The Phantom Horseman

Cooke suggesting in his pre-game interview that King might play. https://www.facebook.com/FevRoversRLFC/videos/1416910549616460

It's just really hard to forecast games in the Championship as teams are so inconsistent. Barrow are missing a few looking at their squad (Bradley Walker, Josh Wood, Andrew Bulman, Jarrod Stack and Ryan King all missing for instance), but they have Salford's Joe Bullock who they didn't have when we played at their place. I thought they were very poor that day but given their result against Bradford we have to prepare for the best version of them.

Cooke said in his interview after the York game that King might need another week ie the Barrow game might come too soon. Not surprising if Wynne isn't fit for Sunday, also not surprising in the grand scheme of things that York's full back didn't get a ban judged on the disciplinary update today, but I think it's pretty poor that the RFL no longer see fit to publish the reasoning behind bans/non bans for incidents such as this that were placed on report.

Brad Day missing this week hence Ruan presumably.

See the top of the forum. "The place to talk about anything other than Rugby League".

Yes but that's not an inherent advantage to being in SL over being in the Championship. In any case my gripe with IMG isn't against the system in its entirety, but some of the scoring, not just the incumbency bias but also the catchment area and a couple of other issues.

No, straight P&R isn't comparable in this sense at all. Under straight P & R a team that finishes top/wins the Grand Final doesn't have to worry that the team at the bottom of SL might have higher crowds/more sponsorship/more merchandise sales.

Yeah for clarity I don't doubt they'll manage to push it through. I guess I'm just aggrieved that we're in July and there's still some discussion about the methodology of how we work out who goes in what division next year, but I should know better because we've been here plenty of times before!

Yes my bad, you're correct, but it still highlights the massive inbuilt advantage of being in SL. One year being in SL will signficantly boost your attendances and lots of other financial areas, 3 in a row will make you almost untouchable for Championship clubs barring a Salford-style meltdown.

Seriously? Their average attendances more than trebled from 2023 to 2024 (1,079 to 3,282). That's a 1.25 point rise in IMG points on its own. You really think this is down to "taking things seriously", rather than the fact that every club gets more supporters when they move from Championship to SL, including a lot of healthy support from away clubs? I must admit I'm still wondering how they get this through without facing the prospect of legal challenges. From the 2025 Operation Rules "At the end of the 2025 Super League Season the RFL shall confirm each Club’s Grading position with the top 12 ranked sides being placed in Super League for the following Season as set out in the Grading Handbook, such Grading Handbook being subject to amendment as approved by the Board from time to time." If a team that finishes in the top 12 doesn't get into SL next year - or indeed a team that finishes in the top 14 doesn't get into a 14-team SL - all hell's going to break loose, isn't it?

There have reportedly already been a couple of Championship clubs that have said they are prepared to move up to SL without getting any of the SL funding. This sounds barmy until you look again at the vast IMG windfall that comes with SL incumbency. Instead of having to "buy" IMG points via owner investment, electronic advertising boards, big screens, etc etc, teams would be able to increase their score via much-improved gates (in particular), increased merchandise sales, much-improved sponsorship. It would probably cost far more in pure financial terms for a team to increase its IMG score from the Championship than it would to have a year in SL with zero central funding, but which would STILL leave you with a higher score from that year for league position (exluding Championship GF/1895 win points) than if you'd been in the Championship even if you didn't win a game. Clubs have looked at what happened to London's IMG score in 2024 - up from 8.07 points to 12.65 points at the end of their SL year, despite finishing bottom and winning only 3 of their 27 games - and the massive incumbency advantage that I and others on here have talked about repeatedly on here since day 1 of the IMG scheme seems finally to have dawned on them. If you're a Championship team with SL ambitions, it 100% makes sense to offer to get zero central funding in return for a year in SL and the IMG points bounty that comes with it.

Well, Featherstone's pitch is actually full length - unlike a number of others, notably Oldham's... Before anyone gets hot under the collar about this - that's not the same as saying Oldham's pitch is not long enough for pro RL, because the RFL Operational Manual states that the pitch must be between 88m and 100m long, and between 55m and 68m wide (Toulouse must have special dispensation if their pitch is indeed 70m - perhaps it's a corprorate stadium where they aren't allowed to change the markings). This is a fairly sore subject for Featherstone fans, because our pitch did indeed use to be less than 100m long but about a dozen years ago the club invested a lot of money in extending it to the maximum length, whilst also reducing the slope significantly and building two new stands with the help of fan volunteers known locally as the "Stand Gang". None of this counts for any IMG points whatsoever! You can imagine how Fev fans feel about the fact that other clubs have done nothing about their own sub-optimal playing surfaces. Personally I don't mind about the pitches that are less than 100m long (such as Castleford's, which measures about 90m from posts to posts), because that doesn't have such a huge impact on gameplay, but width is a totally different matter - it really sticks in the throat that Bradford are allowed to play on a 55m wide pitch (and for one season were allowed to play on an even narrower one, around 52m I believe), yet are still considered to meet minimum standards for SL, because that massively impacts on the quality of the game as the original poster states. So you are right Tim, the farce of IMG rules DOES ignore pitch dimension, albeit it's because of the RFL's ridiculous rule that decrees a 55m pitch is just as ok as a full-width 68m one.

