fevnut's blog: Toronto v Fev

Match 26: Toronto Wolfpack (Away) Championship

fevnut's musings

The Best Competition is the Championship

Going into the last week for the Super League and the Championship before the split into the 8s it is amazing how the two differ. In Super League everything is done and dusted with nothing to play for in the last round. What a difference in the Championship! One week to go and only one team, Toronto (of course), has a definite place booked in the Qualifiers. Only a single point separates 2nd place from 6th place. And still SKY show comparatively meaningless Super League games whilst ignoring the amazing round of Championship games even though they own the televising rights for those games. Thursday’s offering is Saint Helens v Warrington. Whatever happens in that match Saints will finish in first place going into the 8s and Warrington will finish in the Top 4. We say to SKY “Use it or lose it”. Surely it is time to negotiate with another broadcaster to take the rights to Championship matches and to actually do a regular broadcast. Having been regularly attending Championship ties and watching Super League on television we have absolutely no doubt which makes for more compelling viewing.

Gutted

We’re gutted with the result against London Broncos. It was always going to be very difficult against a fulltime team when we are down to less than the bare bones in the most critical positions on the field. Maybe the final result became even harder to take after we had performed so magnificently in the first half and gone in with a 7-0 lead brought about by a piece of sheer magic from loanee Aaron Smith and that drop goal from Ian Hardman, the very first of his career in his 373rd game. The team gave their all but it just wasn’t good enough on the day.

Dual Registration

We have never liked dual registration and it really let us down in the end. It just shows how relying on it (we understand the financial reasons) is so dangerous. The fact is that you will always be dependent on the Super League partners. If ever there was a game when Fev needed Leeds support it was last Sunday. Leeds had a fairly easy game against Widnes but still chose to go with the two Briscoes on the wings and played Ryan Hall in the centre even though they had Jimmy Keinhorst available and he is perfectly capable of filling the centre spot. In fact, Keinhorst is the only Leeds player to have scored a hat trick this year. They could easily, and with no detriment, let us have Luke for this critical match. Even worse was the fact that they knew perfectly well that we desperately needed a half back but instead of letting us have Jordan Lilley they have sent him on loan to Bradford. It just shows that to build dual reg into your season plans is fraught with danger. We feel betrayed by the Rhinos and it leads us to the conclusion that the main reason for Leeds entering into this partnership is to help them look at our players with a view to signing them.

Oh well …