fevnut's musings #03: Rugby League family game, West Wales and Dual Reg

The Rugby League Family

When people talk of ‘The Rugby League Family’ they are most often referring to the way we come together to support those having problems and the most recent notable example is the support for Rob Burrow.

But we think there is another side to this. When we go to Fev’s home matches in particular it is great to watch the team, hopefully winning and playing well, but there is also a very strong social aspect to it. It is the meeting up with friends and watching the match together with them. It just wouldn’t be quite such a wonderful experience without having Mick and John, David and Steph, and Austin, Nigel, Frank, Len, Jane and Terry and Pat to share the occasion with. Some of those we have been sitting next to or near to for the best part of 30 years!

Sadly we ended last season with four successive away matches and then started this year away again. Then the first home game gets postponed and the next 2 Championship matches are away. So you can imagine the cheer that went up in this house when we watched the Challenge Cup draw and Fev came out with a home tie. We didn’t care who it was against, all we wanted was to be at home.

It will have been 169 days between home matches and that really is too much to bear! Yes, there have been pre-season games but they don’t really count. It’s never the same when winning doesn’t matter.

Of course, travelling to away matches is great and we get to everyone we possibly can, including trips to Canada and France in recent years. That’s a different experience and a very good one. But it’s not quite as magical as sitting in the stand at Fev surrounded by friends!

Dual Reg and Toronto

We see that in the last week Toronto Wolfpack and Rochdale Hornets have announced a dual reg partnership. No real surprise their because, when the Wolfpack are in England, they share a training facility at Hopwood Hall College in Rochdale.

Given the well-publicised fact that Toronto only have 23 contracted players at the moment it looks unlikely that Rochdale will get much opportunity to include Toronto players in their squad. We do wonder, therefore, whether we will see a new aspect to dual reg. With League One clubs only playing 20 league games in the year and consequently having a few clear weekends then maybe there will be an opportunity for a few Rochdale players to get a taste of Super League rugby. No inside information, just a bit of guesswork!

West Wales Raiders

We are having more and more doubts as to whether this club should be within the professional ranks. They are now into their third season under this club name (there are strong links to the previous South Wales Scorpions/Ironmen club) and in all that time they have managed just one win.

Last weekend they played host Huddersfield amateur side Underbank Rangers in the Challenge Cup with most pundits rating Underbank as the favourites. Yes, amateur teams do occasionally beat professional sides in the cup but it says something when the amateur side are expected to win. Not only did Underbank win but they did so pretty easily by 30 points to 8 in front of an estimated crowd of 50! Usually first outings of the season attract above average gate, probably for the reasons we wrote about under ‘The Rugby League Family’.

Is this really the best way to develop rugby league in West Wales? One of the oft cited reasons for expansion clubs is to provide amateur players in the area with something to aspire to. But do people aspire to play for a club like this? In all honesty it makes a mockery of ‘professional’ ruby league. Yes, 2019 was a little better than 2018 but it could hardly fail to be when you remember that in 2018 they lost every single game, conceded an average of 81 points per game and had at least 100 points scored against 7 times.

West Wales are so poor that we suspect any one of the 11 amateur sides who made it through to the 3rd round could have beaten them.

Away at Bradford (Dewsbury)

Fev’s travelling support is excellent but we have a sneaking suspicion that one or two will either miss or arrive late for Sunday’s game. What are the odds that someone will forget that Bradford are playing at Dewsbury this year and they will turn up to find Odsal locked up?

We have remembered and will be travelling to Dewsbury but have to admit that when we first looked at the fixture list, for a moment, we thought of freezing at Odsal in February.

Mind you we will be hoping for some decent weather because it can get mighty cold at the Tetley’s Stadium. Memories of our game there in February 2013 when we all froze and Liam Finn telling us that he ha never felt so cold. He was, at least running around, whilst we were just sitting or standing as the frostbite threatened to set in!

Sunday's Referee: Bradford v Fev

Sunday's referee is the only one refereeing professional matches who comes from the Southern Referees Society.

Matt Rossleigh had charge of just one Fev match last year (but 5 in 2018). And that one included one terrible decision but if one is to be fair the blame for that lies with the touch judge.

T'Other Side: Bradford Bulls

2020 Matches

2019 Matches

FIRST TEAM SQUAD

LAST TIME OUT

Head Coach: John Kear

John Kear is probably the most experienced head coach in this country. His career began at Bramley in 1992 and since then he has held the position at Paris Saint Germain (1995-96), Sheffield Eagles (1997-99), Huddersfield-Sheffield Giants (2000), Hull FC (2005-06), Wakefield Trinity (2006-11), Batley Bulldogs (2011-16) and Bradford Bulls from 2018. And on the international scene he has also been head coach to France, England, Great Britain and Wales (where he has led them to qualification for the 2021 World Cup).

