Match 23: Halifax
(Away) Championship
fevnut's musings
A Record Equalled but also a new one
for Rugby League!
Back in April 1929 Rovers played
Bradford Northern at home. The team included Fev’s first international, centre
Jack Hirst. That day Jack scored 5 tries which was a new Featherstone record
for tries in a match.
That record stood for 39 years less
11 days when the Rovers took to the field at Post Office Road to play Doncaster
and Mick Smith scored 6 tries to take the record. Sadly we weren’t there but we
know some people who were.
Jumping a further 21 years to 17th
September 1989 and Fev were playing Keighley in the first round of the
Yorkshire Cup, again at Post Office Road. This time we were there and remember
it very well! Fev slaughtered them 86-18 and our wonderful fullback, Chris
Bibb, scored 6 tries to equal Mick Smith’s record. Despite the beating we
handed out to Keighley one of their players really stood out. It was their
winger Owen Simpson who scored 2 of Keighley’s 3 tries and looked to be a
really good player. Owen of course was to be signed by Fev the following year
and set up a wonderful centre/wing partnership with Paul Newlove. In that same
match Mark Knapper (who only ever played 16 games for Fev) broke another record
for kicking 13 goals, beating the 12 kicked by Don Fox in a challenge cup match
against Stanningley in 1964. Knapper’s record has not been beaten but was later
equalled twice by Liam Finn in 2012.
And so to last Sunday and that
amazing performance by Brad Dwyer to equal Mick Smith and Chris Bibbs’ record.
We were amused to hear John Duffy saying that he was not aware of the record
and might have not taken him off had he realised. Actually, fevnut is quite
pleased that he did come off because, in one way, it would have been sad to see
a record by two real Rovers stalwarts broken by someone on dual reg making only
his second appearance for Fev.
However, we do believe that Brad
Dwyer’s feat is unique in British professional rugby league. Substitutes were
only introduced in the 1964-65 season so any records set by a sub can’t go back
further than that. There is a facebook page for Rugby League historians and
fevnut posed the question to see if anyone was aware of a sub ever scoring 6
tries in a match before. No one was able to come up with an answer so we can
safely assume that it had never been done before. What is utterly amazing is
that Brad only came on in the 21st minute and left the field in the 63rd so his
six tries were scored when he only spent 42 minutes on the pitch!
James Lockwood
When James
Lockwood scored his third try on Sunday someone sitting near us suggested that
it must have been his first hat trick. We didn’t say anything because we weren’t
sure but somewhere in the back of our brain we thought that he had indeed
scored one before for Fev. And sure enough when we got home and checked we
found it. He scored a hat trick against Keighley in 2013.
Matches between Halifax and
Featherstone in the Summer Era
In the Summer Era it was not until
2004 that the teams met. Halifax had been in the Super League before then and
were a pretty strong team finishing 3rd in 1998. They had a disastrous
season in 2003 and were relegated having only won one game. To add insult to
injury they were deducted 2 points for contravening salary cap regulations so
finished the year with no league points.
Since then the results in our matches
have been rather odd. We’ve met 4 times on neutral grounds (Grand Final,
Northern Rail Cup Final and 2 Summer Bashes) and Fax have one all 4. So you
might think of them as Fev’s bogey team. But that is only when we meet them on
a neutral ground. We have played each other 17 times at Fev and it’s pretty
much even stevens with Fev slightly ahead by 9 wins to 8. But at the Shay we
have to be their bogey team. 16 matches and Rovers have won 12 of them. Up until
2009 Halifax were 4-2 ahead but amazingly since then Fev have won 10 matches in
a row at the Halifax ground. Let’s hope the record continues on Sunday!
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