fevnut's musings 2025/#09: Keighley and Head Coaches, Halfbacks and Golden Point - NO THANKS

 

It seems strange to think that when we were writing ‘musings’ last week we were oblivious to the fact that we would be turning up to this match with a change of the Fev head coach from James Ford to Paul Cooke.

It can’t have been easy for Paul to go into his first match in his new role with only a few days to prepare the team, even though he had been working with them for a few months already as assistant coach.

It also made it difficult when he was faced with picking a team without any first-choice half-backs (more of that later).

Thankfully, we were playing opponents from League One who had had a very poor start to the season, had lost their match the week before 44-0 to Rochdale, and were going in to this match with a caretaker coach also taking charge for the first time.

We were pleased to see our change, having got been exasperated by both the style we were playing and the fact that James Ford had presided over too many games when Fev lost a match that we definitely should have won.

We didn’t make explicit criticisms of him on social media because we do not believe in publicly criticising our own players or coaches.  Back in 2002, there were some awful Fev performances, and in a run of 5 matches we lost 4, the only win being against Gateshead Thunder who lost 32 out of 33 matches that season and drew one, against Fev(!) in the third match of the year. We say ‘year’ but that’s a bit misleading because that season the ‘Summer Era’ began at the beginning of December!

It was patently obvious that we needed a change of head coach and during a match we turned round to the then Fev chairman and mentioned to him that Andy Kelly was available. To our big surprise a few days later it was announced that Andy Kelly had taken over as Head Coach. No, we are not taking credit for this but it felt good.

I hope that Fev supporters will give Paul Cooke time to settle into the role and not start giving him stick the moment we lose a game.

Back to the game against Keighley. We felt that the 52-12 scoreline suggested a performance that was better than it actually was, but there were obvious mitigating circumstances (have you noticed that on televised matches 'mitigating' has become the referees favourite word!). That purple patch at the end of the first half when we scored four tries in nine minutes was great to watch and we hope it is a sign of things to come when we play the fast flowing, passing movements that we know this team is capable of.

Congratulations to Caleb Aekins on scoring his first hat trick for Fev. We were bitterly disappointed when Mark Kheirallah left but Caleb has shown himself to be a great replacement, and he seems to be a real rock of skill and calmness. Something every team needs.

Halfbacks

When we looked at the squad that had been assembled for 2025 our first thought was that, thank goodness, we wouldn’t run into the problem we faced in 2024 with injuries causing us to field players who are not skilled halfbacks having to fill.

We started the year with three proper halfbacks in Ben Reynolds, Zach Herring and Thomas Lacans and several others who have had some experience playing there who might be used in an emergency.

Someone at Fev has clearly caused upset to the rugby league Gods and, consequently, we ended up last week with having to use two from outside the list of proper halfbacks. Danny Addy did well as a temporary stand-in, but he is not a halfback. We could be in big trouble if we have to play some of our tougher rivals in the championship without recognised halfbacks, and that includes this Sunday’s match against Sheffield. It could be very difficult.

We want to say a word about Thomas. He may not have been a consistent top halfback, but he gave us several brilliant moments of skill and we have loved watching his brilliant sidesteps, dummies and his short kicking game. We were completely appalled by some of the nasty rubbish that some so-called Fev fans have written about his departure. How would any of them have acted if their father became terminally ill and was in another country, 700 miles away? We wish him well and give thanks to him for his contribution to Rovers. We just hope he is not performing at his best when we play Toulouse in April and July.

 

Golden Point

No apologies for returning to this subject again. It is an absurdity for League games when there is no need to have a winner. Thank goodness it doesn’t occur in either the Championship or League One. It is claimed to be an exciting end to a game, but it isn’t, it’s boring and leads to very dull play. Why on earth are we employing this Aussie nonsense and depriving clubs of a deserved league point?

It matters. Had there been no golden point, London Broncos would have recorded two more points and finished two points ABOVE Hull FC in the Super League table last year which would have led to even more egg on the faces of the RFL/IMG governance of our sport. We are often told how important it is to have a London presence in Super League and then they dream up a scheme that deprives them of this opportunity and came very close to depriving rugby league of its only professional club in the South-East.

Move forward to the opening round of 2025. We have problems when Cas play Wigan because, for very different reasons, we always want them to lose. In that opening round they were both denied a point for a draw when they were beaten in golden point extra time and, despite what we have just said, they deserved to have the point for a draw. In the case of Cas it was a great performance to go away to Hull KR and be drawing after 80 minutes.

The flags above represent all the nations that, under current rugby league rules, members of the 2025 Fev squad have played for, or are eligible to play for.