The Phantom Horseman

Nah. Gave us one of the best seasons in recent years and some amazing memories in 2019, but that's 5 years ago and he was a shadow of the player he was then when he came back last year. He's retired, hasn't done a pre-season, and we're trying to do a rebuild. I'm sure the club will be looking for a replacement half back, but we might need to be patient. There will probably be a few options come up as the season starts in the NRL with other train-and-trial players like Tanner potentially becoming available. It's bound to be a rocky period in the first part of the season but everything will be about positioning pourselves for a top 6 finish and trying to strengthen as the year goes on.

We'll keep the loyal supporters, and lose the fair-weather customers, same as any other club.

I don't think this is anything to do with DR whatsoever. Hull KR just happened to be the team who lost one of their major half backs before the season started and have been desperate to get another ever since.

As you say, marquee signing, club captain, Ford tried to sign him several times before, and HKR have reportedly been after him for a while. Losing him hurts us a lot so I very much doubt the club have done this lightly, or just for the money.

Wouldn't surprise me if Addy played as a half (he's done it before) and imo he's our next best kicker too. Other alternatives include Bowes, who has played half a fair bit this year, or even switch Wynne or Harris to 1 and go back to Aekins at half, though I'm not sure many fev fans want to see that.

I'd be surprised if we let him go without a pretty substantial fee (if true). Wouldn't be any halves of his quality available over here hence why HKR would have been persistent in their interest. Australia might be a different kettle of fish especially with the recent relaxation of the visa rules.

Looks like the latter... https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/hull-kr-halfback-breakthrough-move-9120082?utm_source=whatsapp&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=communities

Squad named for Sunday's game on the RFL website. Only 20 names, and no Ben Reynolds. We probably have about 5 others that we know of that are missing (Yei, Albert, Arnold, and the suspended Minikin and Roberts). Jayden Tanner is in the squad. We've also named Connor Moore, a former Hull KR prop who was last seen playing for St Gaudens Bears in the French Elite 1 League. https://www.rugby-league.com/match-centre/match-preview/2271471

Is this not partly down to every game being televised - ie if you can cause a stoppage it will give time for the video ref to look back for any infringement in the tackle.

I watched that game today. To be honest the scoreline isn't really a refelction of how the game went as Bradford's pack dominated in terms of yardage but their discipline/penalty concessions were really poor and Keighley mounted a bit of a late fightback which saw them score the last two tries. Keighley battled hard but lack a bit of quality, all their attacking moves seem to involve Miller setting up Pickersgill through a planned move, either through a kick or a pass back on the inside so we'll need to watch that.

One of the weird things about memory and being a RL fan is that you might not remember what you had for breakfast that morning, but you can remember obscure things from games 50 years ago. So I can remember, as a young kid, the day of the St Helens v Fev game mentioned in the blog. It was a televised game, and although the Radio Times of the day (which can be seen at https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/service_bbc_one_london/1973-09-15 suggests they showed part of the first half and then the full second half, I'm pretty sure that the Les Tonks drop goal, which I think was in the first half, wasn't shown at any point. I remember being intrigued by this for years ( to the extent that about 30 years later I won a prize in a League Express fantasy competion with a team entitled "Les Tonks' Drop Goal") ...I don't think I have ever seen a player who I could less imagine attempting a drop goal than Les Tonks...he was a very important member of the team because of his tremendous scrummaging ability, but I can never remember him kicking the ball in any fashion in any game I saw him play.

Finally published. 6 games and a £500 fine. https://www.rugby-league.com/article/62487/disciplinary-|-operational-rules-tribunal-&-match-review-panel The maximum fine in the Championship is normally £250, but if you're found guilty of a Grade F offence it doubles.

I'd think they're more seeing/hoping for another Josh Ralph. Though I'm sure they'd accept either!

