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.
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