fevnut's musings 2024/#20: Sheffield, Squad Numbers and RL websites

 

Sheffield

With no game last weekend, we thought we would concentrate on looking forward to this coming weekend’s game away at Sheffield and what an intriguing match-up it is.

We haven’t lost a game against Sheffield since 2016 and are currently on a run of 13 successive wins. But then, we were on a run of 6 wins against Barrow and 16 against Swinton but both runs ended in our last two games!

Sheffield started the season really well. In the first 14 matches in 2024 they won 13 of those, the only loss being to Wigan in the Challenge Cup. But they have now lost 4 of their last 6 games, two of which were against Wakefield, but they’ve also lost to Bradford and Batley.

After Round One of 2004 Sheffield were in 6th place in the table with Fev in 5th but Sheffield have been above Fev ever since. Sheffield’s Round 1 match was against Toulouse, and, at the time, it was considered a bit of a shock when they won 24-22. Fev were above them simply because we won our opening game at Batley by 4 points (24-20).

So, it looks as if the match will depend on which team has managed to recover more of their early season form. It’s going to be interesting to see how Sheffield recover from the thumping they received from Wakefield in the 1895 Cup. And then, will the fortnight’s break for Fev be an advantage. It’s certainly not as simple as one might expect. We have had more time to get over the regular bumps and bruises but too many times we have seen teams who have had a week off lose their match rhythm, not that we had much of that against Barrow or Swinton!

There are a couple of aspects of the Sheffield team that we need to very wary about. They have some smart set plays. One such is when they have a scrum near their opponent’s line and the ball is picked up by the player at the base of the scrum who takes it one way but almost immediately switches it to the other side creating plenty of space for them to score. Another plus for the Eagles is the ability of Mark Aston to devise a game plan specifically for the opposition they are facing. Several times in recent encounters Fev have got very frustrated by holding down tactics which seem to just avoid them being penalised.  As we alluded to earlier, we have one many successive games against the Eagles but that was down to the superior fitness and talent of our squad, but they managed to keep it close for much of the game. It’s also noticeable that Aston is adept at changing the game plan at half time according to how the first half has gone.

Like most Fev supporters, we are no fan of Mark Aston, but that doesn’t stop us from admiring his ability to get the very best out of his players.

If Fev are to win on Sunday, we need to have a good plan for dealing with Anthony Thackeray. He runs the team out on the field, as every scrumhalf should do, but he is very effective and something lamentably lacking in the Rovers team recently.

It’s going to be an interesting match and one we wouldn’t dream of missing!

 

Squad Numbers

We would love to discover the RFL’s rules on squad numbers. Many of the League One teams seem to have virtually abandoned them and we now see, throughout the leagues, loan players and new signings coming in and using shirt numbers that have already been allocated to someone else.

We dislike squad numbers. Watching a game it doesn’t matter to us what numbers our own team are wearing because we recognise them, but squad numbers make it so much harder to comprehend the shape of the opposition. We much preferred it when you knew that if a player was wearing 11 they were a second rower etc.

 

Rugby League websites

Being a rugby league statistician, we often use sites like the RFL Match centre and the BBC RL page to gather information. We do so with a large degree of caution because the data seems to be inputted by people who know nothing about Rugby League although we must note that, far from being perfect, the RFL Match Centre has improved a great deal this year.

Thank goodness, gone are the days when props were listed at halfback, fullbacks as second rowers etc.

One of the perennial problems is that French teams have a different way of listing their teams. They start, the same as us, with the first seven being fullbacks, followed by backs and then halfbacks. But the traditional French way of listing the forwards is to start with the loose-forward, then the second row and then the front row.

Over the years we tried many times to contact the BBC to inform them of this and to get them to amend French team lists into our traditional way for team sheets. But to no avail.

But, Hallelujah!, they seemed to have cottoned on in 2024.

But we had to laugh a couple of weeks ago. Halifax were playing Toulouse and someone had amended the Toulouse team so that it did read as we, in England, would expect. Obviously, whoever was inputting the data was aware of the ‘French Problem’ but then they went and made the same changes to the Halifax team, so they ended up having their team listed in the traditional French way!!!