and Whitehaven before coming to Batley in 2015. Pat (Patch) Walker plays at stand-off whenever required but is usually in the team anyway being used at loose forward or even hooker. He is the top goal kicker but all three halves are employed as goal kickers.

In the pack

Alistair Leak is a livewire hooker who has often impressed in matches against Rovers. He is a one-club player having started with Batley in 2013. Prop forward, Tom Lillycrop, is one of those players who puts in a huge amount of work in every game he plays and has become an major part of the Batley pack this year with 20 appearances (9 off the bench). He is in his third season at Batley after starting at Dewsbury followed by a year at Sheffield. The most high profile signing for Batley in 2017 has to be Dane Manning, a powerful and skilful second rower who signed 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.

The Fev connection

There are four players in the 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.

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 at Batley, but currently on loan to Oldham, 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.

There are six players who have appeared for Fev this year who have previously played for Batley. They are Jason Walton, Chris Ulungia, John Davies, Matty Wildie, Frankie Mariano and Anthony Mullally.

Championship Talk: Bittersweet Bulls

fevnut's blog is absolutely delighted to have received permission to bring you a regular column from Gareth Walker.

Gareth is a top rugby league journalist who has one very exceptional distinction. He chooses to write about matters pertaining to the Championship and League One.

Although this blog is devoted to Featherstone Rovers it is always good to read opinions about matters relevant to us, but not specifically about us. We hope you enjoy reading Gareth's column each week.

Bittersweet Bulls

ALMOST five months after the start of the season, Bradford Bulls are finally back to zero points - but results elsewhere in the Championship last weekend were cruel.

          The Bulls have been slowly working off the 12 point deduction imposed for entering administration and then relaunching the club during the winter, casting them adrift of the rest of the competition.

          After a number of false dawns, Geoff Toovey’s side final reached “ground zero”, as it has been dubbed by the club, with an impressive 47-12 win over Oldham.

          But they didn’t make up any ground on the “safety” position of tenth, due to eye-catching wins from Dewsbury and Swinton.

          Both beat top five opponents, with the Rams continuing their revival under coach Neil Kelly with an outstanding 34-22 win over Toulouse.

          That was matched by the Lions, who had a Chris Atkin drop goal to thank for a morale-boosting 13-12 win over Halifax at the end of a week where the club’s board had outlined financial issues to its supporters.

          All of that has tightened matters up considerably at the foot of the table.

          Bradford remain bottom of course, and are now a point closer to the team directly above them, which is now the Rougheyds after their Bulls defeat.

          They are on nine points, with weekend winners Swinton and Dewsbury just a point further ahead on 10, with the Lions having a significantly better points difference.

          Above them are Rochdale Hornets, who slipped to a second narrow defeat of the season to Batley, a team that looks to be far enough away on 18 points to forget about a relegation scrap.

          For the other five clubs, however - seventh placed-Sheffield should also be able to steer clear - there are some huge matches ahead.

          This weekend alone sees Dewsbury entertain Rochdale, where a win would see the resurgent Rams leapfrog their opponents.

          Bradford will be looking to back up that Oldham win in a local derby at Halifax, while Swinton travel to Sheffield and Oldham are looking to end a seven losing streak at home to Toulouse.

          With 11 games in total still to play, nothing is going to be decided even in the next four matches before the end of the regular season.

          But a strong month could certainly give you a clear advantage in what is promising to be a desperate scramble between now and the end of the campaign.

2017: Club Coaches (updated)

2017: Club Coaches

We will endeavour to update this page as and when changes occur.

Top Five: Remaining Fixtures (updated)

Top Five: Remaining Fixtures

Hull Kingston Rovers
Sun Jul 02	London Broncos	Home
Sun Jul 09	Bradford Bulls	Away
Sun Jul 16	Toulouse Olympique	Home
Sun Jul 23	Halifax	Away
London Broncos
Sun Jul 02	Hull Kingston Rovers	Away
Sun Jul 09	Sheffield Eagles	Home
Sun Jul 16	Rochdale Hornets	Away
Sun Jul 23	Batley Bulldogs	Home
Featherstone Rovers
Sun Jul 02	Batley Bulldogs	Home
Sun Jul 09	Oldham	Away
Sun Jul 16	Halifax	Home
Sat Jul 22	Toulouse Olympique	Away
Toulouse Olympique
Sun Jul 02	Oldham	Away
Sat Jul 08	Halifax	Home
Sun Jul 16	Hull Kingston Rovers	Away
Sat Jul 22	Featherstone Rovers	Home
Halifax
Sun Jul 02	Bradford Bulls	Home
Sat Jul 08	Toulouse Olympique	Away
Sun Jul 16	Featherstone Rovers	Away
Sun Jul 23	Hull Kingston Rovers	Home

Past Matches against Batley

Past Matches against Batley

Today: Previously - July 2nd

Today: Previously  -  July 2nd

Rugby League

There have been just the two previous Fev matches that took place on July 2nd

In 2000, Fev travelled to Boundary Park and Oldham beat us 32-0. Just before half-time there was a brawl that resulted in Richard Chapman being sin-binned and sanctions were also taken against Oldham’s Gibbons twins with David Gibbons sin-binned and Anthony Gibbons sent off! It was the final day of league matches that year and both sides had already booked their place in the play-offs. Perhaps the strangest thing about this match is that earlier in the season Fev had beaten Oldham 61-26 at home.

