fevnut's musings 2019: #4: A Big Buzz and a Little Apprehension

fevnut's musings

A Big Buzz with a Little Apprehension

It is always the case that, as the season proper approaches, we start to get a bit of a buzz. This year, it is considerably bigger than usual. We are looking forward to watching our new side gel together. It will take time and the fact that we have such a difficult start to the season will doubtless cause fans with little patience to get onto social media with yet more doom and gloom but we will simply ignore them because all they do is show their ignorance in failing to understand how a team with so many new players needs time to build. Bradford, Leigh and Halifax in the first four championship rounds will certainly be a big test but maybe the experience will help them bond quicker than if we had had an easier opening to the campaign. The Leigh match will be interesting as they have just announced their squad numbers and there are only two players (Micky Higham and Nick Gregson) who were contracted players last season.

So, what is the little bit of apprehension. It concerns the 3 PNG recruits and the 2 Australians. There is always a danger of players who come to England from so very far away having difficulty settling into a very different environment. Let’s hope they manage the transition happily and there is a responsibility on our supporters to help them by making them feel welcome and valued. That is one aspect that leads to us being slightly apprehensive but there is a second issue too. Let’s imagine that they settle in, stay fit and start playing really well. In that case we should have a superb team but should we start hitting the headlines there will doubtless be Super League clubs sniffing at the door offering them full-time contracts way above what we could afford. In the short term that would be unsettling and may well lead to us losing them in the longer term. It would be very interesting to know the details of their contracts but we won’t be expecting to find that out!

Squad Balance

Those responsible for the running of Fev know way more about rugby league than fevnut will ever appreciate so what we have to say here is expressing a degree of concern rather than criticism!

When we look at the assembled squad it does seem a little bit unbalanced. We do seem to be rather short of props. Looking at the list it would appear that there are only 2 out and out prop-forwards, those being Luke Cooper and Scott Wheeldon. You can add into the mix Spencer Darley but at the age of only 20 it will be a big ask to expect him to play big minutes. There is also a size issue here. We have huge respect for the playing ability of both Scott and Luke but neither of them is very big and you do need some real size and weight up front.

Looking at the second row and loose forward positions we seem to have so many it will be difficult to know who to leave out. Three positions to fill and seven players: Jimmy Beckett, Jack Bussey, John Davies, Brad Day, Brett Delaney, James Harrison and James Lockwood. Let’s hope some of them are capable of stepping up to prop. We do know that James Lockwood has done so in the past but he has always seemed to us to be a better player when he is in the back-row.

As long as he stays fit, it would seem that Cameron King is a huge prospect at hooker with Danny Maskill and Morgan Punchard as back-up. Danny seems to be rapidly improving and maybe regular game time will aid his development. Morgan has huge potential but is still young. From the little we have seen in the pre-season games hooker seems to suit him better than halfback.

Moving to half-back, that seems to be pretty settled with the Boas brothers. If they stay fit then we can’t see anyone else getting a look in. Should the need arise then there is Jorge Richardson and the fact that Morgan Punchard could play there.

In the last few seasons we have had a whole host of injuries to the three-quarter line which makes us a bit fearful of there only appearing to be 5 potential candidates for the four places (in alphabetical order Conor Carey, Macauley Hallett, Josh Hardcastle, Thompson Teteh and Dakota Whylie).

At fullback we only seem to have one player in the squad. That is Kiedan Hartley. A young lad with huge potential. He was easily the man of the match against Hunslet Club Parkside and he made a wonderful break last week against Halifax. We are looking forward with a lot of excitement to watching him develop. Our concern here is not over his talent but whether an 18 year old can command sufficient respect in the rest of the team to enable him to organise the defence the way a fullback should.

FEATHERSTONE ROVERS SQUAD
Player	Age	Pos		Player	Age	Pos
Jimmy Beckett	-	2R		James Harrison	22	2R
Ase Boas	30	HB		Kiedan Hartley	18	FB
Watson Boas	24	HB		Cameron King	27	H
Jack Bussey	26	F		James Lockwood	32	F
Conor Carey	23	C		Danny Maskill	23	H
Luke Cooper	24	P		Morgan Punchard	19	HB/H
Spencer Darley	20	P		Jorge Richardson	21	HB
John Davies	28	F		Thompson Teteh	29	C
Brad Day	24	F		Josh Walters	24	2R
Brett Delaney	33	F		Scott Wheeldon	32	P
Macauley Hallett	23	C		Dakota Whylie	19	W
Josh Hardcastle	26	B/2R

Dual-Registration

No doubt we will again be filling out the squad with Leeds players on dual-registration. The problem is having the right players at the right time made available. In the latter stages of last season the dual-reg system failed us, which was not the fault of Leeds who also had major injury problems.  We are definitely hoping to see Harry Newman playing for Rovers again.

It seems very unlikely that players with the top 17 Leeds squad numbers will be available to play for Fev so we have drawn up a potential list of those with squad numbers from 18 upwards.

Potential Leeds Dual-Reg Players
Player	Age	Pos		Player	Age	Pos
Luke Briscoe	24	B		Harry Newman	18	B
James Donaldson	27	LF		Mikolaj Oledzki	20	P
Tyler Dupree	18	F		Jack Ormondroyd	27	LF
Ashton Golding	22	FB/W		Nathaniel Peteru	27	P/2R
Tom Holroyd	17	F		Cameron Smith	20	2R/LF
Corey Johnson	-	F		Alex Sutcliffe	20	C
Callum McLelland	19	HB		Owen Trout	19	LF
Anthony Mullally	27	P		Dan Waite-Pullan	20	2R
Muizz Mustapha	20	2R		Josh Walters	24	2R/LF