Rugby à Treize
What a fantastic achievement it has been for the two French clubs plying their trade in the English leagues. They have suffered huge problems and costs this year because of the travel restrictions resulting from the pandemic but on Monday morning Catalans Dragons were to be found perched at the top of the Super League table and Toulouse Olympique at the top of the Championship table.
We are, of course, hoping that Toulouse don’t stay at the top, but we would love to see Catalans finish the season in their current position. Super League is suffering from sterility as a result of a tiny handful of clubs dominating the competition every year and it would be very good to see a different club breaking the mould. We have personal reasons for regarding Catalans as our favourite SL team having spent quite a lot of time in and around Perpignan and it’s a fabulous area to visit.
Here in England, it is part of the mentality of rugby league supporters to have a siege mentality and that is totally understandable. It’s been a part of our heritage ever since the 1895 break away, compounded by the way our sport has been treated by the other code and by the establishment and media.
We,
rightly, feel indignant about the way we have been treated but it has been far
worse for the sport in France. Not least, because the Vichy government (controlled by the Nazis during the war) actually banned rugby league completely and
confiscated all the clubs’ assets. Still, to this day, they have never received any
compensation.
There
are signs of improvement and the decision of Stade Toulousain (the Toulouse
rugby union club and multiple European champions) to welcome Toulouse Olympique
into a ground share arrangement at the Stade Ernest-Wallon is a good omen for
the future.
Ironically,
last time we went to a match in Toulouse a group of us got on a bus that went near
to the stadium Olympique were playing at and we asked the driver to tell us when
we got there. The bus got to a stop and he told us this was the right place.
Off we got only to find that he had dropped us off near the rugby union ground
and we ended up having a mad scramble to get to the right stadium in time for
kick-off! We shouldn’t have that problem again.
The RFL Website
The
changes to the RFL website are beginning to make it look a bit better but it
still has appalling inaccuracies. Last week they reported that in our match
against Bradford Bulls Craig Hall kicked 5 goals and Gareth Gale. That must
come as quite a surprise to Craig and even more so to Gareth!
Perhaps
the RFL should link up with the Rugby League Record Keepers Club and use the
services of people who know what they are talking about to supply them with
accurate information.
Sunday: Dewsbury v Fev
We have our ticket and we’ll
be there for the 170th contest between us (Hull KR are the only club
we have played more often).
This year it should be a
very special day as Fev aim to set a new club record for successive wins at the
start of a league competition. Against Bradford we equalled the best in our 100
years taking the 2021 start up to 8 wins out of 8, so won’t it be great to set a
new record by taking that to 9. Let’s see how far we can get.
RL rules
In ‘fevnut’s musings’
back in April we wrote about how much we were opposed to the new ball steal
rule. At the time we said that it put an intolerable burden on referees to
judge on the timing of players ‘falling off the tackle’ to allow one player to
steal the ball.
Now they have decided, thank goodness, to revert to the old rule whereby the ball can only be stolen if there has only been one player making the tackle. And the reason they give for the change is exactly what we wrote in April.
But, why on earth have they announced that we will go back to the old rule in 2022. Why not do it now and have done with a stupid rule immediately?!
Craig Hall
Congratulations to Craig Hall for kicking his 400th career goal during the match against Bradford. When we calculate career goals we include conversions, penalties and drop goals and his total is now 404. With 4 drop goals in his career he ended up getting to 400 just in place-kicks and he has a 75% success rate.
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