I've been looking for this too, the RFL website doesn't seem to have updated it. As you indicate, they put up the results of the SL Operational Rules tribunals after they happened on Tuesday, but they as yet haven't revealed what happened to yesterday's batch of lower-division tribunals. Wakefield have tweeted that Mason Lino's ban was reduced from 3 games to 2 but I don't think any of the other teams involved have put out the results, to be fair there's not a lot of upside for a club in splashing it over social media that a player has received a 6+ game ban so I am not surprised the club haven't provided an update but it's poor that the RFL haven't provided this info yet.

I think the RFL will have mixed views about this move. On the one hand it's very awkward for them given they have only just launched this initiative, but on the other hand, it's not going to harm their case in the litigation issue with the former players who have filed the brain-injury lawsuit if they can point out a significant campaign from current players against the current clampdown.

Have you "signed" him, or is he just freelancing for you? He's been our commentator at Fev for the last two seasons and has commentated on some of our games this season, including at Batley a couple of weeks ago, and Fev didn't have a game this weekend whilst for Fev's latest game he was on ourLeague duty I think. Not really bothered if he's switching to Oldham now and I think that's much nearer home for him, but just wondered if it was a permanent move to being your commentator.

Yeah, by all means announce the scorer's name and be upbeat about it if it's a home team try, but the PA doing that sort of thing during play just sounds wrong.

Take your earplugs if you're going on Sunday...have a listen to the PA when Keighley score and you'll see what I mean, somebody really needs to have a quiet word about that.

Am all for innovation and don't want to come across as a killjoy but I really hope this "PA guy celebrating tries as they happen" thing from Keighley doesn't catch on. Aside from the basic irritation factor, I really don't think the PA should be used to loudly claim a try before the ref has even awarded it (eg around 1 minute 12 seconds in)

Wakefield docked 10 IMG points for the fan fracas at the LNER a couple of weeks ago?

This is Rivett playing Jersey Flegg (U21) for Cronulla in 2022 https://www.nswrl.com.au/news/2022/11/02/jersey-flegg-cup-2022-highlights--ryan-rivett/

From what I've seen and read of him...tall, skinny, very good attacking skillset, physique/defence has perhaps held him back. Did play one first-grade game last year but seemed not to be getting into the NSW Cup team towards the end of last season, though the Knights did have plenty of good halves I think. Watching him reminds me a bit of Riley Dean and I'm sure Toulouse would take that in a heartbeat, as you know they desperately needed a replacement for Josh Ralph.

Well, fair play as this is all a lot more inspiring than your post in the thread on London Broncos yesterday... "London may well not win a single game this year.....it may well put off a massive amount of people ever bothering again... Barring a miracle of a season results wise I won't be choosing to drive/walk 2 plus hours there and back to see a non competitive match"

It will be interesting to see how London adapt to SL. They made 2 or 3 key signings before the business end of last season and were splendidly nurtured by their coach into a competitive team for the play-offs. But 2 of their key additions, Norman and Whare, turned out to be short-term signings only, and the size of their task this year is highlighted by the fact that they finished 18 points adrift of the leaders in the regular-season table. Their 21-man squad for this evening looks predominantly to consist of players who have spent the last few years in the Championship and seemed to be established as being at that sort of level , but then again few people gave the Broncos much chance in 2019 and they actually went very well despite eventually being relegated. The handicap for tonight's game seems to be about 30, and for me London will have done very well if they manage to keep it under that, if Saints start the season at full throttle it could be very one-sided.

I think that's a good summary. I think most neutrals watching the game would have found Parcell's play more irritating than Sao's, but equally, watching the incident live, my immediate thought was that it would be a yellow to Parcell for niggling and a red to Sao for dangerous contact/action with the knee, and that's how it turned out. The problem in sanctioning Parcell is, unless they judge it to be gouging (and I don't think it was), which would be a 6+ game ban, it's hard to know what offence to charge him with. Maybe under rule 15 (i) "other Contrary behaviour", which can be graded anything from A to F. But I don't think there's much of a history of that rule being used in this type of context.