fevnut's musings 2025/#26: Hunslet, Toulouse, Developing younger players and Cas coaches
Only four weeks before last Friday’s trip
to the South Leeds Stadium, we struggled to beat Hunslet and scraped through by
2 points when many people we have spoken with thought that Hunslet were the
better team on the day. We needed to make amends for that lamentable
performance, but the turnaround was incredible.
Let’s put that into context. Fev had
played Hunslet on 148 occasions going right back to 1921. In all those matches
the highest number of points Fev had ever scored was 68 which happened in both
2010 and 2012 which was, of course, during the time when Fev finished top of
the Championship League for four years in a row.
So, the 70 points scored on Friday night
was a new record score against Hunslet although it didn’t break the record for
the highest winning margin because on the two occasions, mentioned above, when
we scored 68 points against them, we nilled them both times.
Toulouse
Last weekend Toulouse slipped to second
place in the table after a surprising loss at Halifax by 30-16. During a season
in which they have been very good they have slipped up a few times. They really
are a bit of an enigma. Every time they have faced the clubs currently in the
play-off positions Toulouse have won and their 4 losses have come against
Halifax, Doncaster and Widnes (twice).
Between April 12th and June 21st they put
together a run of 8 successive wins.
fevnut has travelled to watch Fev playing
in Toulouse several times and thoroughly enjoyed the trip although not
necessarily the match result. But this time we will not be going choosing
instead to visit family, including two gorgeous little grandchildren, in the
north of Scotland. When we have been up there in the past we have taken them to
a rather good ice-cream parlour in Stonehaven and last Christmas Jemima sent me
a Fev Percy piggy bank to save up for the next batch of Stonehaven ice-creams!
That will make up for missing our usual
Toulouse after match meal when we have always had cassoulet, a local dish. It’s
a bit like sausage and beans but much classier and the spicy Toulousain
sausages are wonderful. If you are going this year and you haven’t had
cassoulet before we do recommend trying it.
Back to ice-cream. If you are off to
Toulouse and have never been to Amorino’s, don’t miss it. An ice-cream parlour
situated in a corner of Place du Capitole (the main town square). Almost the
best ice-cream we have ever tasted (second only to Buenos Aires) and
beautifully sculptured into a flower shape. It’s a sin to travel to Toulouse
and fail to go to Amorino’s!!
Footnote:
We usually try and spread fevnut’s
postings out through the week but for the reason outlined above we had to cram
them in a short space of time this week. It will be the same next week but in
the later part of the week this time.
We will attempt to do the 21 man squads
for the Toulouse game when they become available but it is unlikely to work out
as we will be using a little laptop and relying on hotel wi-fi!
Bringing on younger players
We recently read that next season the club will attempt to do more in
developing younger players. A move we would very much welcome but we have to be
a little sceptical.
In a couple of our pre-season games we were quite impressed with Jonny
Openshaw. A bit raw but plenty of potential, we thought. But he was never given
the chance in the first team and, after a loan spell at Keighley, he is now
playing for Swinton.
Last Sunday he was joined in the Swinton team by Jayden Hatton after
he was released by Fev and having not played since May 11. We have no idea what
went on but it’s a big shame as he is a prolific try scorer having scored 7
tries in the 9 games he played for Rovers and in his first match for Swinton in
2025, he scored a hat trick and was named by League Express as their man of the
match.
Their Man of the Match the week before was …. Jonny Openshaw!
Two players that we believe could have developed into positive assets
for Fev.
Applicants for the Cas Head Coach position
We see that Ryan Carr is one of the people who is being considered for
the position. For us, Daryl Powell was the best coach that Fev have had in the
summer era. There can’t be much dispute about that. But, in our opinion, he is
closely followed by Ryan Carr who could have done wonders for Fev if he had
stayed longer.
I suspect that most Fev supporters understood Daryl’s move to Cas,
having been a Cas supporter since being a kid, and it giving him a second
chance to coach in Super League. Many have completely forgotten that he was the
Leeds Rhinos head coach from 2001 to 2003.
If Ryan is appointed at Cas that one is going to be hard as many of us
would love to have seen him return to Fev one day.
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