fevnut's musings
Happy
awaydays!
We’ve been
watching Fev for so many years now but it is hard to remember two successive awaydays
that brought as much happiness as we have experienced at Leigh and York in the
past fortnight! Two wonderful performances from a team that is now hugely
greater than the parts.
At last we are putting out a settled team who have
rapidly learnt to play together, how to bring out the best in each other.
We have to
confess that we have been perplexed by some of the wing signings this year that
were down to the injury of Tom Briscoe at Leeds and the subsequent loss of
availability of brother Luke. We brought in Jack Johnson, and to be honest, we
hadn’t been convinced that he added anything and regretted that Jack Render (who
we see as a really good future Fev prospect was getting so little game time.
And then we signed Jake Spedding who we haven’t seen at all!
There are
thrilling tries that come from great movement and passing between the team and
then there are ones that rest upon the skill and pace of an individual. And last
Saturday Jack Johnson scored one of the most thrilling tries of the season. A
90 metre effort from an opposition kick and Jack saw the spaces the moment he
caught the ball and the result was tremendous. What brought us the greatest
thrill was to see a speedy winger taking on an opponent on the outside and
rounding him brilliantly. So rare nowadays when wingers almost always think
that the way to the tryline is by cutting inside.
Fev
- the family team
Once upon a
time there was a bond in Fev teams that resulted from the fact that the huge
majority were local lads with a passionate commitment to their home team. We’ve
never forgotten the day when Eddie Waring, commentating on a Challenge Cup
final, referred to Mick Smith being the ‘foreigner’ in the Fev team because he
came from Doncaster!! Sadly times have changed and it is very unlikely that we
will ever see a Rovers team again with that number of players who are from Fev.
But what we
seem to have achieved instead is to create a bond between the players and the
fans which makes playing for Fev something very special.
We saw
wonderful evidence of that at York when, despite giving everything they had to
give in the match as York players, Tim Spears and Andy Ellis wanted to come
over and spend time with many of their friends in the Fev crowd! We loved that!
The
Names of Play-Off Matches
Last week we wrote about the stupid names given to the play-off
matches. Semi-Finals that aren’t semi-finals and finals that aren’t finals.
Well, no sooner had we published our piece than the names were changed.
Okay, we are not claiming that it was a result of our article.
The new names are slightly better but still not very good for explaining to RL ‘outsiders’
what is going on.
The ‘Qualifying Final’ has become the ‘Qualifier, the ‘Eliminator
Final’ is now called ‘Eliminator 1’.
On the second week, what was ‘Semi-Final 1’ has become ‘Eliminator
2’ and ‘Semi-Final 2’ is now called ‘Semi-Final 1’.
The third week (our match in Toulouse) is now ‘Semi-Final 2’
instead of ‘Preliminary Final’
Are you clear? It’s not much better is it?
Milestones
Congratulations to
Luke Cooper on his 100th professional game when he played at York and it was, of
course, his 100th for Fev. Luke is a classic example of what we meant about
players who are not from Fev becoming a part of the family.
There is another
possible Milestone in Toulouse with our current French International, Dane
Chisholm, needing 4 goals to achieve 100 for Fev.
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