fevnut's blog: Fev v Leigh (CS Final)

Match 34: 
Leigh Centurions (Home) 
Championship Shield Final

fevnut's musings

It was so boring!

We weren’t the only ones that found last week’s game against Barrow very boring. We simply couldn’t get in the slightest bit enthused. We can’t remember ever feeling so detached from a live game but then those are the sort that our that the memory casts aside so it’s probable that there have been others over the years but we simply can’t remember them. It obviously didn’t help that it was a match which had absolutely no consequence whatsoever.

This coming Sunday

As we write, rumours are flying around that suggest that Leigh might forfeit the Championship Shield Final. That would be an unbelievably huge blow to the perception of Rugby League. Just think what the enemies of rugby league would make of a team forfeiting a match with a trophy at stake. If Leigh do pull out there should be a massive penalty imposed upon them. As a very minimum we believe they should be banned from next year’s Challenge Cup and have a penalty of at least a 12 point deduction from there League points for 2019. Much as there has been bitter enmity between Leigh and Fev over the last few years we would acknowledge that Leigh are basically a good, well supported team and the fact that things have sunk so low is a huge shame. We are really hoping that the rumours are proved to be wrong.

Since writing the above the Rugby League have agreed a special dispensation to both teams allowing them to take academy players on loan so that they can fulfil the match. That is a relief but the situation should never have arisen. Changes need to be made to ensure that this situation never arises again.

This is terrible

Although there have been a lot of good things that have happened this year and many great matches, every lover of rugby league has to be concerned about the preponderance of games played with teams fielding less than 17 players. In all the years we have been enjoying rugby league there has never been a season like it.

For obvious reasons, Super League clubs haven’t been affected as they have academies and in some cases reserves to call upon. But in the Championship and League One there have been 18 (yes 18) occasions when a team has failed to field a full complement. You would think that would be mainly in League One but only West Wales (6 times) and Whitehaven (once - in their opening match of the season) have been so affected. The other 11 have occurred in the Championship and it has involved half of the teams in the league. The list is a s follows:

Barrow Raiders                  Twice

Batley Bulldogs                   Once

Dewsbury Rams                 Once

Featherstone Rovers           Five Times

Leigh Centurions                 Once

Rochdale Hornets               Once

There are several factors. Four of those came when clubs were unable to take a full squad to Canada. There have been a really worrying number of long-term injuries this year. Clubs setting out with small squads choosing to rely on dual-registration to boost their numbers and the rules for dual reg meant that they were left without some of those players after July. And, of course, the financial consequences of failing to make the top 4 have affected both Fev and Leigh. In the case of West Wales they also lost a whole host of players to the Wales U19 squad for the U19 European Championship held in Serbia.

We think that this issue is even more important for the health of our sport than the regular changes in league structure.

It never used to happen but we need to remember that Fev used to have an academy set-up. But that was taken off us by the Rugby League. We tried to have a reserve team but that had to be abandoned because there were so few fixtures that the lads spent far too long without any game time.

The solution must be that each club should have a bigger player pool. It simply is not good enough for the RL to say that they want clubs to have a reserve team but that the decision is up to each individual club. As we saw at Fev such a half-hearted stance can lead clubs who want to run a reserve team having to give it up. It really does need the Rugby League to make a stand and state that reserve teams are compulsory for both Super League and the Championship at least.

We would love the opportunity to watch reserve team games and the excitement when players from the reserves start making a push for the first team. Bring it on!