Match 33: Warrington (Home - Qualifiers)
fevnut's musings
So much better
We weren’t able to travel over to Perpignan last week but we watched
the whole match on television. We thought that it was the best performance Fev
have yet put up against a Super League team in the Qualifiers, either this year
or last. The last time we played with such spirit against SL opposition was
when we played Catalans in the Challenge Cup in 2015. So well done, everyone;
the players especially but also the coaching staff and the travelling
supporters. It really was a case of the performance being more important than
the result.
In fact, we are actually quite glad that we lost. Now that’s a
strange thing to say but it relates to our fixtures next year. Even if Fev had
won, in all honesty, we wouldn’t have got up into position for the Million
Pound Game. And if we had won it might have led to the Catalans eventually
being relegated and that would have added to an already massive travel for away
fans in 2018. We will almost certainly be going to Batley, Dewsbury, Halifax, Rochdale,
Sheffield (wherever they are!) and Swinton. That makes a total round trip of
about 370 miles.
Then we probably have either Barrow or Whitehaven which make a
round trip of about 300 miles. London - that’s about 370 miles, Toulouse -
1,420 miles and Toronto a mere 6,900 miles round trip! I think you will agree
we can do without another trip to Perpignan of about 1,580 miles. I wonder how
many Fev supporters (however keen) will be able to afford that lot?!!
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We are ‘over the moon’ about the signing of Tom Holmes for next
year. All the indicators are that he has quality, intelligence and speed. But
above all he is young. There have been too many players recently who have been over
thirty. Experience is great but for the longer term we definitely need
youngsters of talent who are going to develop and bring excitement. My guess is
that Tom Holmes will do that. When we argued that we needed a young halfback several people countered by saying that is experience
that is most important. Well, look back at some wonderful previous halfbacks at
Fev and their age when they made their débuts, it actually makes 21 year old
Tom Holmes look comparatively elderly! Deryck Fox and Jamie Rooney were both eighteen when they
burst into the Rovers first team. Going back further and Steve Nash and Don Fox
both made their first appearances at the age of seventeen. If Tom Holmes can
contribute half of what any of those four did then his signing will be looked
back upon as a really astute move. If only we had an ‘A’ team to bring through
quality youngsters like we used to do. Nowadays we start every season with a
mass of players making their débuts
in the first match of the year. We were looking back at the seventies and
eighties and there were many years when the opening matches involved no débuts at all.
More often they came towards the end of the season when players from the ‘A’
team were getting an opportunity to experience first team action.
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There are three potential milestones coming up
within the squad. Poor old Kyle Briggs has kicked 199 goals for Fev but he has
been stuck on that figure since June 11th with little playing opportunity and
no chance to kick his 200th goal even when he has played. The other two are appearance
milestones with players who, if they play on Sunday, will make it to 50 games
for Fev. The two in question being Misi Taulapapa and Brad Tagg. Congratulations
to any of those three should they reach their milestone on Sunday.
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