fevnut's musings
Widnes and the heebie-jeebies
Whenever we head onto the M62 bound for a match at
Widnes we have this very uneasy feeling. It is a hangover from the end of the
eighties when we suffered three horrific defeats in a row (62-16 in 1987, 58-2
in 1988 and 59-8 in 1989). And it is utterly illogical because, at that time,
Widnes were the powerhouse of English rugby league with players like Martin
Offiah (who scored 4 tries in 1988 and another 4 in 1989!), Jonathan Davies, Phil McKenzie, Kurt Sorensen, Alan Tait and the Eyres
brothers and their current team bears absolutely no relationship to that sort
of power and quality.
When Watson Boas dropped the kick-off followed by a quick try it was a very real example of déjà vue. It was so hard to maintain any sort of optimism as we defended so
badly leading to that 28 point half-time deficit. Yes, we did perform much
better in the second half but it simply couldn’t expunge having to sit through
the first forty minutes and we drove home in silence.
It did prompt a whole load of ‘what-ifs’ the main one
being whether it would have been very different if we had had Thompson Teteh
fit to oppose Gelling. Would it have made a difference? Almost certainly yes. We
probably would have still lost but not in the abject manner that we suffered.
The positive was how Ryan Carr managed to sort the team
out at half-time but it should have been like that from the start. After all we
knew what to expect from a team that had been through the week that had been
suffered in the days leading up to the game.
The other positive was nothing to do with Fev. It was
great to see the manner in which the rugby league family came together. We saw
many Warrington and Saint Helens fans there. Usually die-hard enemies but they
obviously wanted to put aside their animosity in the wider interests of the
sport that we are so passionate about.
Sadly we couldn’t imagine that the same would happen if
ourselves, Wakefield or Cas were in the same situation as Widnes have been
through.
Dual registration
We want to pose a question
that will seem a bit sacrilegious to some. When we have what is virtually a new
team that need to develop their playing relationships does it make sense to
bring in players for the odd game. Surely that actually sets back the blending
of our team.
That clearly doesn’t
apply to Luke Briscoe or Harry Newman who have been regular starters and have an
understanding with our own players but we have now used four Leeds players for
just one game each. Don’t misunderstand, both Brad Singleton and Cameron Smith
made great contributions against Batley but does it help the longer term
development of the team? We think not.
Most puzzling was the use
of Ashton Golding at centre against Widnes. We have been trawling the Leeds
records and find him playing predominantly at fullback, occasionally on the
wing or at stand-off but can’t find any time when he played at centre. Then, sitting
on the bench in that dire first 40 minutes, we had Josh Hardcastle who is a
proven quality centre. It was noticeable how our structure improved when Josh
came on for the second half.
It’s always a fear that
dual reg can have a detrimental effect on a club’s own players. Despite his great
success in his first two seasons Josh has had to sit out 2 of our 5 matches
because of suspension but has been a sub in the others. He is a local lad who
plays for Fev with great skill and enormous pride in representing his hometown
club. It’s not good for either Rovers or Josh himself to have him marginalised
by dual registration.
Sheffield
What a start they have
made to 2019. All the pundits had them down as strugglers for this year and
possible candidates for relegation. But they are currently sitting second in the
table with four wins out of four and a points difference only three less than
Toronto. What’s more they have played a game less than every other team in the
top 8 of the league.
We hope our team are
better psychologically prepared than they were last week. They need to be
because there are 6 former Fev players in the Sheffield squad who will be as up
for this game as the Widnes players were last week.
We are still confident
but we really do need to play with a tough defence for 80 minutes and produce
the attacking flair that was present in our previous home games.
No comments:
Post a Comment