Two matches in his coaching career really stand out in the memory. The first, of course, has to be the shock Challenge Cup win for Sheffield over Wigan at Wembley in 1998. The most dramatic came in 2006. He took over at Wakefield who looked completely doomed to relegation but he led them to four wins in their last 6 matches ending with a shock win over Castleford in the last match resulting in escape from relegation at the expense of Castleford.

That was somewhat ironical because John Kear’s entire playing career was at Castleford, mainly as a winger, from 1978 to 1988.

And, last year, he was at it again when his Bradford team knocked Leeds out of the Challenge Cup.

Captain: Steve Crossley

Steve Crossley took over as Bradford captain in 2019. His first grade career began with hometown club Bradford Bulls in 2010 with 7 off-the-bench appearances. During the following year he played for Dewsbury Rams on dual reg as well as making further appearances for the Bulls. In 2012 he signed for Dewsbury and moved onto Fev for the 2013 and 2014 seasons. In 2015 he signed for Castleford but in April transferred back to Bradford. He spent the 2017 season with Toronto and then for 2018 yet again (for the 4th time!) came back to the Bulls. He is an out and out prop forward, every one of his 139 career appearances in the starting line-up having been at prop. Including sub appearances he has played 213 games. He has the remarkable record, especially for a prop forward of never having been either sin-binned or sent off.

New Signings for 2020

This year Bradford have signed Sam Barlow, prop who has been out of the game having received a four year ban dating from November 2015 after an ‘altercation’ with a UK doping official. He made his first grade début with Sheffield Eagles in 2009. He joined Halifax in 2011 and during 2013 came on loan to Fev from Halifax. He then joined Leigh in 2014 and was there when he received his ban.

Matty Dawson-Jones, wing, who was born in Pontefract, has been signed from Hull FC. He is a prolific try scorer who started with Huddersfield in 2012 and had a loan spell with Doncaster in 2013. In 2014 he joined Saint Helens where he remained until being transferred to Leigh in July 2016. Whilst at Saint Helens he played for Rochdale on dual reg in both 2014 and 2015. He then joined Hull FC last year but after playing in the 1st game of the season sat out the rest of the year with a knee injury. In 2018 he had been Leigh’s 2nd highest try scorer with 18 tries beaten only by the 21 scored by … Craig Hall!

Anthony England, prop, has joined Bradford from Wakefield. He made his début for Castleford but then returned to the amateur game before joining Batley from Dewsbury Celtic in June 2008. In 2009 he re-joined Castleford but didn’t play in the 1st team and went on loan to Gateshead Thunder. In 2010 he moved to Dewsbury and after 2 seasons there he spent 2 years at Fev. That was followed by 2 years at Warrington (2014 and 2015) and during 2014 he played once for Swinton on dual reg. He moved to Wakefield in 2017.

Greg Johnson, wing, has joined Bradford after 6 seasons at Salford. He started with Wakefield in 2011 but his contract was terminated when he received a prison sentence. In 2013 he joined Batley and then moved to Salford in 2014. He played for Jamaica in 2010.

Levy Nzoungou, prop, was born in the Congo and moved to France at the age of eight. He was at the Saint Helens academy in 2015 and 2016 and then had a few months with the Melbourne Storm Academy in 2017. He returned to France with Toulouse in 2017 where he made his professional début. In 2018 he joined Salford but only played 3 games spending most of the year at Whitehaven (loan), Oldham (dual reg) and Swinton (loan). Last year he joined Hull FC but just made 1 sub appearance and spent most of the year at Doncaster on dual reg.. In 2016 he played for the France U18 team.

Dan Waite-Pullan, second row, was a late addition to the Bradford squad when he joined from Leeds in mid-January. Last year he played 7 games on loan for Dewsbury.

Dual Registration and Loans

The Bulls have signed a dual registration agreement with Hull FC but no Hull players have played for Bradford on dual so far.

In the Bulls squad are two Hull KR players on loan. Rowan Milnes, stand-off, was actually signed by Hull KR after 2 years at Bradford during the off-season but has been loaned back to them. Adam Rooks, second row,

The Fev Connection

Transfers between Bradford and Featherstone have been fairly frequent in the past and one such is Dane Chisholm who moved to Fev last April, on loan, and then permanently in May. Dale Ferguson played for Bradford from 2014 to 2016 and Brett Ferres spent the first two years (2005 and 2006) at Bradford.

