fevnut's musings
Barrow
Well, what
a strange match that was. With 28 minutes gone and leading 22-0 we were
beginning to think about searching our data to see what our best ever result against
Barrow had been. We found it,74-22 at home in 2005 and the best away at Barrow was
the 60-6 in 2013. At that stage both looked distinctly achievable.
But then we
went into our shell and Barrow woke up. It was almost as if it was Barrow who
had endured a long coach trip to get to the match.
Then, half-time
and we were still thinking that we would kick-on in the second half with a
try-fest. But sadly it never happened and Barrow came out in the second half
and it seemed as if Paul Crarey had given them a really good team talk during
the interval. But for some excellent goal-line defence we would probably have
lost the game. It reminded us of the way both Peter Fox and Daryl Powell could
often turn round a losing position with a combination of motivational talk and astute
analysis.
Despite
winning and gaining the league points we, and I suspect most Fev fans, came
away very disappointed. We suppose that our expectations had been hugely lifted
by the team’s performance in both the Easter games. Of course, as ever, player
fatigue after the Easter programme plays a part although it was the same for
both teams and Barrow had played Toronto on Good Friday and Bradford on Easter Monday
so they must have been suffering it too.
Easter
There’s
been a lot of talk recently about abandoning the tradition of playing two games
over the Easter period. As a fan we love the double fixtures over Easter but we
do understand the reasons behind the move to do away with it.
In one way
it seems strange because in days gone by all players were part time
and they were certainly far less fit than modern-day players are. Two games over
Easter were nothing compared with what they sometimes had to endure.
The winter
of 1962/63 was a particularly bad one, but one we remember with joy having
spent the best part of three months happily tobogganing We even fitted torches
on the front of the sleds so we could have the thrill of tobogganing at night!
But it also meant that nearly three months of scheduled rugby league fixtures
were wiped or rather snowed out.
Those
matches had to be played eventually and here is the list of matches that Fev
had from March to May of 1963.
Two matches
over Easter - that’s nothing!!!
Having said
all that, there is one reason we would be glad to see the double fixtures go.
As a rugby league statistician it is a nightmare!
Play-the-ball
The change in
interpretation of the rules introduced last week seemed to have worked.
Hallelujah! We watched several televised games and it was so much better and
virtually no cheating whatsoever. A big salute to the Match Officials for
taking action. We should never return to a situation where the interpretation
of the rules encourages cheating.
And having taken that
step we would like to see them cleaning the game up by looking at two more
areas.
Firstly, tackled players moving
off the mark. It happens over and over again where they get up and take steps forward
before playing the ball, thus gaining territory illegally and making it very
difficult indeed for the markers.
Secondly, the whole issue
of obstruction. There are two distinct problems here. A penalty should never be
awarded for obstruction unless a defending player is actually obstructed. And
referees should be very vigilant to ensure that a defending player doesn’t ‘manufacture’
an apparent obstruction in order to gain a penalty.
No comments:
Post a Comment