fevnut's musings 2025/#31: Doncaster, Widnes and Promotion and Relegation

Funny old game that one, but we Fev fans are used to that! From the time that we scored our first try we were always in the lead and on two occasions we were 18 points up but all credit to the resilience of the Doncaster players.

They never threw the towel in and by a combination of their never-say-die attitude and some weak tackling by Fev they kept on coming back even though we went into a 14-0 lead after 25 minutes and took those 18 point leads on 48 and 60 minutes. By the 70th minute they had reduced the Fev lead to just 6 points and a nervy four minutes for Fev fans until James Glover scored off a delightful grubber kick from Ben Reynolds.

Glover’s two tries brought his tally to ten tries in eleven games. What a good acquisition he has turned out to be. We were never so impressed when he was playing against us. Yes, he was good but not as good as he has been in a Fev shirt. We feel that he is the sort of player who really thrives from playing with quality halfbacks.

Sadly, the most important outcome of the game was Ryan Hampshire’s broken arm. We seem to have a hoodoo on our halfbacks this year.

It looked as we might have a good partnership with Zach Herring and Ben Reynolds but then, after the home game against Doncaster, we lost both of them with Zach going home to Australia and Ben getting injured and Thomas Lacans returning to France. In March we played through five games with Danny Addy and/or Caleb Aekins filling in and the only one of those matches we won was against League One opposition in the form of Keighley Cougars.

April saw the beginning of the partnership between a returning Ben Reynolds and Ryan Hampshire. It took them a bit of time to get used to each other but under the guidance of Paul Cooke they developed into a top quality pairing and Fev have now won 7 out of the last 9 games and the outlook was looking good.

Unless we manage to bring a halfback in (maybe Mikey Lewis on dual reg – haha!) it looks likely to be Calum Turner alongside Ben. We really hope we don’t go back to using Caleb. He is so much better and more influential at fullback. The problem is the lack of game time that Calum has had. Since the end of May he has just had a few minutes off the bench in two games and hasn’t been in the starting team since March. All along we felt that we needed to use him against weaker teams or when we were well ahead in games so that he was there ready when needed.

It is so sad to lose Ryan Hampshire for the rest of the year. He has been a huge asset to the team and is a really nice bloke. He has given us some brilliant moments (not least the opening try last Sunday) and his partnership with Ben has noticeably lifted the entire team. We send him our very best wishes for his recovery.

 

Widnes have won 9, lost 9 and drawn 2 in the Championship this year. They looked to be out of the race for the play-offs but three wins in a row have brought them back to just 3 points behind Halifax in 6th place and they have 4 games to play whereas Halifax only have 3. They have also strengthened their squad in the last few weeks. Although their form has been mediocre, they are capable of producing upsets. They are the only team to have won away at Toulouse this year and they also gave Warrington a testing time in the Challenge Cup.

But for our halfback problem we would have been very confident of beating them. Let’s hope that Paul Cooke can weave some magic into whichever pairing we use at 6 and 7 and continue our current run of wins and end Widnes’ similar 3 win run.

 

RL never learns

Not only does a lack of promotion and relegation have a very negative effect on clubs outside Super League but lack of relegation from Super League is detrimental to them also.

One of the most used excuses for denying promotion from Championship to Super League based on results on the pitch is that the transition is very difficult. So, the RFL came up with franchising and now it’s based on obscure IMG formulae which seems to make electronic advertising around the pitch as important!

And yet, it seems to us, they had the answer to the problem 20 years ago. When Catalans joined Super League they were given exemption from relegation for 3 years. Catalans finished their first season at the bottom of Super League. The next season they finished 10th and they got to 3rd the year after that. Allowing them to develop into a Super League team has paid dividends.

They have been Challenge Cup winners (2018) and semi-finalists (2010). They have won the SL League Leader’s Shield and got to the Grand Final only losing by 2 points to St. Helens (2021) and they produced the highest crowd ever for a SL regular season match when, in 2019. they took their home game against Wigan to Barcelona’s Camp Nou. The game attracted 31,555 spectators. That’s more than 6,000 greater than the 2nd highest ever attendance which was Wigan v Saints in 2005.

For those who argue that we shouldn’t have French teams in the UK based competitions we simply say we completely disagree with you but that is a totally different issue. The issue we are writing about is how you can have promotion and relegation which gives a promoted club the chance to find their feet in Super League.

Maybe giving a club a three year exemption from relegation is too long. We would favour one or possibly two years. If they finish bottom during their exemption period we believe it would be entirely reasonable to relegate the club who finish just above them. After all, this would be a club that have had a period to show their credentials in Super League and have demonstrably failed.

When this did happen in 2006 it was Castleford who finished in 11th and they probably benefitted by their opportunity to rebuild in what was then National League One. And there have been other examples when relegation from Super League has given a chance for a club to re-build and re-enter Super League in a better and stronger state.

Never again do we wish to see what occurred last year when Hull FC appeared to 'take a year off' knowing that there was no jeopardy because they were classed as a Grade A club.

And here's a thought to ponder. If there had been no promotion since 2016 then Hull Kingston Rovers would probably still be in the Championship!

 

Feedback

Who doesn’t enjoy compliments! After we produced our guide to the Race for the Championship Play-Offs we received lots of positive feedback from supporters of various Championship Clubs.

This one was both enjoyable and flattering.

We replied to the author of that and pointed out to him/her that if anyone was stupid enough to give us the job of running Rugby League we would be sacked very quickly, forced out by the owners of Super League clubs for trying to run the Rugby League in the interests of ALL the clubs. They wouldn’t like that!