There are 7 members of the current Bradford squad who have worn the Featherstone shirt. Sam Barlow played 9 games on loan in 2013. Steve Crossley was a stand-out player who made 51 appearances for Fev in 2013 and 2014. Anthony England was at Fev in 2012 and 2013 and Connor Farrell was a regular member of the Rovers team in 2018 after coming on loan from Wigan in July 2017. George Flanagan was also a Rovers player in 2014. Jordan Lilley played for Fev on dual reg in 2016 and 2018. There is also Dan Waite-Pullan (see new signings) who never played a competitive match for Fev but did play in the pre-season game against York this year.

Past Matches against Bradford

Matches between Fev and Bradford have seen both one of our greatest triumphs (the Challenge Cup win at Wembley in 1973) and the highest number of points Fev have ever conceded in a match (Challenge Cup Round 4, 2005), a year in which Bradford won the Super League Grand Final and Fev were relegated to National League 2.

In Fev's first season as a professional club we did the double over Bradford, including winning 17-3 at Bradford in our very first game on August 27th, 1921.

LAST TIME

Fev v Halifax: 21 man squads

Fev and Halifax have both now announced their 21 man squads for Sunday. 

We have placed the players into positions with guess work. Usually we take into account previous matches but that is difficult after only one round has been played so there is more even more guess work involved!

fevnut's musings #02: At last!, Championship Round One and A Great Initiative

At last!

That horrible time of the year, euphemistically known, as the ‘off-season’ is over and we are once again able to enjoy (most of the time) watching our beloved Fev in a proper match. Of course, we would have preferred it had we began the season at our own wonderful ground but that thrill is coming soon, very soon. Anyway, we started at Batley and we almost always enjoy trips there. Nice traditional ground and the never ending discussions about the effect of the mountainous slope between the ends.

Anyone just looking at the 38-18 score might think that we had it easy but those many Fev fans who were there know that it certainly wasn’t a simple win. Batley held their own for a large part of the game and even held the lead for a time in the first half before Luke Briscoe’s try brought it level at halftime. We wonder how often we will see Luke this year. Of all the Leeds dual reg players he is the one who we feel is really ours.

The team selection was a bit perplexing to us. Don’t get us wrong, we rate young McLelland very highly but we would have thought that James Webster would have played Jouffret alongside Chizzy. The success of the team this year, and possibly on into next year, depends upon Jouffret and Chizzy forging a strong partnership and the more game time they have together the stronger their combination will become. Bearing in mind that Chizzy is out for the next three games it seemed to us important to give them a run out together while we can.

Championship Round 1

No surprises in the results. We suspect that if you had asked people to predict the outcomes a very high percentage would have got them all correct.

The nearest we came to a surprise was Halifax, playing at home, having to come from behind to pip Sheffield by 1 point. Maybe we will find out on Sunday whether Halifax are weaker than we suspected or that Sheffield are going to pose more of a threat in 2020.

Did you watch the match between Toulouse and York on the ‘Our League App’? Last year we had a load of problems with the app and, in any case, we really don’t like watching matches on a computer screen. It’s bearable when it’s one of our own games on FevTV but not when it’s a match not involving Rovers. Nevertheless we thought we would try again and not only got the app working but also managed to connect our laptop to the television which resulted in a thoroughly enjoyable game to watch with outstanding picture quality. Let’s hope it’s a sign of things to come and with the regular televising of Championship and League One games this year it gives us all a great chance to see our competitors in action. It was a strange game with York looking as if they would win only to be taken apart in the last 15 minutes by Toulouse even though they were down to 12 men after Lloyd White had been justifiably sent off for a totally mind-blowingly stupid offence.

We are certainly going to have to play at our very best for 80 minutes in our games against Toulouse and London.

A Great Initiative

For a long time we have argued that the best way to get fans to truly commit to a club is to make them feel really involved. Davide Longo has stated how we really need to increase our fam base and attendance at matches.

This week brought an initiative that we have been wishing to see for a long time. Rovers TV published an interview with Greg Stebbings (our strength and conditioning coach) in which he went through the players in the squad who are out injured, what their injuries are, and how long they are likely to be out. That’s the way to make people involved and it’s also the way to stop the inevitable social media gossip about players falling out with the coach.

Well done, Fev. We hope this becomes a fairly regular feature. Let’s keep the fans informed about our players and their injuries.

Sunday's Referee: Fev v Halifax

Sunday's referee rose swiftly up the officials ranking and for a short time became a full-time referee taking charge of Super League matches. But then he decided he wanted to devote more time to his family and business and reverted to being a part-time referee.

On this page we only record official matches so it does not include the fact that he refereed our pre-season game against Leeds Rhinos last month.

Fev have an awful record with Jack Smith in charge, losing 7 out of 9 matches, grist to the mill of the conspiracy theorists!!