fevnut's musings 2023/#23: Batley and The French Connection (Fev version)

  

Batley

We are really looking forward to our match on Saturday. It has far more relevance to the outcome at the end of the season than any of our recent matches.

Of course, we are so far ahead in the Championship table that even a loss against Batley is unlikely to have much bearing on the final Championship table come September. The relevance of the match is because we will see how we are performing against one of the other play-off contenders.

Although we have only lost two of twenty matches in 2023, it would be hard to describe recent games as good performances, so let’s see if we can put it together against a dangerous Batley side. It would be a good morale boost for both the players and the fans.

In April, we beat them 26-18 at the Mount but Batley dominated the latter part of that match after we had been 18 points ahead going into the final 30 minutes.

We have just seen that Leeds Rhinos have recalled Luke Hooley from his loan spell with Batley and named him in their 21-man squad for their match on Friday against St. Helens. It is possible however that he doesn’t get included in the 17 which might make him available for Batley on Sunday.

It was great to see Batley win in the 1895 cup semis giving them their first ever opportunity to play at Wembley. Although they have won the Challenge Cup three times, those were all before the days when Wembley was the venue for Challenge Cup Finals. Their Challenge Cup triumphs came in 1897, 1898 and 1901 and Wembley wasn’t even built then!

Batley are a very well run, traditional Rugby League club and they definitely deserve to have their day out at Wembley.

 

The French Connection

Taking advantage of Fev not having a match last weekend, we decided to spend a few days in France. Whilst having a coffee at Manchester Airport we were thinking about the surprising number of players in our current squad that are either French or have strong French connections. Off the top of our head we came up with no less than eight!

There are the three actual French players: Thomas Lacans, Mathieu Cozza and Gadwin Springer (who is Fev’s only South American born player, coming originally from French Guiana).

Then there’s Dane Chisholm, who has a French mother and has played for France.

And then there are our players who have played for French clubs: Johnathon Ford, Mark Kheirallah, Chris Hankinson and Tyla Hepi.

Mark Kheirallah has played for France. He qualified on residential grounds having joined Toulouse Olympique in 2012 and remained there until he came to Fev last year.

Johnathon Ford could also have played for France, with a residential qualification, but he chose to keep playing for the Cook Islands, representing his heritage.

Tyla Hepi and Chris Hankinson have played for Toulouse. Hepi from 2016 to 2019 and Hankinson last year.

French players have served Rovers very well indeed ever since the first French signings. That was for the 1994/95 season and involved two players - Danny Divet and Freddie Banquet. Danny was a wonderful, slightly eccentric player who we loved to watch. Freddie was a youngster and although they both only played for the one season they certainly made their mark.

It was to be another ten years before we signed a Frenchman and in 2004 we again had two. Both Maxime Grèséque and Freddie Zitter arrived in mid-season after the French season had been completed. Freddie Zitter moved onto Barrow the following year. The club tried hard to keep Maxime after he had made such a big impression at scrum half, but sadly he went back to play, very successfully, for Pia.

In 2015 we signed Rémy Marginet (another halfback) but he had less impact than our earlier French signings and was used as a back-up to our regular half-back pairing of Paul Sykes and Gareth Moore.

For the aborted 2020 season we signed Louis Jouffret (stand-off) who had played for Batley in the previous two seasons. He made quite an impact in the 5 matches before Covid struck. The following year he went back to Whitehaven who had been his first English club and this year he is playing for Halifax.

Of the 2023 ‘French’ group, two have played for Fev previously – Dane Chisholm (2019-21) and Gadwin Springer (2021 and 2022).

Let’s return to our French trip last weekend. We stayed in Carcassonne and on Friday we decided to make a little Rugby League pilgrimage. As the grounds of ASC Carcassonne (the current cup holders) and the Limoux Grizzlies (French Elite Champions) were both within easy driving range we went to look at both their stadiums.

Carcassonne’s Stade Albert Domec was shut but we did manage to get a photo in front of their iconic arch entrance. And we could see the stadium and were able to think about it having been the home ground, at some point in their careers, for Danny Divet and Freddie Banquet.

Then, only a 20 mile drive to the Stade l’Aguille at Limoux where we were able to get in to the stadium and even walk across the pitch. Danny Divet was very much a stalwart of the Limoux club and Freddie Zitter also played for Limoux.

In the evening we decided to go for a meal in the magnificent old medieval Carcassonne Cité. 

We were wearing a Fev shirt and the waiter became very interested in it. It turned out that he is actually the hooker for the current Carcassonne team!

Great meal! Great day! Great memories!