fevnut's blog: September 2017

Friday 29 September 2017

Fev Players: Representative Honours

Fev Players: Representative Honours

These are all the representative honours earned by Fev players that we are aware of.

Please note this is the honours that they earned through their entire career, NOT just when they were registered with Rovers.

Wednesday 27 September 2017

Fev Squad 2017: Complete Career Stats

The stated ages of the players is their age on the date of the last match of the 2017 season (September 24)

n.b. This page is updated after each match.

Abbreviations:
P: Matches Played (in brackets - starting + substitute)   NPS: Non Playing Substitute   T: Tries  G: Goals
G%: Percentage of successful goal kicks SL: Super League   NL: National Leagues (i.e. all except Super League)

Tuesday 26 September 2017

FEV 2017 SQUAD STATS: Complete Year

FEV 2017 SQUAD STATS

Appearance figures are given as Total Appearances with starting and substitute appearances in brackets.

The 'Goals' column gives the total number of Goals kicked with the number of kicks taken and the percentage success rate in brackets.

The 'Tries' Column gives the number of tries with the Try Rate percentage in brackets. Try Rate is the number of Tries divided by number of appearances.

The age given is that on the date of the final match of the season.

Monday 25 September 2017

Halifax v Fev: Teams and Scorers

Halifax v Fev: Teams and Scorers

Wednesday 20 September 2017

fevnut's blog: Halifax (away - Qualifiers)

Match 34: Halifax (Away - Qualifiers)

fevnut's musings

Gutted

We have felt pretty gutted all week. They tell us that players need a recovery period after each match. But sometimes fans need a long recovery period too! We cannot remember any match at Post Office Road when we felt so low during and after the match. We stayed to the bitter end (we never leave early) but there were many who just couldn’t bear it anymore and departed early.

We were thinking back to 2005 when the then all-powerful Bradford Bulls came to Fev for a Challenge Cup tie and put 80 points passed us - the record points against for Rovers. But even that didn’t feel as bad as last Sunday. That’s probably because, despite being totally outclassed, we did at least manage to score three tries - two to Ricky Newlove and one for Ian Tonks. By the way, for those who don’t remember, Robbie Paul scored the most amazing hat trick in that game. His tries came in the 7th, 9th and 11th minutes. We wonder if anyone in the history of Rugby League has ever scored a quicker hat trick, seems highly unlikely!

If we think back over matches against Super League teams in the last three years the picture is pretty appalling. It’s not because we get beaten, there’s no disgrace in that, it’s that the Fev team simply don’t seem to give anywhere near their best in these games. In the nine relevant matches we have only played anywhere near the standard seen in the rest of the season in three of them, the other six have been plain abject.

The three exceptions have been the two away matches against Catalans (2015, 34-37, Challenge Cup and 2017, 12-26, Qualifiers) and one, last year at home against Hull KR (24-32, Qualifiers). Maybe, wherever the match is to be played, we need to take the team to the airport and fly them around for a couple of hours before the game.

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So, it’s off to the Shay for the last match of the season. Including the pre-season game on Boxing Day it will be the 5th meeting between the teams this season. We’ve won three of the four so far, the only loss being the most recent at home in the Championship in July. That was a poor performance too. We won both the trips to Halifax (38-14 in Pre-Season and 32-26 in the Championship). The other, of course being the home win by 24-12 in the Challenge Cup. Let’s hope that we put in the best of the performances because the team owe it to both the club and the fans. The club because victory will earn Rovers an extra £50,000 for next year’s budget, and the fans because we need to have the feelings of the Warrington game expunged and we deserve to go into the off-season in a happier state of mind! The away support in particular has been magnificent this year and as we mentioned last week there is going to be travelling nightmare next year with away matches at Toronto, Toulouse, London, probably either Barrow or Whitehaven, and possibly Catalans too. We are praying that we don’t get an away draw in the Challenge Cup in New Zealand.

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Finally, a plea to the Rugby League. Please sort out the 2019 structure BEFORE the 2018 season starts. It is totally unacceptable to play a season and then only find out what the consequences are at the very end. Clubs need to be able to plan properly. We at Fev have not, and never will, forget the sudden change in the number of clubs to be relegated from the top tier at the very last moment in 1994 that saw Fev together with Salford being relegated despite finishing in positions which had meant top tier survival and entry into Super League. That sort of thing is unprofessional and should never be allowed.

Tuesday 19 September 2017

T’Other Side: Halifax

T’Other Side: Halifax

Head Coach: Richard Marshall

Now into his third year as coach at Halifax, after a widely acknowledged highly successful first year but last year did not go quite so well.

His playing career started at Halifax where he spent six seasons. When he left Fax he had spells at Huddersfield-Sheffield Giants, London Broncos, Leigh Centurions and Swinton, retiring in 2007. He played two games for Ireland in the 2003 European Nations Cup. Richard’s playing position was prop or second row.

Captain: Scott Murrell

Scott Murrell is without doubt the real controlling force on the pitch for Halifax. He clearly commands huge respect from the other Halifax players. He started his career with Leeds Rhinos but made his first team debut for London Broncos in 2004 whilst on loan from Leeds. In 2006 he moved to Hull Kingston Rovers who were, at that time, in National League One. After securing promotion to the Super League at the end of that season he remained with Hull KR for a further 6 seasons before signing for Halifax in 2013. In 2010 he made an appearance off the bench for England.

UP FRONT

Halifax have a powerful set of forwards. Ryan Boyle brings a great deal of Super League experience to the pack having played with Castleford and Salford from 2005 to 2016 before coming on loan to Halifax in May last year and then signing for them for 2017. He has also played for England U18 and Ireland. Mitch Cahalane is an Australian who came up through the Penrith Panthers system. He joined Halifax in 2015 and has been an ever present on the starting team so far this season. A third, rather younger, prop who more often starts on the bench is Elliot Morris who made his first grade debut last year.

