fevnut's musings
The
Complete Team
We
absolutely loved the attacking flair that Fev have shown in recent weeks,
particularly against Bradford and York (twice). Maybe that flair wasn’t quite
as good against Widnes last Sunday but the defensive play was the best we have
seen from a Fev team for a long time. It was simply awesome.
Combine the
attacking flair with that sort of defence and we could beat anyone in the
Championship (including Toronto!).
Ryan Carr
has done a brilliant job. We wonder what he can achieve with a settled squad
and a full pre-season next year.
The
contract extensions for Brad Day, James Harrison and James Lockwood are a really
good sign. Now we need to tie up Dane Chisholm and have a good think about the
stand-off position when we lose Tom Holmes back to Huddersfield.
Apart from
the 1895 Cup match we have had a pretty settled team over the last few weeks
and it shows.
Cheeky
Buoyed up
by the nature of our win against Widnes, at the end of the match we had a quick
chat with Gary Hetherington. He didn’t seem too happy when I suggested that
maybe the Fev/Leeds dual reg agreement might be continued next season when Fev
are in Super League and Leeds in the Championship!
We don’t
actually believe that Leeds will end up being relegated but we were rather
amazed to see an online poll on the TotalRL website that asked people to vote
for which team they thought would be relegated from Super League.
As we write
the poll stands at Huddersfield 6%, Hull KR 19%, London Broncos 35% and Leeds
40%!!
Winners
We bet you
didn’t know that Featherstone have already won a coveted trophy this year.
Admittedly it wasn’t Rovers. No, the Canadian ‘Winemaker of the Year’ has been
awarded to David Johnson, co-owner of the Featherstone Winery, which is in the
wine growing area between Toronto and Niagara. We visited the Winery last year
while we were over there for Fev’s match against the Wolfpack. It’s a beautiful
place with lovely people and delicious wine. We thoroughly recommend it to any
RL supporters travelling for a match against the Wolfpack.
Play-Offs:
The nightmare scenario
As things
currently stand we could possibly finish 2nd in the league but 3rd seems to be
more likely. Let’s imagine that Toronto finish top, Toulouse (whose dip in form
has been largely down to injuries for Johnathon Ford and Mark Kheirallah)
recover and finish 2nd and Fev end up in 3rd.
That would
mean that in the first week of the play-offs we would have to play away against
Toulouse. We think that would be a winnable match and the reward for the second
week would be … an away match against Toronto.
Now, let’s
be pessimistic and continue this scenario on the assumption that we lose in
Toronto. The consequence would be that we get a home tie in the third weekend
and the most likely opposition would be Toulouse again.
Win that
one and we are through to the Grand Final - away (again) in Toronto!!!
How on
earth does a club like Fev cope with the short-notice planning for that? Unlike
many, we have welcomed what Toronto and Toulouse have brought to our competitions
but it would be completely unacceptable to expect us to travel to Toronto twice
and Toulouse in a period of four weeks.
With the
prospect of Toronto getting to the Grand Final the Rugby League need to decide
now that the Grand Final should be played on a neutral round. Headingley would
be a good option.
No comments:
Post a Comment