I'd also add, don't underestimate the massive impact Jordan Thompson has on the rest of your forwards. Each team has to get 240 combined minutes out of its middles (ie the 8, 10 and 13), but if one can can do regularly do 80 minutes, as Thompson does, then the other 5 know that they are only going to average around 30 minutes each, and with Thompson saving them an interchange too, that has to make a psychological difference if you come onto the field knowing you can give your all with a guaranteed break coming up. Harris seems to get most of the headlines and he's having a very good season but for me Thompson is the best player in the league and has been for a while.

Gadwin has had a few quiet games recently for us, hasn't been at his best for some reason, not sure if he's carrying a knock or just not firing on all cylinders. On Sunday he played 27 minutes but it was his return that was held back by the interchange mess-up referred to by Paul Cooke in his post-game interview. When he's firing Gadwin is a very good middle at this level - he and Vuniyayawa were the two that led the charge when Fev came back in the 2nd half at POR, when York just couldn't handle that pair. But as I say, for whatever reason he hasn't reproduced that form lately; form's a funny thing, because Martin looked a completely different player yesterday to the one we'd seen at our place.

Yeah, we are missing Jordan Williams at the moment too who is a regular in the 17. Akauola has literally only played about 20 minutes in the last 3 months so was never likely to be much of a factor, we were a bit surprised we managed to get 25 minutes out of him, and we just don't have the same depth in our squad as one or two other teams such as yourselves this year.

Yes, that's a good assessment. York got over the top of Fev and won the arm wrestle comprehensively. As you say, it's not about fitness (because Fev came from 16-0 down to win at POR and were better in the 2nd half than the 1st at Wembley) - but York wore Fev down on Sunday and Fev had to do too much tackling. You're right about King V, his presence wouldn't have changed the outcome at all but he has been our best forward this year and especially in contact, he doesn't lose many collisions.

I don't disagree with that, I don't think he set out to injure Wynne, he was just trying to prevent a try, but he did slide in knees first in a reckless manner. For me it should have been a yellow card and definitely a penalty kick in front of the posts after the (unsuccessful) conversion because it was a foul in the act of scoring a try. As Paul Cooke explained in his interview, it actually impacted Fev quite a lot, not only because Wynne going off meant a reshuffle with Jones having to move from 9 to centre, Jubb returning earlier than anticipated and Glover switching to the wing, but also because the 4th official didn't acknowledge that Fev should have had a free interchange (because the incident went on report) until after McShane's try around 12 or 13 minutes later. He'll probably escape with a Grade A or B grading, but will get an extra 3 points because the opponent had to leave the field. Under the current rules, that probably means a ban of 1 game at most, but it depends on how they interpret it. Fine commentary as always, btw.

I think most of us lot recognise that, thankfully, you're not remotely representative of most York fans that tend to show up online, especially on these forums, where there seems to be a reasonable amount of respect between supporters of the two clubs.

No, I strongly disagree, the advantage is massive. I've heard the thing about having to run uphill in defence many times but that pales into insignificance compared to the impact the hill has in terms of helping to win the collisions, which comes down to basic physics. I did some number crunching a couple of years ago based on a decent sample size of results and concluded (from memory) that the hill at Batley was worth 12-14 points on average. That's not to say there aren't occasional games where other factors outweigh its impact but they're pretty rare.

I know Widnes beat Toulouse and Barrow beat Bradford but for me the biggest surprise came this morning when I watched the Batley v Sheffield highlights. I'd seen that Sheffield had led 14-0 before Batley scored 24 unanswered points and assumed this was a typical tale of the slope changing fortunes at the Mount, so couldn't believe it when I saw Batley were playing uphill in the 2nd half.

They are, by a long way. We have seen some really rubbish performances by Fev this year - Hunslet was the most recent one, but other games such as Sheffield and Bradford at home come to mind too , I'd give those performances about 3 out of 10. For me we were probably 6 or 7 out of 10 today which just wasn't good enough against arguably the best team in the league on recent form.

Fair play. York much the better team today. Maybe we'll get another chance to meet in the play-offs, but we have plenty of work to do before then.

Interesting post-game interview with Paul Cooke who readily stated that he thought York got over the top of us and that we didn't do enough to win the game and that "York were better than us". However unusually for Paul who I don't think I've ever heard be critical about any officiating after one of our games, he was aggrieved about one particular and unusual issue. When York's full back went into Connor Wynne knees first (which to my mind should have been a penalty in front of the posts after the conversion as well as a card, but that's another matter), Cooke pointed out that the 4th official didn't know the incident was placed on report. Wynne had to be substituted - he could barely walk and was in lots of pain after the game according to Cooke - and I believe the rule is that an injured player can be replaced following foul play or potential foul player (as indicated by the incident going on report) without losing one of the 8 interchanges. Cooke's grievance was that the 4th official seemed not to know that the incident had gone on report and didn't initially grant the "free" interchange. This meant that Cooke thought he was down to 1 interchange and he pointed out that there was one player that he wanted to take off after a very long stint but felt unable to because it would have been his last interchange. That player (who Cooke didn't name but I'll suggest was Pat Moran) missed a tackle that led to McShane's try with 15 minutes left when the score was 12-8. Moran had done a really big stint in that heat (coming on after 17 minutes and not going off until 65 minutes) and played very well, but I was wondering in the few minutes before that try why he was still on the field after such a long period because he had run himself into the ground and was out on his feet, I'm pretty sure Springer would have come back on in his place earleir if we knew we had 2 interchanges left not one. According to Cooke, after McShane's try the 4th official then indicated that actually we COULD have an interchange back because of the incident going on report, so I'm not at all surprised Cooke was aggrieved.

It was Hampshire that kicked the 40/20.