Sunday's referee: Leigh 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. 

The RFL have acknowledged what a tough match we can expect between Leigh and Fev and have appointed a referee who nowadays usually handles Superb League games.

T’Other Side: Leigh Centurions

T’Other Side: Leigh Centurions

LAST TIME OUT

Head Coach (caretaker): Keiron Purtill

Kieron Purtill has stepped up to the position of caretaker head coach following Neil Jukes’ resignation on Monday. Keiron has never held a head coach permanent position having been generally in the role of assistant coach. He will be assisted at Leigh by Paul Anderson, their other assistant coach. Back in June 2008 he was assistant coach at Huddersfield Giants and stepped up to the position of joint caretaker coach for the rest of the season alongside Paul Anderson. But it was a different Paul Anderson to the one he is working with at Leigh. The one at Huddersfield was the former Bradford Prop (known as ‘Baloo’) and the other was a Leigh player. Incidentally, the person who left Huddersfield in 2008 leading to Keiron becoming acting head coach was Jon Sharp!

As a player Keiron was a halfback or centre and spent his entire playing career with Leigh from 1998 to 2002.

Captain: Harrison Hansen

Harrison Hansen succeeds Micky Higham as Leigh Centurions captain following Higham’s retirement at the end of last season. He had previously captained Salford in 2015. He was born in Auckland but spent much of his childhood in England when his father (Shane) was playing for Salford and Swinton. Harrison began his professional career at Wigan and remained there until he moved to Salford in 2014 and then on to Leigh in 2016. He has played internationally for both Samoa and New Zealand and represented the ‘Exiles’ against England in 2014. He has played most of his career at loose forward or second row.

New Signings

It would be easier to highlight the players in the squad who are not new signings. We’ve never seen such a change over in playing squad. Of the 27 in the current Leigh squad, just 8 remain from last season, 2 are on loan from Saint Helens, 1 on loan from Huddersfield and 19 are new signings!

We don’t know what the current regulations are about overseas players but Leigh have signed six players from NRL clubs. They are Kurt Baptiste (H/LF) from Canberra Raiders, Drew Hutchison (HB) from Saint George Illawarra Dragons, Kyle Lovett (2R/C/H) from Wests Tigers, Peter Mata’utia (FB) from Newcastle Knights, Bodene Thompson (2R/C/LF) from New Zealand Warriors and Paterika Vaivai (P) from Gold Coast Titans. Also arriving from Australia is Jack Blagborough (P) but he is English and played previously for Huddersfield, Sheffield, York and Oldham before spending last year at Mackay Cutters in Queensland. Jordan Dezaria (LF) has been signed from Catalans Dragons and they have recruited Craig Hall (FB/C/SO) from Toronto Wolfpack. Larne Patrick (LF/2R) and Kevin Larroyer (2R/LF) have been recruited from Castleford Tigers. Larroyer is a French international, as is Ilias Bergal (W/C) who was at Swinton last year. Nick Gregson (SH) has made the short trip to Leigh from Wigan and Jack Owens (FB/HB) has joined from Sheffield Eagles, having previously played for Widnes and Saint Helens. Last, but certainly not least is Jordan Thompson (F/C) who has come from Hull FC where he has played for the last 4 years after starting with a five year spell at Castleford.

Stand-out players

Having listed all those new recruits we thought we would select two of our stand-out players from those who Leigh have retained from their year in Super League.

Jamie Acton is a rumbustious prop forward who is a bit prone to disciplinary problems (Did he learn that from Gareth Hock?!). He began his career at Wigan but never played in the first team there. He had loan spells with Oldham and South Wales in 2012. He joined Workington in 2013 before coming to Leigh in 2014.

Craig Hall has a great deal of Super League experience having played for Hull FC (2007-200), Hull Kingston Rovers (2011-2014) and for Wakefield Trinity (2015-2016). He also had a loan spell at Widnes in 2009. Last year he scored 25 tries and 171 goals for Toronto amassing a mammoth 442 points!

Following the retirement of Micky Higham, Liam Hood has an opportunity to cement a position as first choice hooker. He has played 8 times for Scotland but had difficulty establishing himself in club sides before his move to Leigh. After starting at Leeds in 2014 he has played for Dewsbury, Hunslet, Salford and Swinton.

