fevnut's musings
fevnut's musings
1895 Cup
When this new competition was first announced we thought it was a great idea but sadly the way it has been implemented has detracted from it being successful and the publicity about it has been embarrassingly lacking.
Our regular readers might also recall our desire to see a return of the Yorkshire Cup but the attempt by some clubs to run a competition in pre-season fell miles below the level of pride that the title conjures up.
We do, however, hope that some real thinking goes into both ideas and how they can be implemented in a manner worthy of both concepts. On the Total.RL website we found an article by Aaron Bower that has really interesting ideas for a development that combines the 1895 Cup with Yorkshire and Lancashire Cups for teams outside Super League.
Aaron’s idea is well worth reading and we have reproduced it in a ‘fevnut special’. This link will take you straight to the article.
But one thing is for sure. The rumours of increasing the Championship to 16 clubs would be the death knell of any other competition. We would actually prefer to see Super League increased to 14 and the Championship reduced back to 12. But not for next year - there have been too many changes in the league structure recently!
Tom Holmes
I am sure that all Fev fans would want to join us in thanking Tom for his huge contribution for Fev over the last few weeks. His return to the Giants, however, is yet another example of the dilemma of relying on loan and dual reg players in key positions.
Believe it or not, we have already used nine different halfback pairings this season:
Ase and Watson Boas (5 times)
Watson Boas and Ben Reynolds (twice)
Jorge Richardson and Watson Boas (twice)
Jorge Richardson and Ben Reynolds (once)
Jack Bussey and Watson Boas (once)
Jack Bussey and Dane Chisholm (3 times)
Tom Holmes and Dane Chisholm (6 times)
Callum McLelland and Morgan Punchard (once)
Callum McLelland and Dane Chisholm (once)
It is a crying shame that Tom has been recalled by Huddersfield just as we are going into two huge matches. Let’s hope that Jack Bussey becomes available again soon because the three games that he played at stand-off alongside Dane Chisholm showed that this partnership has a lot of potential despite the fact that Jack is more often thought of as a forward.
Referee location
Fans often get upset when a referee is appointed to a match when his local team is involved, as has happened with the appointment of Scott Mikalauskas (from the Leigh area) for this coming Sunday’s game.
We do not believe there is any problem when the referee is confident in his decisions and we have to expect that this applies to Mr Mikalauskas bearing in mind that he is primarily a Super League referee.
If a referee is less confident in his decision making it can have an effect but not because of bias. No referee would have got anywhere near taking charge of professional matches if he had been seen to show bias in his decision making.
If the referee is not as confident then we believe that refereeing your local team could have an impact because of his desire NOT to be seen to be biased which could lead to decisions in favour of the ‘other’ team when he is not absolutely certain what the right call is.
Injuries
We are worried about an emerging issue of Fev players being injured when being tackled. The fact is that Holmes, Chisholm and King have all been hurt recently in the tackle. Are our spine players, who have become the core of our improved performances, being targeted for unsavoury attention?
We don’t go in for conspiracy theories but it does make you wonder!
Yes
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