fevnut's musings
A
Very Strange Season
We have
found it really difficult to get to grips with the Fev team and their
performances this year.
Last week
Jack Johnson became the 42nd player to take to the field for Fev and that is a
huge number. It means that it has been a very unsettled team and one that has
been much more difficult for the fans to relate to this year.
But even
stranger is the way the team has performed so differently when we have been
faced with teams from the upper half of the table as opposed to the teams in
the bottom half.
They have
been mostly excellent against Toronto, York, Sheffield, Leigh, Bradford and
Halifax. We lost a tight game away in Toulouse which was down very much to the
kicking of Johnathon Ford.
And then we
go and lose at home to Barrow and Dewsbury, and had wins, but poor ones,
against them both away!
Dewsbury
and Swinton
Listening
to Ryan Carr’s reaction to last week’s one point win at Dewsbury he seemed to
be very happy about it. We weren’t! We thought that Fev were very lucky to get
the win against a Dewsbury team that were better than us on the day.
The biggest
factor seemed to be the huge experience of their halfbacks who largely controlled
the game. Between them Liam Finn and Paul Sykes went into the match on the back
of a staggering total of 938 (yes, 938!) career appearances and they have been
Dewsbury’s regular halfback pairing for most of the season. Fev’s halfbacks
were good but have nowhere near that experience and most importantly were only
playing together for only the second time.
We will have
to be very much better if we are to beat Swinton on Sunday. Don’t be fooled by
the fact that they spent a lot of the season near the bottom of the table.
They are a
very much improved side and are coming into the match having only lost two of
their last seven. That run includes beating Toulouse in France, drawing away to
Bradford and only losing at Leigh by one point last week. Before that the last
time they lost an away Championship match was in April and that was at Toronto!
We need to
watch out for Matty Ashton. This is his first year as a professional after
Swinton signed him from Rochdale Mayfield. He scored 4 tries last week against
Leigh and is now the leading try scorer in the Championship with 23 tries in 21
games.
Half-backs
According
to last week’s League Express we have signed Louis Jouffret from Batley for
next year. Don’t know whether it is true but it sounds like a good move if it
is. He joined Whitehaven from Union Treiziste Catalane (Catalans Dragons
reserve side) in 2015 and had a really good game against us that year, playing
at fullback. In 2017 he was at Toulouse playing at stand-off while Ford was out
injured and then joined Batley last year. So far this year he has played 25
games (24 at stand-off and 1 at fullback), and has been named as man of the
match 5 times by League Express more than any other Batley player. He has
scored 14 tries and his goal kicking success rate has been 78%.
It would be
really good (if it is true) to have a settled pair of halfbacks next year and
not be reliant on a mixture of dual reg, loans and Fev players playing out of
position.
In 26
matches this year we have used eight different players at stand-off and the
most any of them has played is the six games from Tom Holmes.
Luke
Cooper and Jack Ormondroyd
It was a
pity to see Luke not playing last week. He had been the only player to have
appeared in every match this year but we suppose that he had earned a rest!
If Jack
plays this week it will be his 100th appearance for Fev and definitely deserves
congratulations.
Jack spent
2014 playing for the Thirlmere Roosters in Australia.
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