fevnut's musings 2024/#05: Goal Kickers, Where are they now?, Respect and Dreams

 

Spin the Wheel and choose the next goal-kicker

Our trip to play Thatto Heath Crusaders in the Challenge Cup was Rovers’ 3,750 official game since we became a professional club in 1921. As far as we can see something happened in that game which has no precedence. We are referring to the fact that Fev used SIX different goal-kickers.

There are problems with establishing any goal-kicking records. First of all, drop goals were recorded along with penalties and conversions until the value of the drop goal was reduced to one point in the 1974-75 season. Secondly there was no consistent recording of failed goal-kicks until 2006.

Nevertheless, we decided to look back through Fev’s previous 3,749 games to see if we could find anything to match the six kickers, but we actually looked for games in which four or more different kickers had been successful because neither Greg Minikin, nor Harry Bowes were successful with their kicks.

We did find that there had been two previous matches with four members of the Fev team recorded as having kicked goals.

We then turned for grateful help to Mark Las Palmas because he has a vast collection of match reports and we asked him to look at the report for these two games.

In September 1939 Fev beat Leeds 17-13 and four different kickers (John Pollitt, Walter Parkin, Harold Moxon and Ray Hamer) are recorded as having kicked one goal each. It was (and remains) somewhat baffling because our regular kicker that year was Bill Sherwood and he was playing. Maybe he got an early injury that made kicking difficult. So, over to Mark Las Palmas to look for the match report which revealed that Pollitt’s goal was a conversion but all the others were drop goals.

In September 1973, Fev went to St. Helens for a John Player Trophy match which we lost 34-16. Again the record shows 4 different goal-kickers (Harold Box 2 and Steve Nash, Mel Mason and Les Tonks 1 each). Again Mark was able to dig out the match report and it turns out to be a similar story. Harold Box’s goals were conversions and the others were drop goals. Incidentally, that drop goal from Les Tonks appears to be the only goal, of any sort, he scored in a career of more than 360 games for Fev, Hull KR, Wakefield and Great Britain U24.

We can say with absolute confidence that the match at Thatto Heath was the only time ever in our history that four different players kicked conversions. We cannot prove it, but it seems extraordinarily unlikely that there has ever been a previous occasion when 6 different players attempted conversions.

Three of the players who attempted conversions had never kicked a goal before whilst playing for professional clubs and congratulations to Josh who did kick his first ever goal. It does make us wonder whether there was a roulette wheel in the dug-out being used to determine the next kicker!

 

Where are they now?

In the previous section we referred to the long standing co-operation between Mark las Palmas and fevnut. This week has seen Mark providing us with valuable information so that we could write with greater authority about goal-kicking.

Also this week Mark suggested to us that we take a look at players with Super League, Championship and League One clubs in 2024 who have at some stage played for the mighty Rovers. It sounds a daunting task but it was actually quite easy thanks to the databases we have built.

It does seem to be a trend that many more new signings are made each year but even then we were somewhat astonished to discover that, this year, there are no less than 85 players who have played for Fev but are now elsewhere.

Of course, that number is boosted by the sheer scale of player movements under loan agreements and dual registration so we have divided the players into two categories. Players who were actually signed under contract to Fev and separately those who played for us on loan or dual reg.

Here is what we found: 

You could say there is a third category, those who have been Fev signed players and have also played for us on loan/dual reg. The most complex of these is Luke Briscoe. In 2016 Luke played for us on Dual Reg from Leeds and then signed for Fev in 2017. In 2018 he transferred back to Leeds but continued to play for Fev on Dual Reg. Then in 2019 he transferred back to Fev and spent 5 complete seasons with us before moving to Doncaster this year.

Being a former Maths teacher we couldn’t resist presenting the information in a Venn diagram. The 1 player in the very centre of the diagram is Dan Smith who played as a signed Fev player, and on loan at Fev, and at Fev on dual reg!

For those of you unfamiliar with Venn diagrams, all the numbers within the navy circle represent those who have been signed Fev players, similar for loan players in the red circle and DR players in the purple circle. Players in the overlap between the blue and red circles are players who have been both signed Fev players and loan players. Similarly for the overlaps between the blue and purple circles and the red and purple circles. 

Peta Hiku

We were sickened to read on social media the abuse that came from some people (including Hull KR fans) as a result of his very poor goal-kicking against Hull FC last weekend. We read one post that stated “Hiku is absolute shite”. Now, we have no axe to grind in favour or against this player, but we do wish to set the record straight. Peta Hiku can hardly be described in this manner when he has been good enough to play over 200 games in the NRL and has played 19 times for New Zealand. Just why he was doing the kicking is a mystery to us. He never kicked for New Zealand and in the whole of his NRL career he only ever kicked 3 goals (out of 7 attempts) and he has not kicked since 2013!

So how on earth can anyone be entitled to be abusive about him based on just one game in which he had been called upon to kick goals even though he hadn't done so for more than 10 years. They should be ashamed of themselves and have no place in the 'rugby league family'.

Abuse like this is never acceptable and we wish to put on record our support for the RFL’s ‘Respect’ campaign.

 

“Sport is all about dreams”

This was a comment made by the Sky Sports commentator during last week’s game between Catalans and Warrington. A sentiment we completely agree with.

Someone should tell that to the RFL and IMG who have conspired to turn the dreams of so many clubs and their supporters into nightmares!