Dual Registration and Loan Players

As far as we know Leigh Centurions have not entered into a dual-registration agreement this year, but their squad includes three players who are on season long loans. Ricky Bailey is a 20 year old fullback from Saint Helens. Also 20 years old and from Saint Helens is loose forward Jonah Cunningham who is the son of the Leigh Head of Rugby and Saint Helens legend, Keiron Cunningham. On loan from Huddersfield Giants is prop forward Nathan Mason.

The Fev connection

There are no players in the Leigh Centurions squad who have ever played for Fev but the Fev squad includes three former Leigh players, namely Gareth Hock, Richard Moore and Martyn Ridyard. This is our 5th match of the season and Richard Moore has previously played for three of our opposition teams! There is, of course a further connection because John Duffy played for Leigh between 2001 and 2005 and then returned there in 2010 for the last three years of his playing career. Jay Duffy, Fev’s assistant coach and John’s brother, made his professional début with Leigh in 2005.

Name Change

You might be unfamiliar with the name of Matty Dawson-Jones, the Leigh winger but he was previously known as Matty Dawson and changed his name during the off season.

Championship Talk: Bucking Broncos

fevnut's blog is absolutely delighted to have received permission to bring you a regular column from Gareth Walker.

Gareth is a top rugby league journalist who has one very exceptional distinction. He chooses to write about matters pertaining to the Championship and League One.

Although this blog is devoted to Featherstone Rovers it is always good to read opinions about matters relevant to us, but not specifically about us. We hope you enjoy reading Gareth's column each week.

Bucking Broncos

YOU’D have got long odds on the last undefeated team in the Betfred Championship this year being London Broncos.

          Such was the extent that Danny Ward’s side were written off, that one high profile pundit predicted they would finish as low as tenth.

          Perhaps it was Ward’s inexperience as a head coach - this is his first senior job - or the fact that the Broncos only brought Matty Fleming into their squad from 2017.

          But that continuity - both in appointing Andrew Henderson’s assistant as his successor and in keeping fundamentally the same team - appear to be strengths not weaknesses.

          On Sunday, their impressive start to the season hit a new high when they emphatically dispatched the previously unbeaten Toronto 47-16 at their West Ealing Trailfinders base.

          And they did so with six members of the team having come through their own development pathway.

          Given the stumbles of pre-season competition favourites Leigh, and the fallibility of Toronto, Ward’s side already look a solid bet to make the top four and the Qualifiers.

          Not that Ward himself will be buying into that notion.

          He was asked countless times about the gloomy predictions before the season kicked off, and each time responded that he wasn’t worried about what will happen in September, but what will unfold next week.

          It’s an old cliché in many respects - but one that appears to be serving the Broncos well.

          At the hub of their stirring start to the year has been maverick halfback Jarrod Sammut, whose time has taken in spells at Crusaders, Bradford, Wakefield, Featherstone and Workington.

          But Sammut now appears to have found the perfect place to display his unquestionable talent, and perhaps he will get another shot at Super League with the Broncos.

          As Ward would doubtless tell you, it’s way too early to be speaking that way in terms of 2018.

          But the Broncos, who have made the Qualifiers for the last two seasons, have built steadily and now have a squad that knows what it takes to succeed in this position.

          Off the field, they have a base in West Ealing that allows their impressive junior system to train on the same site as the first team, something that also seems to be having a beneficial effect.

          They won’t get carried away with their achievements so far this year, but the Broncos deserve some time in the spotlight for their measured approach to gradual progression, and don’t expect it to stop any time soon.

This Week's Birthdays: March 4th to 10th

This Week's Birthdays:
March 4th to 10th

Each year we try to do something a bit unusual. This year we are celebrating the birthdays of players in the Super League, Championship and League 1. Here is the list for the coming week.

Fev v Sheffield: Teams and Scorers

Fev v Sheffield: Teams and Scorers
Championship Round 4

fevnut's blog: Fev v Sheffield (Feb 25)

Match 4: Sheffield (Home - Championship)

fevnut's musings

Ouch!! That Really Hurt!

