fevnut's musings 2024/#27: Wakefield and Brad Day, Paul Turner and Too many Players

     

Wakefield

We travelled to Belle Vue (or whatever it’s called nowadays) with a high degree of trepidation. There could be no doubt that the Trinity players would be well and truly motivated for this one having lost to Fev in the Challenge Cup and then having lost in the league at Toulouse the weekend before.

Whilst preparing the blog page about previous matches between Fev and Wakefield, two stats caught our attention. It was going to be the 173rd game between us and of the previous 172, Wakefield had won 99 of them. So, the almost inevitable Trinity win, would see them reaching a century.

But of greater significance to us was the highest scores achieved by each of us. Fev’s best ever came on January 2nd, 1977, when a magnificent performance led to a 52-0 win at Post Office Road with nine different try scorers and Steve Quinn scoring one of them and kicking 11 goals. When we glanced at our chart, we were very surprised to see that Wakefield had never scored 50 or more against Fev, their highest being 48 which they achieved in a Wartime Emergency League game in 1943. Bearing in mind what we said earlier about their motivation and the shambles of Fev performances in recent weeks we were mentally prepared for Wakefield to make it to 50 points this time.

We began to feel confident that they wouldn’t get to 50 when we restricted them to just 18 points in the first half with some good defence. But then 3 tries in a 10-minute spell once again gave us doubts and we were quite happy when the hooter went and Fev remained the only team to have scored 50 points.

Without any doubt the highlight was that fantastic try scored by Brad Day, reminding us all that he started out in his career as a centre. Our two top try scorers in 2024 are Connor Jones on 15 and Brad on 14, followed by Connor Wynne on 13 and Gaz Gale on 12. If you look at the try scorers in Championship League matches Brad is now joint 3rd. A remarkable achievement in itself but particularly for a second rower although there is another second rower amongst those in joint 3rd, that being Zac Fulton at Bradford Bulls.

Paul Turner

It was sad to hear that Paul Turner has returned to Australia following an injury that requires surgery to his shoulder.

Paul has provided some sparkling moments in what has turned about to be a rather dour season for Fev fans. We do hope he comes back next season. Fans need the excitement that he provides and he was quickly becoming one of the first names we looked for on the teamsheet. It was a feeling he engendered along with another Aussie who came to Fev a few years back. Danny Baker was another who provided us with some great highlights.

 

Too many players

A small squad, heavy reliance on dual reg players and lots of other ins and outs during 2024 have ended up with us taking to the field quite often with a team that has never got properly used to playing together. It’s a sure-fire recipe for poor performances and results.

We are well aware of why it has happened and we don’t wish to enter into any ‘blame games’ but this has undoubtedly been one of Fev’s worst seasons ever for the number of players used and the number of players making their Fev débuts. We are not just saying that, here is the evidence.

The only season in which more players made their Fev débuts was 1921-22 and that doesn’t really count because it was our very first year as a professional club and so all the players who played that season registered their ‘official’ débuts. Many of them had previously played for Rovers when we were an amateur team. Data on Fev players prior to 1921 is hard to come by but we do know for certain that at least 24 of the 35 used that season had played previously for Fev.

Assuming that Jimmy Beckett plays before the end of 2024 he will be the 46th. Fev’s record is the 47 who played during the 1947-48 season It was a time when the club were really struggling both financially and on the field and many of our better players were sold to stave off bankruptcy.

 

Caleb Aekins

Congratulations to Caleb who played his 100th career game at Wakefield last Sunday.

In calculating career stats we use the definitions employed by the RFL. Club games that count are for official matches involving RFL teams (even if they are playing against an amateur team in competitions such as the Challenge Cup) and open age official representative matches (games in which more than 4 subs are used are not deemed official and do not count).

So, if you look at our entry for Caleb in our ‘Fev Squad 2024: Complete Stats’ page you will see listed games he has played in the New South Wales Cup competition but these are not included in his career totals.

 

Flags

At the bottom of the fevnut’s musings pages we have a graphic which includes the flags of all the countries that Fev’s 2024 players have represented or that they are qualified to represent.

We have had to add a new flag this week. Samy Kibula was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and we can be at least 99.9% confident that he is the first person ever to have been born there and played for Fev!