The Phantom Horseman

Alternatively, if you play like you did at Hull it could be a desperately long afternoon for us! Amazing performance that but at least we know there's no shame if we get blown away in similar fashion. It's a bit of a free hit for us and hopefully a chance to get some minutes into a few players who desperately need it, there's a chance we might play 2 or 3 guys who haven't played for over 6 months and didn't have a proper pre-season either. Most of us will just be hoping we have a dig like we did against Wakefield as we're very much in rebuilding mode at the moment.

By getting London instead? Hmm. I agree with the original post but not this one, at all. Saying Fev couldn't afford to take the next step...well, I think getting £1.4 million instead of £80k might have made a bit of a difference! And your comment about "It’s not really decided by performance on the pitch, it’s decided by money" about promotion is laughable, it will be decided MORE by money from now on. Any team that gets somebody prepared to throw big money at a club will be in a very favourable position because so many of the IMG points available are predicated entirely on this. They can literally "buy" IMG points across the board, even through schemes such as heavily subsidised season tickets (eg at Wakefield) to ensure getting high points in that category...they get points for investment...they get points for splashing out on LED advertising boards etc. I'm not even saying that it's necessarily wrong, but let's not pretend that money (and current SL occupancy, with the financial advantages that brings) isn't going to be the ultimate decider in who goes in SL. I don't disagree at all though with the original point that the old promotion system was flawed in terms of how hard it is for an existing Championship team to build a SL-competitive team in the short window available.

I disagree, I think they have very much looked at the big picture, which is that they are being offered a negligible amount and on Premier Sports the game won't get any worthwhile extra exposure outside the diehards as a consequence. Anyone who looked at the game threads on the TotalRL general forum for the ViaPlay live games last year will know what I mean - there wer barely any posts, as even amongst fans hardcore enough to contribute to RL forums, paying over £100 a year for Championship RL was unattractive.

It's also the equivalent of what Leigh did in 2018, when Beaumont admitted that he hadn't envisaged that the club might fail to reach the play-offs and couldn't honour contracts as a result, with the club going into special measures. Harry, you were spectacularly wrong in your assessments about Fev last year from start to finish and it does you no credit to be doubling down now.

I can understand why teams are against this deal. The amounts of money involved are tiny, and for all that people like to quote evidence that televised games don't affect the attendance, not all of those surveys are done based on second-tier games in the north of England during a cost of living crisis at a time when concession entrances are being phased out. If the games were being broadcast on BBC/Channel 4 or even Sky, you could at least make the case that there would be increased exposure, but on a subscription channel such as Premier Sports you're largely preaching to the converted.

This is the RL equivalent of Liz Truss saying she should have cut the income tax rate for top earners by even more.

Bit rich this Harry, given you had arguments/discussions with me over and over again on this very forum last summer in which you repeatedly seemed to be advocating Fev spending even more money than they already had, whether they had it or not.

Right on both counts. The great man storming through for two tries...and massive areas of near-empty terracing at Wembley. Lowe was a tremendous player and in many ways the prototype for some of the huge, fast back-rowers we saw from Australia in years to come.

Turner, Massey, Tanner and Yei all in the 21-man squad for Saturday. Interesting to see how many of them are fit to play, but hopefully a sign that we are at least returning to something like a full complement of players to select from. Morris Kamano presumably was one of the players who picked up a knock at Batley.

I doubt it too...

Indeed, I watched Leigh's game at Hull, and as bad as the home team were, Leigh were exceptionally good and blew them away even with a few players missing, looking a genuine top 4 SL team despite their modertae start to the season. Sounds like Lachlan Lam might be back for them too this week. I didn't fancy us to beat Wakefield and we pulled off a remarkable effort, even if helped by the conditions, it will be a much faster track at Leigh and in his post-Batley interview it sounded from Fordy as if we had even more injury concerns following the game. We won't get much if anything from Hull KR with it being a cup game (maybe Fishwick if he's fit) and we might even be struggling to name 17 if we did pick up more injuries at Batley. It's been a depressing week or so for the fans following the euphoria of the Wakefield game, but once again all we can ask is that the players have a dig as they have been doing and if we can get even a vaguely competitive effort in this game then that would reflect great credit on Fordy and the team.

