fevnut's musings 2024/#08: Absolutely Fantastic, Rugby League World and Top Try Rates

 

ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!!

 

As we set off for the match last Sunday we have to admit to not being full of optimism. Without any doubt, it was the biggest Challenge Cup match for Fev since that wondrous day back in 2012 when we downed the Tigers. We actually still have our ticket for that game stuck on our fridge door. What a pity that there weren’t proper tickets for Sunday’s match because we would have loved to have put it alongside the other one.

That first half was amazing. We can’t remember when the last time was that we saw a Fev team play with the guts and determination we saw from them on Sunday. Well done, all of them and especially Connor Wynne who seemed to be a much more effective player on the wing than he had been at centre. And Josh was amazing. At the end of last year we really doubted that we would ever see him playing again. He symbolises everything that is best about Featherstone Rovers!

Despite the 10-0 half time lead we took our seat for the second half wondering whether it was possible to play forty more minutes with the intensity of the first half. Surely, this much heralded Trinity team would come out and start playing to their full potential and would we be strong enough to resist.

Sure enough, Wakefield re-emerged looking like a team that had received the proverbial rocket at half-time and when they got to just two points behind with 21 minutes left the signs were ominous. That was compounded two minutes later when they drew level with a penalty. But we had 17 heroes who put in an incredible defensive effort to prevent them scoring again.

So, on to Golden Point Extra Time and we couldn’t remember a time when we won a match in extra time. All that came to mind was occasions when we pulled off heroic wins in the last minutes of the ‘80’ but not later than that. Times like the famous come-back against Batley in 2015 and, further back, the brilliant win at Castleford in a Yorkshire Cup replay in 1989 with Mark Knapper’s touchline conversion in the dying seconds to take the win 28-26.

The Golden Point extra time started with yet more resolute defence and then we got Gaz Gale’s amazing pick-up from a spilled pass and his long sprint downfield to bring home the glory. On our feet as he progressed downfield and it seemed like an age until he got over the tryline and planted the ball down. A fantastic feat when he must have been incredibly tired and he had to plough his way down what had become such a muddy pitch.

 

Sorry about the murky pictures but they do give an impression of the actual conditions!

On the way home we felt that we had a team with more commitment than we had seen for years.

 

Rugby League World

Do you get to see the monthly magazine ‘Rugby League World’? Sadly it’s only available nowadays on subscription either in digital format (via Pocketmags) or by post. We love it when our copy comes through the letterbox and it is worth every penny for Rugby League lovers.

We particularly enjoy the articles about rugby league in less heralded nations. One of the first items we turn to is Pierre Carcau’s regular articles about RL in France -  ‘Treiziste Diary’. In the latest copy there is also a fascinating article about RL in Norway.

Having gone to the international section we then start to scour through the rest of the magazine and came across this picture.

 

A richly deserved award for Connor who has already scored some great tries in 2024 and who is always a threat from dummy half.

They also selected a team of the month for February and both the wingers were scorers in the Challenge Cup match at Post Office Road last Sunday. One was Romain Franco who scored Wakefield’s second try and the other (of course) was Gaz Gale.

Not at all surprising really bearing in mind that Connor and Gaz had scored six tries each in the four games we played in February.

 

Who is it?

Last week we published a list of the top twenty Fev players through history for their ‘Try Rates’. Try rate is a calculation of the number of tries a player has scored divided by the number of games they have played. We only include players who have scored at least 25 tries which removes aberrations like Brad Dwyer’s six tries (all scored in one game) in his three games for Fev and Ian Bell who played just two games scoring four tries.

We hadn’t updated the table for a couple of years so that some of Connor Jones and Gaz Gale’s try rates were not as high as they should have been. We have now brought it up to date and noticed that Gaz has actually gone up into second place above Paul Newlove.

We inked out the name of the player at the top of the chart with the almost unbelievable try rate of 147.4% (28 tries in 19 games) so you could think about who it might be. We thought about telling you that it was someone who is still playing (but not for Fev) but considered that would make guessing his name too easy.

Well here it is, the bang up to date chart with the player at the top revealed. 

The chart also indicates how rugby league has changed with far more tries scored nowadays. Only one player, Eric Batten, gets into the chart having played prior to the 1980s and the vast majority have played for Fev in the summer era.