It is obvious. If you have a fall, the higher from which the fall occurs, the more it is going to hurt. The pre-season games and the first two championship games had raised our expectations to a pretty high level. That was particularly true of the second half performance against Toulouse. So we approached last Sunday’s match against London Broncos with huge optimism. We believed that a team that had torn full-time Toulouse apart and seemed to be becoming much stronger defensively would be well more than a match for a London Broncos side. True, London had also won their opening couple of games but those games were against Barrow and Dewsbury. They hadn’t yet faced a Toulouse or a Fev team.

We weren’t able to make the trip to London but tuned in to the excellent live streamed commentary on Rovers TV, and got more and more depressed. So depressed that we haven’t been able to face watching the full match!  The highlights were quite enough torture. What awful defence. Awful defence that meant that Anthony Thackeray was left completely unsupported to deal with Sammut’s up and under. Awful defence that enabled their hooker to easily break our line and sprint up field for the Jay Pitts try. In the end we had a golden spell with excellent attack and tries but that was when it was too late.

Whatever the result against Sheffield on Sunday, it can’t really restore the optimism. Sheffield are bottom of the table with three losses and even if we were to put 60 points passed them it wouldn’t tell us how this team will perform when they next come across a top team.

Discipline

Of course, the sending off of Richard Moore against London left us in an impossible position. That was the third time he has been sent-off since he came to Rovers last year. Yes, we need a pack that can strike fear into the opposition, but not at the expense of sin-bins, sendings-off and needless penalties. We believe that there should be a strong system of fines for players that transgress in this matter and put the rest of the team in such difficult situations.

Matches that don’t exist

Last week we wrote about a match in which Gareth Hock played for Great Britain not counting in his career appearances. Interestingly, last Monday League Express carried an article about why some matches are not counted. Of course, we accept that pre-season ‘friendlies’ do not count. The RL have ruled that representative matches in which the teams agree to using more than 4 subs don’t count either. That was why the Gareth Hock issue arose. But then they have declared that the 2007 match between the Northern Union (Great Britain) and the All Golds (New Zealand) that was arranged to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first tour doesn’t count either. That seems strange as it was an ‘official’ match and each side had just 4 subs. The reason it has been discounted is because, in celebrating that match 100 years earlier it was decided to use the scoring system (3 points for a try, 2 points for a drop goal) that was used in 1907. Frankly, we feel that is silly and it affects the career stats of another current Fev player because one of the Northern Union subs was … Richard Moore!

Sunday's referee: Fev v Sheffield

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 last year. 

In addition to 'official' matches, John McMullen was ref for our pre-season match against Leeds in January.

Championship Talk: Shining Beacons

fevnut's blog is absolutely delighted to have received permission to bring you a regular column from Gareth Walker.

Gareth is a top rugby league journalist who has one very exceptional distinction. He chooses to write about matters pertaining to the Championship and League One.

Although this blog is devoted to Featherstone Rovers it is always good to read opinions about matters relevant to us, but not specifically about us. We hope you enjoy reading Gareth's column each week.

Shining beacons

WHAT an outstanding weekend for rugby league outside the top flight.

          From Barrow Raiders’ stirring win over Championship title favourites Leigh, to 4,221 watching a thrilling League One clash between York and Bradford, there was much to admire in the two competitions.

          Barrow’s result means that the promoted club have now taken three points from full-time duo Toronto and Leigh in consecutive weekends, a fine achievement by Paul Crarey’s squad.

          The crowd at Craven Park was encouraging too, with 1,991 in attendance to witness Shane Toal score a decisive hat-trick.

          When the Raiders were handed an opening trio of fixtures that read London, Toronto, Leigh, few will have given them any chance of securing a single point - to have secured three bodes well for their ability to compete regularly in the Championship.

          Top of the tree after four rounds are London Broncos, who blitzed much-fancied Featherstone in the first half and ended up 44-24 winners.

          That’s three wins from three under rookie coach Danny Ward, rubbishing some pre-season predictions about their ability to make the Qualifiers again this year.

          It’s also worth noting the presence of seven homegrown players in their side on Sunday.

          The Broncos’ home match with Toronto this Sunday should be an absolute cracker.

          The Wolfpack edged an entertaining contest at Halifax, winning 20-6 in front of 2,036 at the Shay.

          That match was televised, as usual, on Premier Sports, and meant that despite there being no Super League on Sunday fans actually had a choice of live rugby league to tune into, with Bradford streaming their trip to York online via Proper Sport.

