fevnut's musings #02: York Community Stadium, Chizzy's appeal and Challenge Cup draw

 

The York Community Stadium

The game was great. In fact we would have found it great under almost any circumstances other than losing because it was watching a proper game after the months of deprivation.

Congratulations are definitely due to the developers of the stadium because, watching from the side, the view was excellent and made it very easy to see all the action both from the point of view of sightlines and the very good coverage of the pitch from the floodlights (unlike another stadium we all know!). What it was like watching from behind the sticks we don’t know but suspect that the lack of height of the North Stand might well have made it difficult from a perspective point of view with action at the far end.

There were a couple of gripes, though. Having a ground in a huge shopping centre makes it very difficult to find the way to the correct car park, especially when your mobility is limited. The club were great and reserved us a place in the car park near our tickets for the East Stand nut finding our way to that car park was a different matter. It really does need far better signposting all the way from the A64 to the shopping centre and then clear signposting to the car parks. It might have been easier in daylight but, in the dark, it was a nightmare. The other gripe was the cost of food from the outlets within the stadium but that is nothing unusual.

 

 

Chizzy

We were very relieved to see that, at the second attempt, the RFL got the verdict right on the allegation against Dane.

We have seen suggestions that justice was done but in our view it most certainly wasn’t. The original decision of an 8 match ban was utterly ridiculous and left very big concerns at the process. It was basically a case of deemed guilty unless innocence can be proved which goes against all British concepts of justice.

The fact is that the team’s pre-season preparation was messed up by the original 8 match ban and there can be no doubt that it has produced huge stress for Dane and his family.

It would be bad enough for anyone to be wrongly accused, and found guilty, of using language which was discriminatory against people who have physical or mental disabilities but we are well aware of the excellent contribution that Dane has made in going out of his way to be supportive of such people.

This episode should not be allowed to end with the appeal. There needs to be an enquiry to determine how the appalling original verdict came about. Then there should be changes to the procedures to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.

We applaud the RFL’s stance against the use of discriminatory language in all its forms but they need to make absolutely sure that they are not inviting either malicious or false accusations.

 

Challenge Cup Draw

fevnut will never shirk from taking the RFL to task where it is deserved but this week we have read some exceedingly ignorant and pathetic accusations that the draw for the 4^th round of the Challenge Cup must have been was subject to ‘skulduggery’ because of the number of all Championship ties.

The structure of the competition meant that there were 14 Championship teams in the draw, entering the competition for the first time, and just 6 League One or amateur teams.

If you think about it for a moment you would realise that there had to be an absolute minimum of 8 Championship clubs being drawn against other Championship teams. So, that said, let’s think about the other balls in the bag. Apart from the 4 all-Championship ties there would have been 12 balls to be drawn, 6 from the Championship and the 6 lower teams.

Let’s assume that a ball for a Championship team is drawn. Their opposition has to come from one of the 11 remaining balls (5 Championship and 6 other) so there is a 5 out of 11 chance (45%) that there will be a fifth all championship tie, which is what actually happened.

In fact, when that does happen, that would leave 4 Championship balls and 6 others. So take out another Championship ball and there is still a 3 out of 9 (33%) chance of a 6^th all-Championship tie. That's certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility.

In statistics generally it is taken that if an event occurs with a less than 5% chance of occurring randomly then there is some (unproven) evidence of something untoward going on.

There was absolutely nothing in the outcome of the 4^th round draw to suggest that anything whatsoever was going on other than the natural chance occurrences from such a draw!

 

Milestones

Many congratulations to Craig Hall, who kicked his 500th career goal against York on Monday and to Luke Briscoe who passed 350 career points.

 

And congratulations too, to three players who were awarded their Featherstone Rovers Heritage Numbers on Monday: Brandon Pickersgill (1,135), Jesse Sene-Lefao (1,136) and Morgan Smith (1,137). They will receive their framed Heritage Certificates at the end of season awards evening.