fevnut's musings
What
a Great Week!
1. Good Friday
We have to
admit that there have been times this year when we have become rather
despondent. A feeling brought about by constant changes in the team but more importantly
by the lack of leadership on the field. It is something we have written about
on more than one occasion.
Then we got
to Good Friday! What a performance. Without any doubt whatsoever the
best team performance we have seen for a long time. And significantly it was achieved
with only one dual reg player and only one loan player. And it was that loan
player that seemed to be the important ingredient. And, praise be, it is a loan
player we have for the rest of the season, not just for a month.
They say
that one player doesn’t make a team but here was an example where he did just
that. What Dane Chisholm brought was first and foremost leadership. You could
clearly see how he was organising the whole team and beyond that he was showing
all the other attributes that are needed in a scrum-half. Namely intelligence,
looking for opportunities and passing that was both well-timed and moreover
accurate.
An accurate
pass is not necessarily one that is straight to a player but one that is placed
in such a way that a player can run on to it without losing any momentum. It is the way you get the backs sweeping
forward and finding spaces.
You couldn’t
even begin to grasp what Chisholm achieved by just watching him. He had the
effect of lifting the whole team, everyone playing to, or near to, the top of
their ability. It meant that centres and backs were getting the ball in
situations where they could use it well and not be used all the time as simple
ball carriers as has happened so often in recent games.
2. Easter
Monday
So, we lost
- but fevnut is not complaining! Part time Fev against a Toronto team that is
full time and loaded with players who have stacks of Super League and NRL
experience.
We gave
them one hell of a game and it is significant that their comeback in the last
five minutes was only achieved after Dane Chisholm had received a knock that
left him heavily restricted and forced him out of the middle onto the wing.
The Fev
team played wonderfully and we left the ground feeling really positive about
the game and our prospects despite losing.
3. Wednesday April 24th - Rule Changes
Well done the RFL! Well
done the Match Officials department!
We don’t often say that
but this time they have listened to what a lot of us had been saying. There
have made major and hugely important changes in the interpretation of the rules
around the play-the ball. It should cut out a huge amount of the cheating that
has been going on.
The full statement that
has been issued can be found in our fevnut special (Changes to Play-the Ball
Rules) which can be found with this link:
Briefly, it states that a
player deliberately throwing the ball into an opponent at the play-the-ball
will himself be penalised and not the defender. They will also be penalised for
stepping over a player on the ground and heeling the ball into him and also for
placing the ball on a defender on the ground.
fevnut believes this is
real progress but hopes that they will also toughen up on moving off the mark
and also on tackle players holding down the player who has tackled them.
But this is real progress
and should make for a better game, especially if they now review the protocols
for obstruction as well.
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