fevnut's musings 2024/#04: More Fixture Madness and 1895 Cup Fantasy

 

More Fixture Madness

A couple of weeks ago we wrote about how starting the season with 6 weeks of cup competition games opened up the possibility of clubs having a whole string of away matches with the consequential effects on both club and supporter finances. That is what has happened to Fev. Unless we win our Challenge Cup game at Keighley and then get drawn at home in the fifth round of the Challenge Cup we will be either into the eighth (with a home tie in the Challenge Cup Round 6) or ninth week of the season before have a match at home.

That’s one aspect of the problem but there is also another one that could be even more serious. What every club needs at the start of the season is regular matches to help the players and coaching staff settle into a proper game routine, and the importance of that has become even greater with so many clubs recruiting many more new players than used to be the case in the past.

Let’s look at the dire consequences for Fev should the unthinkable happen and we lose to Keighley on February 25^th. 

But this is not specifically about Fev but rather about the consequences of starting the season with so many cup fixtures. The actuality rather than possibility for several other clubs is dire. We took a look at how the fixture list pans out for other clubs and this is what we found:

Hunslet will go 3 weeks with no game on weeks 5 to 7

Newcastle Thunder will go 3 weeks with no game on weeks 5 to 7

Barrow Raiders will go 3 weeks with no game on weeks 3 to 6

North Wales Crusaders will go 4 weeks with no game on weeks 5 to 8

Dewsbury Rams will go 4 weeks with no game on weeks 4 to 7

So, why have the RFL decided to play the 1895 games so early in the season? There is no need for a rush. There is an eleven-week gap between the Quarter Finals (March 3rd) and the Semi-Finals (May 12th). That means it would have been perfectly plausible to space the 1895 Cup games better and avoid some of these alarming gaps between teams getting game time.

Much of this does seem to be a consequence of moving the Challenge Cup Final to June 8th. We can understand why they wanted to move it away from August but surely it could have been in mid July and avoided these awful consequences for Championship and League One clubs.

1895 Cup Fantasy

In the section above we have assumed that Fev, after the loss to Batley, will not make it into the 1895 Cup quarter finals despite the fact that, as we write, we are sitting at the top of the Group 5 table with a very respectable points difference of +49.

The winners of each of the seven groups go into the quarter finals along with the best placed 2nd team from the groups. It is still mathematically possible for Rovers to make it, but it is so implausible as to make the idea pure fantasy.

Here’s what needs to happen.

First of all, Hunslet need to beat Batley. That would secure us into top spot with automatic progress to the quarter final. How likely is that?!

So, what about Fev’s chances of getting that best 2nd placed spot?

The York win over Newcastle by 114-10 has left them with a points difference, after their loss to Wakefield, still at +68. The only way for Fev to have a chance of getting the coveted best 2nd place is if York were to finish top of their group. And that’s where pure fantasy comes in because, of course, the last game in that group is Newcastle at home to Wakefield. So, Newcastle would have to win (ha! ha!) and how likely is that after Newcastle have lost their two games (1895 Cup and Challenge Cup) by 114-10 and 88-12 against Sheffield.

Realistically our only chance of progress is the one in which Hunslet beat Batley. 

The flags above represent all the nations that, under current rugby league rules, members of the 2024 Fev squad have played for, or are eligible to play for.