Ed Barber is a regular in the side, usually in the second row but sometimes at centre. Before joining Fax in 2015 he had played for Dewsbury and Swinton. In 2011 he played for Western Suburbs Magpies in Australia. First choice hooker is Ben Kaye, well known to Fev fans. Ben started at Leeds and played for England U18s in 2007. Michael Sio joined Halifax on loan from Wakefield in early July. Most often he plays in the second row or at loose forward but in the last match he deputised for Scott Murrell at stand-off. He has played six times for Samoa.

IN THE HALVES

Usually partnering Scott Murrell (see above) in the halves is Ben Johnston. He wears #1, the original plan presumably being for him to play at fullback. However, Will Sharp has taken over the fullback position and Ben regularly playing at scrum-half. He began his career at Castleford and also played for York and Dewsbury before joining Fax last year. Halifax also have Morgan Punchard, an exciting 18 year old, who joined them from Lock Lane ARL to play in their reserve side. An indication of the benefits that Fax have accrued by continuing to run a reserve team. Punchard also plays at hooker.

AT THE BACK

This season, former Fev favourite Will Sharp has been the regular fullback. He is Nigerian born and started his career with Harlequins RL before joining Fev. He has twice made representative appearances for Cumbria. Steve Tyrer is the leading try scorer with 17 and has also taken all 145 goal kicks so far this year, kicking 108 and giving him 284 points. Winger, Rob Worrincy is one of those players who can be absolutely brilliant but is also prone to making some pretty awful errors, a number of which have been to the benefit of Fev over the years. He is yet another who began with Castleford and since then he played for Sheffield, Halifax, back to Sheffield and returned to Halifax this season.

Ben Heaton began his career with Oldham in 2009. After three seasons he moved to Halifax and has been at Fax ever since apart from a short loan spell with Batley in 2014. Playing either at centre or on the wing he is a prolific try scorer. In the first two rounds of the qualifiers he scored all 6 of Halifax’ tries! Second highest try scorer this year with 14 is winger James Saltonstall. He is a product of the Warrington academy but never played in their first team. He went to York on loan in 2014 and joined Halifax in 2015. Whilst at Warrington he played for the England Academy and has since played internationally for Italy. James Woodburn-Hall usually plays in the three-quarters but has made occasional appearances at stand-off. He is a Londoner and started at the Broncos. Before joining Halifax in 2016 he also played for London Skolars and Hemel Stags.

The Fev connection

In the Fax squad are two players who have played for Rovers. Ben Kaye was a very popular hooker for three years. Will Sharp was a great favourite during his time with Fev from 2013 to 2015. He scored many crucial tries including the last minute ones against Sheffield which took Fev into the play-offs in 2013 and the one which beat Batley in 2015 when Fev snatched victory by scoring 22 points in the last six minutes!

In the Rovers squad are three players who have played at Halifax. Richard Moore was there in 2015 and 2016 and Anthony Thackeray in 2012 and 2013. Sam Brooks began his career at Halifax in 2014, joining then from the Wigan academy.

Sunday's referee: Halifax v Fev

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.

Tom Grant began this year refereeing Championship and League One matches but has recently been doing some Super League and Qualifiers matches.

Fixtures, Results and Teams 2017

Fixtures, Results and Teams 2017

If a player is shown in blue, it indicates their Featherstone Rovers début

Home Matches are in bold, Challenge Cup fixtures are in red
Qualifiers in purple, Summer Bash in green

Today: Previously - September 24th

Today: Previously - September 24th

Rugby League

Unfortunately Fev have lost nine and drawn one of the fourteen matches they have played on September 24th.

In 1921, they travelled away to Leigh and were beaten 24-0.

It was not until 1952 that they recorded a win on September 24th when they played Hull Kingston Rovers at home in the second round of the Yorkshire Cup and won 14-4.

The draw was also against Hull KR and again was a Yorkshire Cup second round tie. It was 20-20 at Craven Park in 1986. Two days later Fev won the replay 23-12 at Post Office Road.

Coincidentally, the last time Fev played on September 24th was away to Halifax in a National League One play-off tie. Halifax eliminated Fev with a 36-30 win.

The Fev team were:

Ian Hardman; Tom Saxton, Andy Kirk, Tommy Haughey, Waine Pryce; Kyle Briggs, Andy Kain; James Houston, Jack Lee, Stuart Dickens, Matty Dale, Tim Spears, Iestyn Harris.

Subs: Tony Tonks, Joe McLocklan, Joe Hirst, Ross Divorty

The only survivor from the Halifax team that day is Rob Worrincy.

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In 1999, Castleford knocked Leeds out by 23-16 in a Super League play-off match at Headingley. In 2004 play-offs Wakefield went to Hull FC and won 28-18.

In 2015, the first year of the super 8s, Warrington were away to Saint Helens and won by 32-16 and last year, Toulouse, on route to promotion, defeated York in the League One play-offs by 62-10.

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There were two World Cup matches on September 24th 1960. Australia beat France 13-12 at Wigan and Great Britain beat New Zealand 23-8 at Odsal.

In 2016 there were three international matches. Serbia beat Spain 64-4, the Czech Republic beat Norway 12-6 and, in the Americas Cup, United States beat Canada 14-8 in Toronto.

World Events

In 1776, First St Leger horse race in Doncaster

In 1930, First NFL game under floodlights

In 1940, Luftwaffe bombs Spitfire factory in Southampton

In 1948, The Honda Motor Company is founded

In 1953, Rocky Marciano becomes world heavyweight boxing champion

In 1957, Jailhouse Rock (Elvis Presley) released