The Phantom Horseman

A costly outcome for us from this game. As well as presumably losing Lacans for some time through injury (still to be confirmed), Day has picked up a 1-game ban and Yei has been referred to the tribunal which usually means 3-5 matches. Gadwin got a £125 fine but no ban.

Ah, ok. I was referring to Sam4731's post which directly preceded yours. I took your post as a reply to his, which perhaps it wasn't, so if so that's my fault, though the point I was making about the SL occupancy bias remains. I don't think anyone can argue, for instance, that it's easier to average crowds of 3,000+ in SL when hosting Wigan, Hull KR, St Helens, Leeds etc with a team built with £1.4m central funding etc than it is hosting Sheffield/Whitehaven/Dewsbury etc etc with a team built on £80k central funding in the Championship?

I never mentioned Batley. I was referring specifically to his point that "being in SL is not a good enough reason for being in SL". The massive occupancy bias may well make SL a closed shop in years to come. I did think that two or three years down the line this would lead to established SL clubs being able to coast along with poor on-field performances as long as they were picking up points elsewhere, but it looks like that's already starting to happen.

You've missed the point of his post, which is that existing tenancy in SL is a massive advantage in terms of scoring enough IMG points to remain in SL.

Bold shout coming on the Fev forum and telling the regulars that we get favouritism shown to us by the RFL... Seriously though it's hard to tell what response you're hoping for? Your initial post basically said you think we must have broken some sort of rule but you don't know what it is so please could Fev fans tell you, or spend some time trawling through the rule book looking it up? You haven't told us anything we haven't already read but if there is evidence we have breached one or more of the RFL Operational Guidelines I'm sure we'll be charged with it, and if there isn't, we won't. There's not much we as supporters can do about it either way.

He's been a lot better than I expected and you're right that was a really good piece of play when he released Josh as there didn't look to be anything on.

Springer Jones Gale

I have no idea what the issue was that led to his release, but every time I saw him play for Fax he seemed to get about 20 minutes off the bench and was then whisked off again, which seemed very odd given most of your other middles at the time seemed pretty average.

"So Matt Peet, how do you explain your exceptional recruitment in the last couple of seasons? You must have an extensive network of scouts and well-connected RL insiders?" "Nah mate, we just read Phantom Horseman's ramblings on the Fev forum."

Is anyone else finding Gadwin one of their favourite players of recent years? He's bounced around a number of clubs, seemingly falling out with one or two of them, but finally seems to have found his spiritual home at Fev, and more than that, the responsibility he has taken on this season since the departure of some of our older props/middles has been immense. Having been regarded for much of his career as an impact player for short stints off the bench he's now our clear-cut most important middle (along with Addy but he plays a different role) and is playing big minutes every week and charges into the opposition in both attack and defence. Love watching him play.

You're not alone there, I thought the same. Well done to him for coming up with two huge plays today.

Caleb Aekins? Struggling to see what he did wrong.

The touch judge down that side was Cameron Worsley who also referees a lot of games, he's very young but is a bit whistle-happy at this stage of his career, think he's one of the refs with the biggest penalty count over the last year or so and he's clearly the same as a touch judge.

I'm pretty sure that, and most of the other forward pass calls, came from the touch judge.

Well all we ask is they have a dig and they really did. Especially not to fold in the second half. Some fabulous tries too. If we'd scored in that attack with about 5 minutes left it would have been a nervous last couple of sets for Leigh. Very proud of that effort. The downside of course is the injury to poor Thomas. Really hope he's ok but it didn't look good. Couple of glimpses from Turner of what he can do and hopefully he will prove a handful for Championship defences.

Yes. Assistant coach.

Probably be a long second half for Fev but pleased we have had a dig. Three tries for Hanley but the Fev try was very reminiscent of probably the most famous try his dad ever scored.

17 named. Tanner still not ready. Tomlinson gets a start, Turner on the bench alongside England, Wynne, and Yei so really one middle, a back row, half back and wing as our interchanges, but suspect England will play a bit of middle as he did in the 1895 Cup game at Batley.

Now reportedly reopened westbound.

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.