Milestones
Time to note some more significant milestones achieved by Fev players
last weekend.
The big one was undoubtedly Captain Lockwood making his 200th
appearance for Rovers. Congratulation to James, a great member of the Fev squad
since he joined us from Dewsbury in 2012.
Ben Blackmore is a long way behind that but nevertheless congratulations
to him on playing his 50th game for Fev. He joined Fev from
Huddersfield in June 2014. After the 2015 season he moved to Sheffield
returning last year.
Craig Hall reached the total of 450 career goals but the big one is
still to come as he is still one short of his 200th career try.
If he plays on Saturday it will be Dane Chisholm’s 100th
career appearance.
Jake Sweeting
Jake is a perfect example of why we need to bring back ‘A’ teams as a
priority.
We just had a look at his situation in 2021. So far he has played in 2
games for Fev and he has played, on loan, one game each for Hunslet, York,
Castleford and Doncaster. That’s 6 games in all in which he has taken to the
field with 85 different ‘team mates’.
What sort of a way is that to develop a young talented player? We don’t
blame Fev. They are just trying to give him game time but the development of
youngsters involves learning how best to play with those around you.
It can't possibly help if you are in a constantly changing team.
This only goes to show the dereliction of care for developing players
brought about by some really stupid decisions made concerning proper pathways.
Treatment of referees
We really hate it when rugby league crowds start to shout ‘cheat’ at
referees. Of course we are passionate about our own clubs and tend to view
decisions from a naturally biased point of view.
We have been at so many matches where both sets of fans have
deemed the officials to be biased against them. It doesn’t take much
intelligence to see that that it is simply not possible!
Recently we were watching a match on television when the referee, who
was unsighted, sent a decision to the video referee to check on the grounding, indicating that he thought it was a try. The big screen showed the replays which
made it completely clear that it wasn’t a try and fans supporting the team that
had failed to score started screaming ‘Cheat’ at the officials before the final
decision had even been given simply because they didn’t like what they knew the
decision was going to be.
Of course referees make mistakes. Show us anyone in any walk of life who
doesn’t. But it is simple stupidity to suggest that every decision that goes
against you is because the referee is a cheat.
We have never forgotten a try scored by Fev many years ago with as big a
refereeing blunder as we have ever seen. In the build-up to the try Fev had a
forward pass, a knock on and the player who scored should have been ruled
offside. A few minutes later the opposition scored with what certainly appeared
to be a forward pass and a bunch of our fans started chanting ‘Cheat’ at the referee.
We’ve even heard fans shouting cheat at the referee for not ruling a
forward pass when the fans were behind the sticks at one end of the ground at
the incident occurred at the far end. Can anyone tell us how you can judge a
forward pass from there?!
Refereeing is a difficult job that most of us couldn’t and wouldn’t do.
It’s difficult enough without having to face abuse every week. We are amazed at
their willingness to carry on in such circumstances and we’d be in a fine
pickle if a whole load of referees thought that enough was enough and they decided to
give it up.
Let’s have some respect for those who do an exceedingly difficult job to
the best of their ability!
Abuse is neither funny or clever.
Alex Sutcliffe
We were delighted to hear that Alex has come back to Fev on loan
although we understand that it will probably a couple of weeks before he is fit
enough to play. In 2019 he scored 16 tries in 19 appearances for Fev and
thrilled us all.
Funny how things go. Very recently we were having to play John Davies or
Frankie Halton at centre because we were really short of fit backs. Now we seem
to be really strong in that area. Once Alex is fit, and assuming no further
injuries or suspensions James Webster will have the following list to choose
from:
Ben Blackmore
Dane Chisholm (included because of his 4 good games at fullback)
Jacob Doyle
Gareth Gale
Craig Hall
Josh Hardcastle
Harvey Spence
Alex Sutcliffe
Alex Walker
Kris Welham
We’re very glad that it is not us deciding who to leave out!
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