fevnut's musings 2023/#26: Keighley, Doncaster Rovers and Sheffield
Keighley
If we win on Sunday, then we will be on 42 points and that would pretty
well guarantee us the League Leaders Shield. Of course, what really matters is
what happens in the play-offs.
Aside from that, it will be very interesting to see the way Fev play on
Sunday. Will they continue to develop along the lines of the huge improvement
at Sheffield.
One thing we don’t expect is for us to break our record for the highest
points we have ever scored in a match against Keighley. That was in a Yorkshire
Cup match in 1989 and we won 86-18. Chris Bibb equalled the Fev record for
tries in a match (6) and Mark Knapper set a new Fev record for goals in a match
(13). fevnut was at that match and we wonder how many others at the game on
Sunday were also there 34 years ago.
An important consequence of that game was the two try performance of
Owen Simpson for Keighley which led to Fev signing him.
Doncaster Rovers
No, we haven’t decided to start writing about the 11 a-side sport in
which most players get penalised for handling.
Let’s pose a question. How many forwards are there in a rugby league’s
13? Usually the answer given is six, but we choose to differ. A few weeks ago,
we talked about the changing role of so-called hookers and how hookers nowadays
are really one of three halfbacks rather than a forward. So, as far as we are
concerned, the answer to the question above really should be five rather than
six.
That preamble was stimulated by us noticing the Doncaster team sheet for
their away match against Workington Town on July 30th. When we looked at it, we
had to look a second time to make sure we were correct in what we thought we
had noticed.
Here is their starting pack that day.
Notice something? Yes, every single one of them is an ex-Fev player! And
that is without Luke Cooper who has spent most of the season on loan with
Doncaster and has played 14 matches for them since the end of March.
Those five forwards are not the full quota of ex-Fev players appearing
for Doncaster that day. Misi Taulapapa was playing at centre and Watson Boas
was on the bench. Another substitute was Albert Vete who, of course, played two
games for Fev (on loan from Castleford) this season.
Sheffield
Last Friday we drove down to Sheffield full of interest to see how our
lads would play after the changes to our coaching set-up. We thought that we
might see a bit of a change of style but thought it was far too early to see
really significant difference.
As Sheffield were sitting third in the table it seemed to us to be a
good test of the morale of the players and the effectiveness of structural
changes.
Well, we were more than satisfied with what we saw. It was by no means
perfect but it was a huge improvement on our recent form. We had still been
grinding out wins in most games but our performances had been a long, long way,
short of the way we were playing at the start of the season when we looked like
a super league ready squad.
After the excellent start, we struggled a bit at home to Bradford even
though we won 26-12 and then came the loss to Halifax in the Challenge Cup. After
that we rarely saw glimpses of the team that had begun the year so well.
What had changed? Obviously, injuries had become a problem, but there
also seemed to be a big loss of confidence. The accuracy, speed and timing of
passes was missing. Our best strike weapons (Gareth Gale and Luke Briscoe) were
rarely getting the passes they needed.
More and more we seemed to have become dependant on Connor Jones and he
rarely failed. Considering the number of minutes he actually was spending on
the pitch his try scoring rate was almost miraculous.
We left Sheffield with a broad smile on our face. We got much more improvement than we were expecting and at last it made us start to feel some optimism again.
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