fevnut's musings 2024/#10: Leigh, Fev against Super League and Part-timers beating Full-timers

 

Challenge Cup at Leigh

For the third match in a row, when last Saturday’s game finished, we felt really proud to be a Fev fan!

Against Wakefield we played against opponents that virtually everyone is predicting will easily be this year’s Championship winners and we beat them.

Against Batley we were in a big predicament after losing Thomas Lacans in the warm-up and despite going 18-0 down in the first quarter of an hour the team showed amazing resilience and eventually came out winners.

So, it was over the Pennines to play a 6th round Challenge cup tie against the holders. We never expected to win this one, but the team gave us a thrilling afternoon and did much better than most people were suggesting. And what great rugby we were treated to.

Like the previous week we conceded an early try, scored by Umyla Hanley (son of the great Ellery) who was to go on to score a hat trick in the first half. But not long after we were treated to a really great try from Manoa Wacokecoke who received a pass from Josh Hardcastle on the Rovers 20 metre line and then flew 80 metres down the touchline making a mockery of tackles from the likes of Josh Charnley, Ricky Leutele and Zak Hardaker for the most amazing touchdown. Only the week before we were chatting to our friend Mick, during the Batley game, and saying that we had been led to believe that Manoa was a really fast sprinter but we hadn’t seemed able to create the opportunities in which that speed could be put to profitable use. Well, Josh did just that and we were able to see just what this young winger can do. The job now surely must be to work specifically on creating those sorts of opportunities for both Manoa and Gaz.

The second half opened and sadly, early on, Thomas went down with an injury that we are told will keep him out for about four weeks. The inevitable concern about facing super league opposition without our main playmaker was so soon dispelled with another sprint from Manoa who intercepted and this time sprinted 70 metres to score, and that was while we were down to 12 players with McKenzei Yei having been yellow-carded late in the first half.

Later on there was another spectacular piece of play from Fev. Our new Aussie signing, Paul Turner, had replaced Thomas Lacans and in the 70th minute he showed us what he can do with an amazing set of side steps that led to a try for Gareth Gale. Get back to full fitness Thomas and then let’s see what a combination of Thomas and Paul can achieve.

We have concentrated on the contribution of Manoa and Paul Turner, but they all played a big part in it not least Danny Addy, Brad Day and Caleb Aekins.

Downhearted by the defeat? No, not at all. There was so much to see that makes us really excited to watch this team in action over the rest of 2024.

It was a match that brought back memories of flying wingers. Out of the eight tries in the match, seven were scored by wingers. The last three contests have shown us what a really committed group of players can achieve. It’s going to be tough on Friday against Wakefield but we can’t wait for it. It’s the sort of anticipation that was somewhat missing last year even when we were amassing a load of high scores.

 

Fev against Super League Teams

The manner of our performance against Leigh started us thinking about Fev’s history of games against Super League opposition. At first we started to scour our records of Challenge Cup matches but then we remembered that there were also matches in the Qualifier 8s which ran from 2015 to 2018 although we only made it into the Qualifiers in 2017 and 2018.

There have been some painful memories to recall, particularly the match against Bradford Bulls in 2005 and the one against St. Helens in 2011. They both appear in the Fev all time records, but the unwanted ones. That match against Bradford set the current record for the highest number of points Fev have ever conceded in a match and the St. Helens game brought us our heaviest ever losing margin.

We have only once managed to beat a Super League team but that was such a glorious occasion that it makes up for all the disappointments.

But despite losing 28 out of 29 encounters with SL opposition there have been several great performances which must rank alongside last week’s game against the Leigh Leopards.

One of those came just a fortnight after that day we despatched Castleford Tigers. In the next round our opposition was Wigan Warriors and, although we lost 32-16, we were by no means disgraced. Indeed, an Ian Hardman try in the 24th minute put us into a 10-6 lead and despite Wigan drawing level three minutes later, a Liam Finn penalty put us ahead again 12-10. As is so often the case against full time opposition, the second half was more difficult but to go down by only 16 points to Wigan was a notable achievement.

Another very honourable performance came in 2015 when we we travelled to Perpignan with a rather weakened team to face the Dragons. We were fielding three débutants including Luke Cooper. Despite that we only lost by three points. It was a big disappointment at the time because with less than ten minutes to go we were actually six points ahead but Catalans came back at us with two late tries and even though we also scored a try in the last minute we ended up losing 37-34. One of the strange things about that match was that all five of our tries were scored by forwards with hooker, Luke Teasdale, scoring a brace. It was the only occasion when Luke Teasdale was in the starting 13 for Fev. So, it was a sad ending but on reflection, a brilliant performance.

 

Part timers against Super League

Unfortunately, the number of occasions that ‘lower clubs’ get the chance to have a crack against ‘top teams’ has been drastically reduced.

For many years there were regular opportunities when all the professional clubs were in the same league competition but there were also various cup competitions in addition to the Challenge Cup. There were the Yorkshire and Lancashire Cups and was the Regal/John Player Trophy, the BBC2 Floodlit Trophy and a few other short-lived competitions.

Since the creation of Super League there have been just 15 occasions in 24 years when a Super League team has lost to a lower league team in the Challenge Cup and none since 2019 which we put down to the re-organisation of the Challenge Cup so that the Super League teams do not enter until the 6th round and only four teams outside Super League get a chance to have a crack at them each year.

Possibly the most notable win was right back in 1996 with a result which probably delighted every Rugby League supporter other than Wigan fans. Wigan had won the Challenge Cup eight years in a row and it was becoming increasingly boring but Salford, who were then in the First Division, beat them 26-16 in the 5th round.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all was in 2003. It was a season in which Hunslet only managed to finish 6th in National League 2 (third tier) but nonetheless, in the 4th round they knocked out Huddersfield Giants only to be slaughtered 82-0 by Bradford Bulls in the 5th round!

Interesting that in 2018 there were six wins for Championship sides against Super League opposition in the Qualifier 8s. Maybe that was why they got rid of the ‘Super 8s’!

There is one other result that does not qualify but is still worth mentioning. In 2005, whilst still playing in the French Elite competition, Toulouse Olympique defeated Widnes Vikings (then in Super League) 40-24 in the Challenge Cup 6th round to become the first French team to reach the semi-finals where they lost 56-18 to Leeds Rhinos.

We have compiled a chart showing the occasions when a Super League team lost to a lower league team. If we have missed any please let us know.

 

Postscript

We posed the question, on Facebook: Featherstone Rovers Fans page, as to who was the first to play for Fev who had been born in the 2000s. It happened on the 25th March 2018 away at Batley and the player was born on the 19th February 2000.

If you think about it was almost bound to be a loan or dual reg player because without an academy or reserve team we just don’t have a chance to develop our own youngsters anymore.