fevnut's musings 2023/#08: Swinton game, Academies and the RFL website
There’s a been a lot of pondering at
fevnut mansion this week and the vast majority has been about how best to
express our feelings on the subjects we wanted to write about without appearing
to be too negative. The time has come when we need to put fingers to keyboard,
so here goes!
The Swinton game
It was the second shocker in a row.
It’s been interesting reading Fev fans comments about it on social media and
they seem to divide into two camps. Most have been highly critical, particular
of how often we spilled the ball, and the rest saying “a win is a win”.
Yes, it was a win, but surely people
realise that if we were to play like that against the top teams in the Championship,
we would stand little chance of winning.
We did wonder whether someone had put
out some spray for players’ hands which was meant to help them hold onto the
ball but accidentally put out the wrong cans and gave them some lubricant by
mistake!
Joking apart we felt that the dropped
balls were only a part of the problem. At the start of the season, we were making
a great deal of flowing, slick moves which were beautiful to watch. But playing
like that requires skilled timing of passes and being in the best place and
situation to take the pass.
So often on Sunday, even when the
pass was taken, the receiving player was stationary and seemed perplexed as to
what he should do with the ball once he had received it.
We are perplexed as to what has
happened and hope very much that Sean and the coaching staff can correct this
very quickly. One factor that we do believe to be an issue was the fact that we
were missing Johnathon Ford. He is a master at timing passes in such a manner as
to give the receiver the best opportunity of being productive with it. Don’t
get us wrong – we think that Thomas Lacans is a very promising youngster but
both he and Riley Dean are comparative inexperienced. They will learn, but they
both seem a little bit lost without an older, wiser head to guide them.
Another issue that we wanted to
mention is that Swinton were a much better team than most Fev fans expected.
After all they were bolstered by no less than 5 players from Super League teams
- 3 on dual reg from Saints (Wes Bruines, George Delaney and Dan Norman) and 2
on loan from Salford (Ryan Lannon and James Greenwood). So, taking that into
consideration, at least we can be happy with our defence only conceding the one
try.
Academies and Scholarships
That brings us on to the whole issue
of academies and scholarships.
We watched the game last week between
St Helens and Hull. We were struck by the fact that the four St Helens tries
were scored by Ben Davies (aged 22), Jon Bennison (aged 20) and two from Jack
Welsby (aged 22 – just: it was his birthday).
The fact that Super League teams
hoover up the majority of young talent is the prime reason why we have dual reg
and the sheer number of loans nowadays. It is NOT designed for the benefit of
Championship and League One teams. It has been developed in order to use the
lower league clubs to assist in the development of THEIR younger players.
It got us thinking about how players used
to predominantly be signed by their local club but now, at a very young age, as
soon as they show talent they are signed up by the big clubs.
We started thinking about the
succession of young, local players who came through our own structures and
progressed at an early age into the first team but would probably have been
snapped up by Leeds or Wigan, Saints or Warrington if the organisation of rugby
league now had been in existence when they were coming through. They probably would
have never got to play for Featherstone.
Here's just a few of the many that
come into that category.
Stuart Dickens, début at 17 and 421 appearances for Fev.
Deryck Fox, début at 18 and 353 appearances for Fev.
Don Fox, début at 18 and 368 appearances for Fev.
Paul Newlove, début at 17 and 150 appearances for Fev.
Jamie Rooney, début at 18 and 121 appearances for Fev.
Peter Smith, début at 18 and 419 appearances for Fev.
Jimmy Thompson, début at 17 and 282 appearances for Fev.
Of course, Deryck Fox, wasn’t a local
lad (he's from Dewsbury) but he was spotted by Fev while playing in the amateur ranks.
Do you think we would have had a chance of signing a youngster like that nowadays?!
If IMG were really wanting to look at
improving the health of rugby league, the issue of academies and scholarships
and the funding to support them throughout the professional clubs.
We believe that one of the greatest
dangers to the sport is the fact that in the last 27 years there have only been
4 clubs who have been crowned as champions. It’s getting so uncompetitive and a
disincentive to the health of the sport.
We are no great fans of aping
Australian and American sporting structures but at least they do things in such
a way in the NRL and NFL that there is much greater opportunity for a club to
become their champions.
RFL website
How can anyone take rugby league in this country seriously when our own governing body’s website is so awful. It ought to be the first port of call for accurate information but it seems to be put together by people who know nothing about rugby league.
Where would you go to check out rugby league rules? Would you believe it, this appears currently under the heading of ‘Laws of the Game’. It's years and years out of date.
Number and Naming of Players 3.
For ease of identification, players’ clothing must bear the numbers 1 to 13
with
Additional numbers for the
substitutes. The numbers relate to the positions of the players in their
respective teams,
These positions being referred to
by name and number as set out hereunder.
Backs
(1) Full Back
(2) Right Wing
(3) Right Centre
(4) Left Centre
(5) Left Wing
(6) Stand-off
(7) Scrum Half
Forwards
(8) Prop
(9) Hooker
(10) Front Row Forward
(11) Second Row Forward
(12) Second Row Forward
(13) Loose Forward
The
match centre is hopeless with many errors every week. Over the last couple of
years there have been literally hundreds of mistakes both in the team line-ups
and the scorers. Just one example: Dewsbury beat Midlands 50-10 in the
Challenge Cup. It lists 8 try scorers for Dewsbury and 8 goal kicks. That doesn’t
add up to 50!
We've seen team line-ups with props apparently playing at scrum half, wingers at loose forward etc..
The
fixtures for the 4th round of the challenge cup have now, at long
last, been posted but when we looked on Wednesday March 22nd for the
ties it stated that there were “no fixtures matching your search” when the draw was actually made on March 15th!
It’s
another issue that IMG should be making sure is sorted out.
It’s been a bit negative this week but we still love Rugby League and always will. No matter how bad things might be sometimes we will never walk away.
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