fevnut's blog

    We haven't given you a listing of previous Fev matches for this week's ref for the simple reason that it will be his very first time. Started last year with League One games and this year he has been given several Championship matches. 

   I n addition to the 'new' signings Halifax have now brought back Ed Barber who last played for them in 2022. Head Coach:  Liam Finn   Unless you are pretty young, there are probably no current head coaches that need less introduction to Fev fans than Daryl Powell and Liam Finn who were at the heart of the Fev team that won the Championship four years in a row from 2010 to 2013. Liam became head coach of Halifax for this year after being head coach of Dewsbury in 2022 and 2023 and leading them to promotion to the Championship after becoming League One champions. Having achieved that it was a bit of surprise to some people when he accepted the offer of the Halifax job, but understandable because Liam is a Halifax lad and started his playing career there in 2002. He then spent 2004 and 2005 at Wakefield but only played two games in their first team and spent the latter half of 2005 on loan at Fev. From 2006 to 2009 he was at Dewsbury before Daryl signed him for Fev i

   

      

 

   Both Whitehaven's and Fev's 21 man squads have appeared on the RFL site (all usual caveats apply!).  Whitehaven have two new players in their 21 - Dan Hindmarsh-Takyi (on loan from Cas) and Huw Worthington, a trialist, who played a few games at Widnes last year on loan from Leeds. Fev also have a new face in the form of dual reg player Connor Barley, a centre, who is only 19 but made his début at Hull HR as a 17 year-old. He played a few games for York last year on loan from Hull KR. We find it quite difficult to see the potential shape of the teams in the form in which the clubs publish the squads so we just have to use guesswork, whilst taking into consideration the line-ups in each club's last match, to set them out in the traditional manner running from fullback to loose forward and then subs.  

Much, much better   As we pulled into the Millennium Stadium car park last Sunday there was a degree of apprehension. This was partially engendered by the scars of Fev v Widnes matches many years ago, but more so based on the fact that in this year’s Championship Widnes had played four and won them all whereas Fev had lost to Wakefield and Bradford before beating Doncaster with ease. But Doncaster are a very different proposition to Wakefield, Bradford or Widnes. The big question for us was how would our halfbacks go? We had guessed that it would be Bowes and Turner as neither Reynolds or Lacans were available. One of our feelings about the Bradford match had been that we lacked leadership from the halves and that was the same combination. When it came to it, we had a really good first half performance. It was particularly pleasing how, after conceding a try to take the score to 10-6 we came straight back and scored again for a 16-6 halftime lead. As the second half started we felt tha