This is 100% accurate, same comments apply to me about going to school in Ponte, in my year there were reams of Fev fans and only one Cas fan and he was regarded as being a bit of an oddball. As you suggest, long-term SL occupancy for Cas will have had an impact on that as it would for any sport.

Addy Gale Aekins

That's a fairly accurate description of what happened but in terms of overall context the "imploding" happened to both teams at different teams (Fev gifted lots of field position to Batley in the first 20 minutes through poor discipline), and indeed the reason Batley found themselves with a scrum 10m out in the closing stages was because two Fev players went for the same high kick and knocked on, that was the first time Batley were in an attacking position in the second half. Overall it was a fairly typical game at the Mount in that the slope had its usual massive impact. Fev as mentioned were very poor in the first 20 minutes and Batley were very good and full value for their 18-point lead. Fev got a lifeline with a late first half try and just as had Fev had given Batley field position through mistakes/poor discipline playing uphill, the reverse happened in the second half with Batley errors helping Fev dominate. Fev will feel they got out of jail, Batley will feel like it's one that got away.

Paul Turner has now arrived in the UK. Hoping we'll get to see him in the next 2 or 3 weeks.

Willie Peters via Matthew Shaw: "Zach Fishwick played for Featherstone at the weekend and we've got a few more going to Featherstone again this week." https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/hull-krs-loan-market-conundrum-9162484 Not surprising as Fordy has said all along that DR players would feature and the start of the league season was always where we were likely to see the first significant batch.

Indeed. When we beat them early in the season they had Kieran Dixon and Tom Nisbet on the wing. By the time we played them again, it was Blake Ferguson and Krisnan Inu! They'd also added Ipape and O'Donnell by then.

Think Turner might need a week or two once he arrives as he was recovering from an injury until fairly recently. Interesting that in his post-game interview on Sunday Fordy said "there's some new players coming in next week", we know about Turner but I wonder if he meant players returning from injury, DR additions or maybe someone else? We'll need to keep an eye on Batley's new prolific tryscoring sensation, with 4 tries already this season this L Cooper fella has been terrorising defences.

"I'm not putting up with losing at Fev, SIGN SOMEBODY." "Let's not panic, there's nobody any good available at the moment. I mean there's a winger who Leeds have been trying to move on for ages, but surely..." "I SAID SIGN SOMEBODY!!!!!" https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/derrell-olpherts-leaves-leeds-rhinos-28802069

On the General forum someone was spouting off about the pitch being "the usual mudbath" so I pointed out the only time in the last year or two where pitch conditions in the WF postcode had caused injuries... https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/wakefield-trinity-pitch-pictures-impact-26390411 https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/tom-johnstone-wakefield-pitch-injuries-26281719

Here's another quote I've stolen from Wakefield's social media..."who do we want in the sixth round?" For me...obviously Cas at home would be top of the list. But any SL team at home would be good, or a big SL team away. The ones we want to avoid...Catalans away would be the nightmare draw by a long way. London away would be not good either, though less expensive and at least a chance of winning. Probably wouldn't want Sheffield away either as that wouldn't be much of a gate.

Think that's the one draw nobody at the club would want, from a financial/expenses point of view it would negate what would have been a lucrative gate against Wakefield. Plus very little realistic chance of winning.

My favouite comment so far from the Wakefield RLFans forum... "Luck and a pigsty of a pitch won the game for rovers. Their ground is barely championship standard."

Addy Springer Hardcastle

I was thinking, when was the last time you saw such sheer delight on the players' faces at the end of a game? There's something about being the underdog that suits this club, honestly I would have felt pretty upbeat about that game even if we'd lost on golden point.