fevnut's musings #11: Are they trying to kill off Rugby League? and Beware Halifax

 

Are they trying to kill off Rugby League?

 

Many years ago fevnut had quite a major involvement with what was then the Fev ‘A’ team. We went to all their matches and wrote reports of them for the local paper.

We loved doing that. It was great watching the youngsters developing and predicting who was ready to make the breakthrough to first team level. We particularly enjoyed away games when we would travel on the team bus with them and get to know them much better. Some of them had natural flair, some were already deep thinkers about the game and we remember, in particular, a young lad who showed both attributes who we thought might make a good coach one day. We are often wrong but this time we were absolutely right as he is now one of the most lauded coaches in the Championship!

In recent times we have become increasingly worried by the abandonment of reserve teams and the reduction of academies. And the appalling result is the number of youngsters who are not playing regularly in competitive matches.

We had a quick count and found more than 90 players registered to Super League and Championship who had not played a single match so far in 2021. And, yes, we did exclude those who had gone on loan to another club.

If you tried to devise a system that would lead to players giving up you couldn’t do much better than what we have at the moment. It must be heart-breaking when all they can do is train, and train, and train in the hope that they might be given a chance one day. Training is important but is no substitute for actual playing.

As we have said many times, rugby league is a team sport in which it is so important to develop together as a team. We hated the dual registration system (although the link between Fev and Leeds was probably the best way of implementing it) and now that has gone and instead we have these ludicrous two week loans which may give them some game time but no chance of understanding how to play with others. Just imagine you are a young centre. A partnership with a winger relies on knowing how to get the best out of each other. Two games is nowhere near enough for that to happen.

We fully appreciate that the pandemic has had a big impact on this but now is the time to seriously look at creating a system that is best for the development of the players of the future. And we don’t just mean super league players.

Beware Halifax

We have heard talk amongst our own fans that seem to think that next Sunday’s match is going to be a stroll in the park for Rovers.

It is true that they have had a couple of poor results (losing 19-6 at home to Batley in the Challenge Cup and getting beaten 16-12 by Oldham at the beginning of the month) but the rest of their games tell a very different story. They beat London Broncos 47-14, and lost to Toulouse by just ten points (the closest any club have come so far).

In their last two games they have scored 68 points and in both games nilled their opposition.

We are not suggesting that they will beat Fev, but there is absolutely no room for complacency and we sincerely hope none of our team think that it is going to be easy.

 

Milestones

Congratulations to Craig Hall (300 career appearances) and Thomas Minns (100 career appearances) who achieved significant milestones at Sheffield last weekend. In the same match, Dane Chisholm took his tally of points for Fev past 350.

There are a several milestones for other players that are getting close. One try for Brad Day would take him to 50 career tries and 200 career points. Two tries for Josh Hardcastle would take him to 50 and 200 points (all for Fev).

For a full list of impending player milestones look at the index on the right of this page and there is a link to the ‘Fev Squad 2021: Complete Stats’ page and you will find them at the bottom of the page.

 

A new possible Fev team record

The win at Sheffield meant that we had won the first seven league this season which is equal to the second best ever achieved in our history by a Fev team. 

If win on Sunday at Halifax, and follow that up with victories against Bradford (June 13^th) and Dewsbury (June 20^th) that would break the record which was set at eight matches in 2010. 

That would be a terrific achievement for this Rovers team.