The Phantom Horseman

Not 100% sure what we'll do in terms of Barley/Wynne butall things being equal maybe we'll play Barley at centre and Wynne on the wing, based on the fact that Wynne looks likely to be our regular right wing going forward. Barley's 6'3" and can play either position.

Beat me to it MLP. As well as the expected return of Louix Gorman, Connor Barley who's a threequarter is in on DR along with Reiss Butterworth. So it's going to be a pretty makeshift back line. At least with Springer missing we still have a bit of depth in our pack and no HKR middles/back rows are included.

Phoenix Nights fans might feel strong Half A Sixpence vibes about this band...right down to the neckerchiefs and flat caps... hope the material's a bit less edgy

Looked tremendous for PNG at the World Cup and made a big impression when he first joined Fev. Started to become a bit careless with offloads though and then injured his knee mid-season which kept him out for a lengthy period. Made his reappearance in Fev's final league game but didn't really impress and didn't make the squad for the play-off game. His knee was still reportedly an issue at the start of this year and wasn't seen until making his return in the Cup game at Leigh where he didn't look to be anywhere near fully fit, had plenty of support on his knee and wasn't running in with the same venom as last year. He was also sin-binned for a tip tackle and subsequently given a 4-game ban. The piece on the Oldham website about the 4-game ban starting this weekend is incorrect, it's already expired (or will have after this weekend). On his day he is indeed a wrecking ball, the question will be whether or not he can get back to full fitness. I think the comment from James Ford about "he hasn't quite nailed his recovery" explains a lot about his departure, but he won't need to be at his best to prove difficult for L1 defences to handle. Seems a great guy, likely to be a big fan favourite, especially if he can get back to something like his early-season form of last year. Oldham now have 4 players from Fev's pack that steamrollered Keighley in the opening game of last season.

For me, we've beaten Wakefield and Widnes with Bowes filling in at half back, so with Whitehaven, Halifax, Dewsbury and Barrow coming up, I don't see why we can't get by with Bowes (or even switch Aekins again) until Lacans is fit again. Besides, I think Bradford are searching for a half back even more desperately than we are and might have a bit more money to throw at one right now (and the article does suggest they are offering him to "SL teams" so the likes of Hull might be interested).

It was certainly an opaque deal...it was widely announced as being a loan deal, including on both teams' websites, and via Sky, the BBC etc, although I think the received wisdom on forumland at the time was that there was a bit of smoke-and-mirrors in the wording https://www.skysports.com/rugby-league/news/12211/11410198/leeds-rhinos-sign-luke-briscoe-on-loan-from-featherstone-rovers https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-league/44536315.amp and even from the RFL: "Leeds Rhinos have signed their former player Luke Briscoe on loan from Featherstone Rovers"

Aekins Wynne Turner

Yes I had the year wrong, it was 2018 not 2019 that Luke went on loan to Leeds from us.

Yes, seems very unlikely. Butterworth & Tennison also in their squad but whether they play remains to be seen looking at who else they have included.

It's hard to know what Fordy will do with Wacokecoke now. By no means all of the tries leaked down our right side have been his fault, but he did seem to have a couple of howlers in him most games and his decision making was once again poor in the Bradford game. He undoubtedly has some talent but I'm not sure we can keep playing him and hoping his defence and decision making improves. But I guess if there is a game to play him in Whitehaven might be the one. I'm assuming Hull KR won't want to reward Broadbent for signing what is effectively a 4-year deal by asking him to play in the Championship at Whitehaven a few days later. There are now seven players realistically fighting for five back 5 spots at Hull KR but I doubt they'd want the likes of Gildart or Opacic dropping down to the Championship. I'm not sure why Gorman wouldn't be considered a candidate for us again? He's not the biggest but has been pretty solid I reckon and his speed helped create a try against Bradford, and if he played it would mean we wouldn't need to asky Addy to kick goals as well as play 80 minutes. For me Wynne did enough against Widnes to keep the starting right wing slot and I think when he's fit again Josh might find himself back in the centre as he's our most reliable defender there.

I took the view that a few words in Fordy's quote when he left were quite telling..."He’s been a real favourite on and off field. Unfortunately, after picking up a knee injury, he’s not quite nailed his rehab."

So we're five games into the Championship season, some eyecatching scores at the weekend and perhaps a picture starting to emerge. Wakefield are perhaps about what was expected - they are steamrollering most teams like we did last year, which is what you'd expect given their reported spend is close to £1.5 million, but they don't look anywhere near as good at this stage as the 2022 Leigh team. To be honest they're almost an irrelevance to the Championship this year - they'll walk the league leadership title, may or may not win the Grand Final (they probably will but as we well know, one-off play-off games at the end of the year can be unpredictable), but either way, they'll be back in SL next year. Bradford were just staking a claim to be in pole position for second spot when they did the most Bradford thing and lost to an 0-4 team in York. I think that showed again that 2 or 3 tough, close games in a row against strong opposition can have a knock-on effect - just as we played poorly against Bradford having been in 3 brutal games with Wakefield (twice) and Leigh, Bradford had a number of very tough games, especially the last two, and presumably that told at York (not taking anything away from York who yet again have had a long injury list). Sheffield have made an impressive start to the season and will probably rack up another big score against Barrow this week, we'll know a lot more about just how good they are when they face Wakefield the week after. Halifax have a lot of injuries to key players but losing 46-0 at home is still an eyepopping scoreline. Hard to see them being a top 6 team this year unless there's a huge turnaround. Widnes competed very well against us and their improvement looks genuine at this stage. Interesting to see if they can maintain that form as they have tended to drop away after a prominsing start in previous years. Toulouse have taken a while to find their form as they sometimes do and clearly aren't the force of 2019 or 2021 but I think they'll still be a top 6 team and probably top 4 as the season progresses. With some teams (us, Halifax, Toulouse, maybe York and Batley to an extent) not looking as strong as in previous years, it's certainly a harder league to predict from week to week than in previous years, barring Wakefield.

I don't know if this is a different situation or if the rules have changed, but when Luke Briscoe went on loan to Leeds from us in 2019, we were able to recall him on DR terms. https://www.featherstonerovers.co.uk/news/rhinos-loan-briscoe-oEC7a/ As for the reason for the loan, could be any number of reasons, but maybe related to salary cap? Jordan Abdull is also officially on loan from HKR to Catalans this year but I don't think anyone is expecting him to return to HKR.

One area of difficulty at the moment is the rotation of our middles. I think there have been at least 4 games already this season where one of them has gone off at a fairly early stage with an injury and hasn't been able to return which has meant others picking up the slack. As a knock-on effect, we are now seeing multiple players in that position returning from injury and perhaps lacking a little in game fitness; I thought that for a period in the second half against Widnes we looked like we were struggling for energy defensively in the middle of the park. Another knock-on effect is that Addy has been asked to do huge minutes nearly every week, and at times he has understandably looked to struggle with his workload. He's 33 years old and if he keeps playing 80 minutes he's going to be mentally and physically shot by the second half of the season. To me Tanner looked in need of more minutes on Sunday which was understandable, Bussey is still working his way back, and Massey will be in the same boat. I'm still not sure what our best pack line-up is and I doubt Fordy is either, We're still finding out about Tanner and we haven't seen much of Massey either. With Kamano continuing to look solid, there's probably not much between quite a few of them behind Gadwin (when he's fit).

If they had the opportunity to sign him now (and before the May 1 deadline) why would they not do so given he's out of contract at the end of this season, rather than wait and potentially get involved in a bidding war with other SL clubs?