fevnut's blog: Oldham (away)

Match 25: Oldham (Away)

fevnut's musings

What a strange match!

So, we beat Batley 42-14. And that sort of scoreline usually represents a pretty comprehensive win. And yet, as I walked out of the stadium, it really didn’t feel like that. I wasn’t the only one because several other people expressed the same feeling. So what was the cause? On reflection it seems as if it was probably the stop-start nature of the game with 33 penalties being awarded. Some would blame the referee for that but it’s also down to the players and both sides were guilty of giving away really silly penalties. We have seen far too many unnecessary, stupid penalties given away be Fev players this year. There was one refereeing decision that both surprised and delighted me.  Most refs only award penalty tries when they are 100% certain that the player would have scored. I have always believed that the test should be ‘probably have scored’. That was certainly the case when the penalty try was awarded to Scott Turner in the tenth minute. And that decision makes the fact that a section of the Fev crowd were shouting ‘cheat’ at Mr. Roberts in the second half patently absurd.

I had a quick look and 33 penalties is the highest in any Championship match this year. In all there have been 5 games previously with 33 or more penalties. Of those 4 involved League One clubs and there were 34 penalties in the Super League game between Cas and Leigh (no surprise that Leigh should be involved with a high penalty count!). 

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Whilst on the subject of referees, before we give it a rest for a few weeks, did you see the Catalans v Leigh match on television. Thank goodness it didn’t end with a narrow victory for Leigh because Gareth Hewer made the error of the year. There was a strange try awarded to Leigh down the right hand side and the Catalan players pleaded with Hewer to go to the video ref. No wonder, when television replays showed that the Catalan player who failed to deal with the kick had been pushed over and the Leigh player who picked the ball up had one foot on the touchline as he did so. I am amazed to see the Cumbrian referee is officiating on Super League this week. For lesser offences they usually get sent to the Championship.

There was another issue arising from that match. There was a collision that left a Leigh player (forget who for now) and Greg Bird. Jamie Acton took exception to Greg Bird's involvement and despite the fact that he was clearly spark out on his back. Acton picked him up by the shirt and dropped him back down onto the ground. Acton is a repeat sinner but I've never seen anything as bad as that. fevnut believes he should be banned for the rest of the season at least.

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There were two career achievements of note during the Batley game. Our congratulations go to Ian Hardman, not so much for the goal-kicking (but didn’t he do well - problem solved?) but for the excellent try he scored which took him to 123 tries for Fev, ahead of Paul Newlove’s 122. He is now Fev’s 6th highest try scorer of all time. He now needs just one more to draw level with Ken Kellett in 5th place and four more beyond that to equal Andy Kain’s 128 in fourth place.

And many congratulations go to Andy Bostock for scoring his 100th career try. Some younger fans won’t remember that this excellent prop forward was actually signed as a centre and he was a very successful centre too, particularly in his early days with Dewsbury. For the Rams he scored 56 tries in 94 appearances, a try rate which has inevitably slowed since moving into the pack and his Rovers tally is 44 tries in 150. So, it’s also congratulations to Andy on his 150th Fev appearance last Sunday.

You can find all the details of Hardo and Bozzy’s records on the pages of this blog entitled ‘ALL TIME TOP 20S’ and the ‘Fev Squad Career Stats’ pages.