The Phantom Horseman

Whilst we're talking about "inexcusable" floodlights, have you heard the one about the mega cashed-up club supposedly aiming for an A grade from IMG who had to abandon a game a few weeks ago because of repeated floodlight failure (and now can't stage home games because they neglected to get a working water supply in their stand)?

Yeah I agree.

Sheffield are second favourites with the sponsors (behind Wakefield) for the Championship this season. That might reflect the lack of other credible challengers I guess, but time will tell.

Both teams announced. We are missing Tanner, Yei, Bussey, Massey and Day (plus fringe players Roberts and Arnold) from our forwards as well as Lacans. Gorman plays centre, Bowes and Turner in the halves. Strong team for Wakefield with Thornley returning and ex-NRL Ky Rodwell making his debut.

Comms saying that Hull KR fans chanting "you're getting sacked on the telly" is aimed at Tony Smith, but I think the main target of that is someone else...

Don't think that's right? "If the player marking the tackled player at the play-the-ball dives behind the tackled player in order to drop on the ball as it is heeled, they are guilty of a voluntary tackle and should be penalised. If there is no acting half back it is permissible for a player to dive behind the tackled player and drop on the ball after it has been heeled provided that, unless tackled, they immediately regain his feet."

I think he went to Wigan and then seemed to disappear.

Yep I've talked about that game on here a few times, Jeff Townend was the hero with 8 goals from 8 I think from all over the field. Clive Sullivan was one of the Hull KR players sent off for an instinctive high tackle, the only time he was ever sent off in a long and illustrious career, and it's the only time I have seen an opponent sent off that I can remember feeling bad about it.

Closest I can think of in recent years is the away Challenge Cup game against London in 2016. We went three tries behind in the first 20 minutes or so and Anthony Thackeray then went off with a broken jaw., but the score was only 14-0 because they missed two conversions. We went on to win 26-48 with Ian Hardman scoring 5 tries. One of my favourite Fev games that, perhaps because there were only about a dozen or so of us supporting Fev that day (there was a big Fev Lions game on at POR the same day and the club got permission to stream the London-Fev game in the clubhouse).

I thought at the time it was close, though it was hard to tell from the TV angle. I don't think there was any malice in it though.

Pre-game interview with Fordy which includes a couple of injury updates too. https://www.facebook.com/FevRoversRLFC/videos/1130409634808732/?mibextid=WC7FNe&rdid=PGYmDzmCRkXp5ijw

Indeed, but just as many would make the exact same comments about Aekins in terms of playing half back versus full back, and realistically it has to be one or the other for the time being.

That was a ridiculously weird month all round from a Fev POV. As you say, in early April 2012 they shipped 60 points at home to Sheffield, including four interception tries for the Eagles. 4 weeks later, they again conceded 60 points at home to Halifax, losing 12-60. Between those 2 games, they beat Castleford 23-16 in one of the club's finest-ever victories, and 2 weeks later were leading Wigan at half time, both in the Challenge Cup.

Indeed, I am not a fan of criticising refs and I'm certainly not doing that here, but I do think there have been different levels of interpretation of some of the new rules in the Championship games I've seen this season.

Yes he did so I suspect you're right.

I'm normally the last person to comment on this sort of thing but I hope we've done our homework on the referee this weekend. I've watched a lot of Championhip games on YouTube this year and in my opinion the younger referees such as Cameron Worsley and Liam Rush are being really zealous on the new interpretations of the rules especially around the ruck and incorrect play-the-balls. We've had regular SL referees in Jack Smith, Ben Thaler, and Scott Mikalaukas the last 4 games and I hope we can adjust because when I've seen Rush this season he has been very strict on these type of areas, and Wakefield have the advantage of having seen him at first hand when they played Barrow recently. Not a criticism of the ref, he's only applying the rules, but we need to be squeaky clean on Friday.

Fishwick and Gorman in the 21-man squad on DR. Brad Day is not in so presumably his suspension starts this week because it was a challenge cup game? Unsurprisingly Lacans is absent, Massey, Bussey and Arnold still out injured, Roberts still suspended.Tanner is back in the squad so let's hope he's able to play as we're looking pretty threadbare.

We had exactly the same scenario with some Leigh fans in 2022 which was the last time the pitch was in that kind of condition. I suspect the same will happen as happened then if Wakefield improve past us like Leigh did - they'll write that game off as being solely down to the conditions.

Funny you should say that, I wandered past the ground this morning and took this photo, we're just doing a little light irrigation to promote normal grass growth.

I don't think it will be surprising if that happens, though I thought that before the Cup game too. They won't have to play Doyle (who we exploited badly) as a middle again, I think Thornley might be back so they won't have to play Griffin at centre, and they have a couple of possible newcomers to add strength to the pack. Add to that the fact that they're a full-time team who have had a week off to focus solely on this game whilst we were in a bruising game at LSV and they have to be hot favourites. Still looking forward to it though, once again all we ask is that they have a dig, and it wouldn't half shake the league up if we can push them close or beat them again.

Interesting debate about the full back half back options and not really sure where I stand on it. For me, Aekins is an 8.5 out of 10 Championship player at full back, but only a 7 out of 10 at half back. But I think Bowes is only a 6 out of 10 at half back (don't get me wrong, he's done a really good job filling in, but it's not his natural position either). So if Gorman is, say, a 6.5 or 7 out of 10 Championship full back AND a significantly better goal kicker than anyone else we've got available, is our net position better with him at 1, Aekins at half and Bowes on the bench? It's a close one for me.

I'm sure you are right on this on reflection. I had checked via the RFL website (more fool me) and found this https://www.rugby-league.com/match-review-panel which says 3-5 matches for Grade E, but I'm pretty sure that's an old version of the guidelines that they haven't bothered to update. Who knew that the RFL website could be unreliable?

Lacans has put a photo on his Instagram wearing a surgical boot with the comment "RL got me again" so you'd presume a fair lay-off beckons.

Good spot.

Think MarkLasPalmas is on his travels at the moment so I thought I'd step in to start the match thread. So...round 2 in both senses of the word. We landed a famous win against the odds in the Challenge Cup, but that counts for naught on Friday and they will be bristling for revenge. In terms of line-up...pending updates but it seems very unlikely Lacans will be available. That will mean Bowes continuing to fill in at half back and presumably a first start for Turner, who showed definite glimmers of his ability at Leigh. Far from ideal that the two halves who were at the helm of all our pre-season work are now gone (one permanently, one temporarily) but that's the hand we've been dealt. Day will miss out, assuming he doesn't challenge his 1-match suspension, and with Bussey still out, looks like England and Tomlinson might be a back row combination that we wouldn't have anticipated a few weeks ago. Yei would be available to play as his tribunal doesn't take place until next week, but he didn't look anywhere near fully fit to me at Leigh and it might not be a bad idea if he uses his ban to get his knee strength back. Remains to be seen if Tanner is back, but you'd think we will be looking to Hull KR for a little support in the pack here, depending on who's available. The forecasts at the moment look to be more for showers than heavy rain but that could change. Either way, we'll be firmly underdogs once again against the league favourites. But it's been a fun ride being underdogs so far this season.