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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