          That provided another notable element to a day of significant success at Bootham Crescent, where York’s superb pre-match marketing was richly rewarded with a bumper attendance that would shame some Super League clubs.

          It isn’t the first time the Knights have achieved such notable success - they did the same against Toronto last year and pulled in 2,601.

          Working on a League One budget, it shows the value of cost effective, positive and focused marketing that creates an attractive event out of matches.

          Some clubs at any level could certainly take a leaf out of their book.

          It’s just one case of the excellent work that goes on at clubs in the Championship and League One, and there are examples everywhere throughout the course of the season.

          Enjoy this week’s game - it’s unlikely to disappoint. 

This week's birthdays: February 25th to March 3rd

This Week's Birthdays:
February 25th to March 3rd

Each year we try to do something a bit unusual. This year we are celebrating the birthdays of players in the Super League, Championship and League 1. Here is the list for the coming week.

Broncos v Fev: Teams and Scorers - Feb 18

Broncos v Fev: Teams and Scorers
Championship Round 3

fevnut's blog: London Away (Feb 18)

Match 3: London (Away - Championship)

fevnut's musings

Even MORE Joyful!!

Last week we wrote about the joy of watching the match against Halifax. Little were we to know that the match against Toulouse would be even better, much, much better! That second-half performance was utterly thrilling. To come from 14-8 down in the 42nd minute to take the score to an unassailable 36-14 lead was thrilling. The fact that it was against a fulltime team in the second half made it even more special. Strangely, it wouldn’t have been so thrilling if we had blown them away in the first half but we all know that in recent years we have really struggled to put in 80 minute performances.

We were asked about who we would have chosen as the Man of the Match and we had to say that we wanted to award it to all 19 players! But, if it had to be just one, we would also have chosen Mitch Clark for his awesome display from the moment he came on. We would love to see his loan period extended. In our dreams it becomes a full season loan followed by his becoming a signed-up Fev player. After all, he belongs here where his father played so well for Fev. Did you notice that there were two players on the pitch whose father’s had played for Fev? Ironically they were both the sons of New Zealanders. The other had a far less distinguished game than Mitch. Have you realised who it was? It was Tyla Hepi, playing for Toulouse (and getting sin-binned for striking) whose father, Brad, played seven games for Fev back in early 2000 before moving on to Salford.

The days of teams with local lads

Each week fevnut’s blog publishes an article by Gareth Walker. Last week in League Express he wrote a fascinating piece about the way that Halifax have developed a squad that has many local lads. Reading the article we were reminded of Eddie Waring’s commentary on a Fev tem in the Challenge Cup Final when he said “That’s Mick Smith. He’s the foreigner in the team - he comes from Doncaster!” Apparently Halifax have 13 players that come from the town or its local area. This is the consequence of the pathway that they have established through an Academy side based at Calderdale College, through to a reserve team and then on to the first team squad. That seems to us to be an excellent example that is worth following for the whole of the Rugby League. Can’t afford to run reserve teams? Can we really afford not to do so?

Gareth Hock played tiddly-winks for Great Britain?

According to our stats last Sunday’s encounter with Toulouse was Gareth Hock’s 300th careerl appearance. We were somewhat surprised to learn that according to the RL it was his 299th and his 300th will come this Sunday, if he plays. So we went back to try and discover where the discrepancy lay. In the end we found it. It lies in a match whilst he was on tour for Great Britain in for the Tri-Nations competition in 2006. The team played a warm-up match against a Newcastle Division team in Australia and Gareth played in that match. It was a Great Britain team, picked by the Great Britain coach (Brian Noble) and arranged by the RL’s management team. But apparently we are told that it doesn’t count as a professional appearance. Really?! Are they telling us that they went out onto the pitch and played tiddly-winks? For us, if it was a match played with Great Britain shirts, under a Great Britain coach arranged by the management then it is a ‘professional’ appearance. We still think that Gareth made his 300th career appearance last Sunday! And you thought being a rugby league statistician was simple?

Sunday's Referee: Broncos 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 last year.

The last time he refereed a Fev match was the final match of last season when he sent off Richard Moore and Ben Heaton of Halifax AFTER the final whistle!