fevnut's musings #26: Positions, Scrums and Milestones

Positions

Once upon a time you used to get hold of a teamsheet or listen to it being read out and the order of the players told you what position they were playing in.

Fans appreciation of the structure of play was also greatly assisted by the fact that the number on the back of the shirt also told you which position they were in.

Now, let’s be clear, we are not amongst those who thinks that everything was better in days gone by. For a start, the move to summer in 1996 has been a huge benefit to the sport and the spectators. But sadly the changes to squad numbers and misleading teamsheets certainly do not benefit spectators.

In the last few days Mark las Palmas and fevnut have been working through the actual line-up at kick-off of the Rovers team and we have altered our records accordingly.

Some examples:

1)   Gareth Gale has regularly appeared on the teamsheet in the left wing position despite the fact that he has played every game on the right.

2)   Centres are placed on the teamsheet in an apparently random fashion rather than having the right centre listed first followed by the left centre.

3)   The above comment about centres also applies to second rows.

So, now on our ‘Fixtures, Teams, Results and Trophies’ page you will find the team listed for each match in the positions that they occupied at the start of the game. Of course, there is no way the listings can take account of shuffles brought about by injuries and substitutions.

Now, with the correct team lists you can see which centre was paired with which winger and which second row is in that partnership.

That still leaves a conundrum concerning half-backs. With no scrums this year the difference between a scrum-half and a stand-off has become almost meaningless.

 

Scrums

Will scrums be brought back?

Yes, rugby league scrums tend to be a bit shambolic. Long gone are the days when the ball went into the scrum between the front-rows and the hooker needed particular skills to ensure that the ball was won.

At least scrums in rugby league don’t lead to the interminable stoppages that is normal in union.

We do want to see scrums back. Shambolic as they might be there are a few reasons why we believe they provide a benefit to our sport.

First, however briefly, they tie up the forwards leaving the backs more room.

Second, they provide a golden opportunity for coaches and skilful players to devise exciting set plays. We remember some stellar moves from Deryck Fox and Danny Baker, in particular.

Third, they provide a good contrast to the non-stop play-the-balls that we have at the moment. Variety is good! And they also enable a short breather. It’s great that rugby league is such a fast sport but it is beneficial to give players brief moments of respite. The sport is fast enough already without constantly trying to make it even faster.

 

Milestones

Last weekend it was back to Craig Hall racking up two more milestones. Against Halifax he kicked his 100^th goal for Fev and also went past 300 points for the Rovers.

Ben Blackmore took his total of points for Fev past 150 and Dane Chisholm’s first try was his 400^th point for Rovers.

Congratulations to all three of them.

To see other milestones that are getting close find the link on the right of this page to the ‘Fev Squad 2021: Complete Stats’ page and scroll down to the milestones section on there.

Although our milestones deal with the records for individual players there is also a big team milestone on the horizon. So far this season Fev have scored 967 points so 33 needed to hit the 1,000!