fevnut's musings 2023/#15: Winning sequences, 12,000 tries, Daniel Smith's new career and Golden Point

   

 Winning League Sequences

Having won our first 12 Championship matches this year, it was no surprise when we got asked “Is this a record?”.

Fev’s record for the longest run winning league records stands at 17, a figure achieved twice and both within fairly recent times. 

As you can see both of these were achieved over two seasons. The 2011-2012 run came to end with a crazy match in which 100 points were scored when we lost 60-40 at home to Sheffield Eagles. The 2020-2021 run ended when we were beaten 23-6 by Toulouse Olympique, also at home. That run lasted for over a year but it isn’t as good as that sounds because, of course, the 2020 season ended after 4 league matches because of the Covid pandemic.

It's a bit ironic that both those runs ended with defeats to clubs that appear to be our strongest rivals in the Championship this year.

Looking closely at the 2020-21 run you will see that we won the first 13 league matches of the season. That stands as the Rovers record for the start of a league campaign and this year we are currently on 12 so, if we beat Barrow on Sunday we will equal that record and have the chance to beat it against Toulouse the following Saturday!

To equal the 17 match winning run we need to beat Barrow (13), Toulouse (14), London (15) all at home, followed by York (16) and Whitehaven (17) both away. If, and its’s a big if, we do that then we could set a new record on July 9^th when we play Swinton at home.

Beating Barrow

 

Our thanks go to Dale Fennell, who responded to fevnut’s posting of the history of matches against Barrow by pointing out that two of Fev’s most significant wins came against them.

On May 13th 1967 we beat them 17-12 at Wembley to win the Challenge Cup for the first time. 

Then, ten years later, on 20th April 1977, we won 7-5 at Barrow. What was so significant about that? It was the result that made Fev the Rugby League Champions! What a season that was! We still had one more match to go and ended up winning the league by five clear points, having scored the most points and conceded the least.

The 12,000^th Fev try 

Surely, Fev will score at least 2 tries against Barrow on Sunday. And, when we do, let’s get ready to give a huge cheer to whoever gets the second try for it will be the 12,000th try scored by Fev since they became a professional club at the start of 1921-22 season.

 

 

Watching Old Matches

The other day we switched on the television and saw that Sky were about to start showing the highlights from a 2002 match between Leeds and Bradford. It was an excellent game and we were amazed at the Fev connections. Just look at the line-ups.

What do you see? Two future Fev coaches and two future Fev assistant coaches! For anyone who has only very recently started supporting Fev, let’s name them. The coaches are Andy Hay and Brian McDermott and the assistants are Ryan Sheridan and, of course, Leon Pryce. But it doesn’t end there. Early on in the game the camera pans over to the Leeds coach and it’s Daryl Powell!

Additionally, the Bradford team includes a future England and Great Britain captain who made his first grade début playing for Rovers in 1998, on loan from Bradford. That, of course is Jamie Peacock. And then, there's Paul Sykes in there for Leeds and Sean Richardson for Bradford.

 

Daniel Smith

We were very surprised to see Daniel Smith lining up to take the first kick at goal. Obviously it had been decided that it wouldn’t be Chris Hankinson on his return and none of our other usual kickers were there. No Riley Dean, nor Craig Hall, nor Mark Kheirallah. That should have been time for Jack Bussey to step up but he had already left the pitch for an HIA.

When Daniel took the tee, we turned to a friend and said that we didn’t recall him ever kicking a goal before but not having our computer records with us we couldn’t be certain. When we got home we checked and there was no record of him ever having kicked a goal but just to be sure we did message Daniel for a final check and he confirmed that he had never taken a goal kick before in a professional match.

Although not with his first attempt but with his second he joined the ranks of the players who have kicked goals. Not many do that at the age of 30 and in their 181st career appearance.

No offence to either Jack or Daniel both of whom who we admire greatly but we do hope Fev will be able to have a regular kicker in the team on Sunday.

 

 

Golden Point

It takes a lot for us to feel sorry for either Leeds Rhinos or Hull Kingston Rovers but we most certainly did last week when they were both beaten in ‘Golden Point Extra Time’. In the case of Leeds the Wigan drop goal was scored in the very last moments of extra time and if that attempt had failed it would have resulted in the Game being registered as a draw.

We understand the use of Golden Point Extra Time in knock-out matches. We don’t like it, but we understand why it needs to be used. But, what on earth is wrong with a draw in league matches? It is a fair result when the teams finish level after 80 minutes, and it must be awful for the losing team who battled away for eighty minutes and then get no reward at all

We’ve heard it said that it is the television companies that want it. Can you imagine the furore if they tried to tell the powers that be in soccer that they wanted a ‘Golden Goal’ period of extra time when the teams are level after 90 minutes.

Thank goodness it doesn’t apply in the Championship so we don’t get subjected to a ten minute farce between two exhausted teams. But hang on a moment, if all goes well, it might apply to us next year.

Just get rid of this monstrosity and award a drawn game with an honourable one point to each team!