fevnut's musings #16: No moanings, only celebrations!

     

Celebration

 

When we arrived home after the Newcastle match feeling very exuberant, we thought that the next edition of fevnut’s musings had to be completely free of moans and instead concentrate on celebration!

 

Gareth Gale 

Watching the way Gareth has developed this year has been such a joy for all of us. Gareth arrived rather late into the professional game when he joined us from Fev Lions last year.

The way he manages to scatter opposition defenders when he is heading to the try line is spectacularly awesome.

We’ve read several pieces from outside Featherstone referring to him as our young, very promising, winger. But, of course, he’s not a youngster being now 28 years old and in our mind that makes the way he has adapted to the professional game even more remarkable.

He is now sitting in first place in the list of Championship try scorers and after last Saturday he is not only top but well clear of the player in second place. Gareth has 18 tries whilst the next best has 12.

One of the strangest facets of Gareth’s try scoring exploits is that he has scored in all ten of our Championship matches and, despite playing in every game, he hasn’t scored in our three Challenge Cup matches or the 1895 Cup semi-final!

It was fantastic to see him equalling the Fev record for tries in a match and we were proud to put him on our ‘honours board’ for Fev players' match records (see this week’s fevnut special - https://fevblog452.blogspot.com/2021/06/a-fevnut-special-fevs-records-and-how.html).

Well done, Gareth. We do hope that you get to play in Super League next year, as long as that is with your hometown team!

 

Junior Moors 

What an incredible performance he gave us against Newcastle! Despite Gareth scoring 6 tries, League Express named Junior as man of the match and we believe that they were right to do so.

His power running at defenders is amazing to watch and his offloads are some of the best we have ever seen. There were several last week and we have watched the one to Josh Hardcastle, that led to one of Gareth’s tries, several times over and still can’t work out how he managed to get that one away.

Over recent years we have signed a number of ex-Super League forwards with known injury problems that have contributed very little to the Fev cause. We have to admit that the idea of Junior Moors playing for Fev was exciting but we were also worried that it might turn out to be another who would be unable to play at his best. How wrong we were!

 

Craig Hall

 

If we were to single out one player who has been consistently at the heart of our great form this year it would have to be Craig Hall.

He has become our Mr. Dependable. Whether he plays at fullback, wing or centre he fits in with astonishing ease, full of class and has the ability to make other players play better.

Add to that his speed and his skill to read play and intercept opposition passes reminds us of Garry Schofield.

In the Gareth Gale section (above) we referred to the second highest try scorer in the Championship being on 12 tries. That’s Craig.

 

The Big One

 

It’s now just a month away to a huge game. You may say to yourself that it’s not a month but just a fortnight to our appearance at Wembley but that is not what we are referring to.

Wembley will be a great day for Fev fans and we really hope and expect that we will come away with the 1895 Cup Trophy.

But in the bigger scheme of things, August 1^st is a much more important match. That is the day we play Toulouse.

We have really enjoyed handing out some big defeats to other Championship clubs this year but the game with Toulouse will be on a totally different level. We get goose bumps just at the thought of taking our place at Post Office Road for that match.

We have watched several Toulouse matches and, make no mistake, they are good, very good. We have watched all the Fev games and we are good, very good. So, bring it on!

 

Representative Games

The standard of rugby being played in the Championship over the last few years has grown better and better. 

Back in 1999 a match was arranged between a Northern Ford Premiership Select XIII and Villeneuve, the French Elite champions. Included in the NFP team were two Fev players (Matt Bramald and Asa Amone).

With no disrespect intended to that NFP Select team, a team selected from the best of this year's Championship players would be at a much higher level.

Wouldn’t it be great to give the best players in the Championship an opportunity to play a representative game for a Championship Select XIII? It couldn’t be against the French Champions because their season has already finished but  the best of the Championship could give the England Knights team a run for their money and we believe the best Championship players deserve a chance to play in a representative game.