fevnut's musings 2024/#14: Whitehaven, London disaster, Fev Families and Tom Holmes

 

Not so good

 

Last we wrote about the differences between watching matches live at the ground and watching on television.

Unfortunately, last weekend we were not able to make the trip up to Whitehaven so we listened to the commentary on RoversTV, and we are always grateful to have that opportunity when we can’t get to the match in person.

But it was so frustrating. It seemed to be an endless loop of Fev taking the lead, thinking that they would then kick-on, only for Whitehaven to come back (or was it that we let them back in?). Sometimes when that happens it can lead to a thrilling game but it didn’t feel like that this time.

As soon as the full match video became available we settled down to watch it and the feeling of frustration was even greater when we could see it. Loads of silly errors and unnecessary penalties given away. On three separate occasions we gave away two penalties in quick succession and on another occasion, with a knock-on, Fev gifted Whitehaven a scrum on our 10 metre line and then compounded it by giving away a penalty seconds later. And several times the saying of “Penalty, Penalty TRY” came true.

The greatest frustration when we watched the match was that it appeared that no-one was showing signs of leadership. It was yet another new halfback pairing, the sixth different pairing in our twelve competitive match in 2024. Neither appeared to be making decisions and communicating to the rest of the team where they should be and what they should expect.

Of course, a transfer and injuries have been responsible for all the different halfback combinations, but we just couldn’t see why Jones went into the halves this time. Both Connor Jones and Harry Bowes are better at hooker and we are in no doubt that Connor is the best hooker in the Championship. Neither are as effective in the halves but at least, if Jones had started at hooker with Bowes and Turner playing at halfback we would have had the benefit of a pairing that had already played together in four of the last five matches.

We were also bemused when we had a kick at goal from a penalty in the 75th minute. There have been many occasions in the past when we have taken a tap when we thought the more sensible decision would have been to take the two points, but this one was different. The penalty had been awarded from just two metres out. Two metres from the tryline and also two metres from the touchline. A very different situation to an easily kickable two points. The probability of scoring with the kick was low and had Louix Gorman missed it also might well not have gone dead so we would have given possession back to Whitehaven. Another factor was that Whitehaven were down to 12 men with Gebbie in the sinbin so taking a tap penalty would have had a high probability of a resultant try which would have put us 10 or twelve points clear and almost certainly sealed the win. As it happened, the penalty was kicked and it put us eight points clear but it was far from certain for that to happen.

We are now wondering whether the presence of Caleb Aekins in the team has a much bigger influence than we had realised. Top player, but is his influence on those around him just as important?

We have seen excuses made about how going up to Whitehaven always makes for a difficult trip. That certainly used to be the case but improvements on the roads, and particularly on the A66 have made it very much better than it used to be in earlier days.

That is borne out by the fact that this ended up being our tenth successive win at the Recreation Ground. Last year we won 60-0 and in the other nine wins the lowest margin of victory had been 11 points in 2014. In the other eight games all had winning margins of at least 22 points.

All in all, in retrospect, we are glad we didn’t make the trip up to Cumbria!

 

 

London disaster

Growing up as a kid in London, rugby league was something that happened once a year on the BBC with the Challenge Cup final.

When Fulham (the earliest incarnation of what is now London Broncos) started as a professional rugby league club in the 1980-81 season they did so with a team almost entirely made up of northerners (including our own Neil Tuffs) with a small group of Aussies and we were fully settled living in Yorkshire.

Move on 40+ years and we now have a very vibrant amateur rugby league scene in London and did have an excellent academy system run by the Broncos that has produced many excellent rugby league players which was unthinkable when Fulham started out.

Here’s just a few of the many from London and the South.

Some might ask why we haven’t included the likes of Martin Offiah. That’s because he came into rugby league from rugby union rather than coming through the opportunities to play RL through the amateur and academy system down south.

So, the fact that the IMG system has resulted in London Broncos abandoning their academy is a disaster for rugby league in the South and in the rest of the country too. Surely, narrowing the pool of player development is not the way forward.

 

Fev families

A few years back we did some research which we published on the ‘Fev Families’: families where more than one person has worn the ‘butcher’s stripes’. It is ongoing work and last weekend, through the RoversTV commentary we picked up the fact that Connor Barley who débuted for Fev at Whitehaven is the nephew of Paul Cooke.

Since we last published our Fev Family lists quite a few more have been added and we will publish them as a ‘fevnut special’ in the next few days.

 

Tom Holmes

Yes, we have been a bit grumpy about our performance at Whitehaven but last weekend brought one wonderful piece of RL news. After his illness and diagnosis that looked as if Tom was very unlikely to ever play again it was fantastic to see that, against all the odds, he was back in action last Sunday playing at stand-off for Bradford against Widnes. I’m sure that all Fev fans will be as delighted as we are.