The other match was a high scoring National League Two match in 2006 when Keighley came to Post Office Road and Rovers won 50-32

The Fev team that day was:

Nathan Larvin; Gareth Davies, Wayne McHugh, Dale Cardoza, Dale Wynne; Richard Blakeway, Craig Fawcett; Ian Tonks, Paul Hughes, Stuart Dickens, Wayne Sutcliffe, Steve Dooler, Carl Hughes. 

Subs: Gavin Swinson, Gary Ellery, Greg Nicholson, James Houston

Wayne McHugh scored a hat trick. The match was virtually over after 30 minutes when Paul Hughes scored a converted try to take the score to 34-0.

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In 1997 there were quite a few occasions when Super League teams played midweek fixtures giving them 3 matches in 8 days. This was to enable the scheduling of the World Club Championship so not only were they fitting matches in with short turnarounds but they were also jetting off to the other side of the world! July 2nd that year was a Wednesday and there were four super league ties. Bradford beat Cas 34-20 at Odsal and Leeds beat Halifax 20-18 at Headingley. At the Don Valley, Sheffield beat Saints 14-12 and Salford travelled to Paris, winning 24-16.

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1910 saw the first Ashes series to take place in Australia. There were just two matches and Great Britain won both. The second match took place in Brisbane on July 2nd and the score was 22-17.

In 1952, New Zealand beat the Aussies 19-9 in Sydney and in 1955 France beat them 29-28 in Sydney. Australia gained revenge and more in 1960 beating France 56-6 in Brisbane.
In 2003 Odsal was the venue for a Yorkshire Lancashire ‘Origin’ match. Yorkshire won 56-6.
2011 brought a significant new competition in terms of the expansion of international rugby league. It was the first year of the Nordic Cup which is now an annual triangular tournament between Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The 2011 winners were Denmark and on July 2nd they beat Sweden 52-18 in Gothenburg.

World Events

In 1644, English Civil War battle at Marston Moor, North Yorkshire

In 1843, Reported that an alligator fell from the sky in South Carolina thunderstorm

In 1901, Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid rob a train of $40K in Montana

In 1937, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappear in flight over the Pacific
In 1956, Elvis Presley records ‘Hound Dog’
In 1972, Bob Seagren pole vaults world record 5.63m

Birthdays

1489 Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury

Thomas Cranmer

1877 Hermann Hesse, German-Swiss novelist and poet

1903 Alec Douglas-Home, British Prime Minister
1969 Jenni Rivera, Mexican-American singer-songwriter
1980 John Duffy, Swinton Lions Head Coach
1986 Lindsey Lohan, American actor

London v Fev: Teams and Scorers

London Broncos v Fev: Teams and Scorers

fevnut's blog: London Away

Match 23: London Broncos (Away)










fevnut's musings

Great News

For fevnut, by far the best piece of news this week was John Davies re-signing for a further two years. It never ceases to amaze us how much he does in every match (and he’s one of only two players on to have played in every match so far this year). There seems to be a hardly a play when he is not involved. Fantastic tackler, line breaker, deft kicker and try scorer. It is in our mind to one day write a series about Fev players we have most enjoyed watching and John Davies is a dead cert for inclusion in that list.

And then, on Wednesday night, Kyran Johnson, who is usually a good goal kicker is having a bit of a nightmare with his conversion attempts so up steps none other than John Davies to have a go and kicks two out of two. I was frankly amazed when I saw him lining up the first one because I was unaware that he had ever kicked goals before. So when I got home the first thing I did was to turn on my computer to check. I was sure he had never kicked for Fev before and I was right. I then checked his record for all his previous clubs and there was nothing about him kicking for them. The composed way in which he slotted over those kicks made me think that I must have an error in my stats so the next day I contacted John. He confirmed that he had never kicked before in his professional career although he had kicked some years ago as an academy player.

John Davies has been at Fev now for less than two seasons but he is rapidly becoming a true Fev hero.

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We seem to be having a bit of an issue with goal-kicking. So far, this season, we have used seven different kickers, more than I can remember in any past year. And we do seem to be missing rather a lot which could be a worry if we find ourselves in an important tight match. This year we have kicked 97 goals from 147 attempts which is a 67% success rate, a low figure.

Cory Aston has been or main kicker but his success rate is only 66% (49 out of 74), Michael Knowles is at 76% (22 out of 29). By far our most successful kicker has been Kyle Briggs but he rarely gets a chance. His success rate is 88% (15 out of 17). The other kickers have been John Davies (100%, 2 out of 2), Ash Handley (0%, 0 out of 3), Ian Hardman (54%, 7 out of 13) and Kyran Johnson (33%, 2 out of 6).

Someone posted on facebook that John Davies is on his way to breaking Liam Finn’s world record of 41 successive successful kicks! Now that would be an achievement to successfully kick the first 42 attempts of your career!!!!

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We’re not into Queen’s Honours lists, but nevertheless we were delighted to see that Natalie Gilmore has been awarded an M.B.E.. She has and remains as a tremendous servant to rugby league in general and Featherstone Rovers in particular.  We have enjoyed watching her playing in our ladies team and are looking forward to seeing her in action in the Challenge Cup final on July 30th. I hope many of you go - it is a blank weekend for the men’s team.

What we are not going to do is refer to Natalie, as all the press have done, as the brother of …………… The important thing about Natalie is what she has brought to rugby league not who her male relative is. Imagine, if every time a male player was referred to, the sentence began by telling us who his sister is!

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Postscript

You can find all the up to date Fev stats for our players on the page entitled FEV PLAYER STATS. See the link on the right hand side of the page.

Full career stats are available for each player in the pages entitled Fev Squad Career Stats (A-D) etc.