fevnut's musings 2024/#21: Sheffield, York, Successive Losses and Fev Refs

 

Sheffield

 

   

Sadly, it turned out to be our third loss in a row and it felt all the more galling because we came so close to winning it only to be thwarted by a converted try gifted to Sheffield (it was a ‘Comedy of Errors’) with only four minutes to go.

Nevertheless, there is plenty to be positive about. As we pointed out last week, Sheffield have been consistently above us in the table in 2024 so a visit to their place was always going to be tough. We did, however, began to feel rather more optimistic when we learned that Anthony Thackeray wasn’t going to be playing. Despite now being 38 years old, he has been the lynchpin of the Sheffield team providing tactical awareness and leading the team around the pitch.

It wasn’t a good Fev performance but it was much better than we had been against either Barrow or Swinton. Unfortunately, there were still far too many errors and penalties given away but, at least, this time, they looked as if they really did want to win.

There were some sparkling moments, notably Paul Turner doing his amazing dancing routine which led to Gareth Gale’s try. 

We were so glad that Gaz got onto the scoreboard. It was his first try since the one he scored against Widnes in April. We have to ask why such a proven try scorer has been scoring so few this year. Here we have a winger who is capable of tearing defences to shreds with great speed and strength and yet he is being forced into doing the work which should be the prime responsibility of a prop forward. We have no doubt he could be a very good prop, but there are others who can fulfil that role whereas few can be finishers like Gareth. In every game recently, the number of times a halfback or centre has given a pass to Gareth that gives him the opportunity to use his speed and finishing ability have been very, very few and far between.

From where we were sat it was difficult to see just how that winning try was gifted to Sheffield but we have watched it carefully, several times over, on the video. Jack Hansen puts a shrewd kick toward the touchline which probably would have bounced out if we had left it, but it was too much of a risk to leave in case it bounced back. Greg Eden should have caught it easily but messes up the catch and rather than letting the ball go out for a Sheffield scrum he attempts to bat it back to Caleb Aekins but it flies so fast to him that it would have been really difficult to take in and it bounces off Caleb straight into the arms of Kris Welham to score the winner.

And there was another disheartening aspect. In our view the stand-out players for Sheffield were Kris Welham, Cory Aston (particularly his kicking game) and Jesse Sene-Lefao. All three of them have played for Fev in the past!

 

York

A few weeks ago we would have said that this was going to be an easy win for Fev.

But things have changed since then and our performances have been rather dismal and at the same time York have undergone something of a resurgence. We do a comparison of Match Stats over the season between Fev and our next opponents and at the same time look at recent form by comparing the stats over each club’s last 5 games. On the season comparison Fev have a lead over York of 26-4 for better match stats, but when you look at the last 5 matches ‘Form Guide’ there is a big turnaround with York leading by 6-2. Take a look with this link: https://bit.ly/3XuSxxe

We need the Fev fans to get over their disillusionment, turn up and really get behind the team.

 

Fev’s Losing Streaks

We, Fev supporters, have almost got out of the habit of accepting successive losses. There was the period from 2010 to 2013 when we won the Championship League Leader’s shield four times in a row and only once in that four-year period did we ever lose two successive games.

If we turn to more recent times, over the last three complete seasons (2021-2023) again there was only once when we lost two games in a row.

So, maybe it is understandable that some Fev fans seem to have got freaked out by us losing three in a row. Well, if three in a row freaks them out we wonder how they would have reacted in times further back. In 1936/37 we went on a run of losing 21 successive matches! 

But that’s not the record. 11 years later, in 1947/48 it was 23 successive losing matches.

In all we found 12 occasions since 1921 when Fev have lost at least 10 matches in a row.

We even lost three successive league matches in 1998 and still made it through to the Grand Final.

Are we disappointed about our last three games? Yes, of course we are. But let’s not have Fev fans over-reacting and let’s remember the adversity we are in. A player budget halved, terrible bad luck with injuries, an ever-changing pairing in the crucial halfback positions and it is our belief that the merry-go-round of incoming DR players, while obviously helping to cover for injured players, has also been partially responsible for the unsettled team.

So many thought before the season started that we wouldn’t get anywhere near the play-off positions. We need things to change, and to change fast but at least we are still in with a good chance of making it to the top 6 at the end of the year.

 

Fev refs

Congratulations to Carl Hughes who was appointed to referee the match between Cornwall and last Sunday. Carl played 73 times for Fev (mostly at loose forward) between 2005 and 2008 and scored 34 tries.

We did wonder whether this was the first time that a former Fev player had refereed a first-grade match but Mark Las Palmas reminded us that Laurie Gant who played for Fev in the 1940s and 1950s and who was our head coach from 1966-1970 had also been a first-grade referee.

We know very little about Laurie’s refereeing career but one game we do know about was that he was in charge of a Test Match between Great Britain and New Zealand at Odsal in 1965.