The Phantom Horseman

Indeed, that was a particularly egregious example. (there are few things in life I like more than using the word "egregious").

100% this.

I'm happy that we've signed Addy and I think that he'll be an important player for us next year. The role of the old-fashioned loose forward as first receiver seems to be coming back into fashion with the likes of Asiata at Leigh and Parata doing surprisingly well in that role at London and I'm sure that's where we'll see Addy play. He's probably not quite good enough to play that role for a top team at SL level but he looked one of the best players in the Championship in his brief spell at Leigh 3 years ago when playing that first receiver role, and he linked up really well with Reynolds, I think he played the full 80 minutes in that central role on at least 1 occasion too.

We know the club is reducing its investment in the squad by 50% this year. Are you expecting to bring in better players at half the price? Given the drastic reduction to our budget, I think we've done well to retain Aekins, Springer, Gale, Lacans, Jones, maybe 2 or 3 others, and sign Reynolds, Minikin and Addy.

He did, when he announced he was leaving the club last week.

One thing I've missed over the last year or two is the lack of games that we won that I didn't really expect us to. I think we would have been bookies' favourites for just about every game we played last year, can't remember about Toulouse away, but I think all of the others we would have been. I can count on the fingers of one hand the games over the last couple of years where I was really buzzing after a win as a result. Maybe Leigh at home in February 2022 was the last time. Even for some of our wide-margin wins, it was a case of just overpowering the opposition. I also had a bit of a sense of forboding if we did reach SL. We would have probably gone with a similar squad to this year plus Reynolds, Minikin etc, and let's be honest we would have probably struggled mightily (as will London I'd expect), because the odds are stacked so hugely against the promoted team unless they have a really wealthy owner who can build a SL-ready team in the Championship. We'd have been relegated via IMG's system anyway if we had been promoted, the only difference being that the perceived wisdom across the league would have been that Fev had had their chance in SL and proved they didn't belong. So at least we can now go back to being the underdog team with a bit of a chip on our shoulder. We probably all need to recalibrate expectations as fans, but that doesn't mean we can't get at least as much enjoyment out of supporting Fev.

Good point, especially as Foundation turnover is now a central component of the IMG points scoring system. For example, if a Foundation had a 3-year turnover average of £40,000, by increasing it to £50,000 they would increase their IMG score by the same amount (0.25 points) as they would by winning the Championship Grand Final or the Challenge Cup.

Agree with most of that. Did some back-of-a-fag packet sums and given the players we know we are keeping plus the 2 new signings announced, we will be doing well to keep the remaining players not announced as leaving yet given we've been told we've halved our budget. But we'll see. We've learned that nothing is decided in the first half of the season, let alone November the previous year. Salford have just confirmed that Danny Addy is leaving them

The mood is as low now as has been for a few years (probably since late 2018/early 2019) amongst a fair proportion of our fans. I think your point about the cost is a very valid one in the current financial climate, but as well as having some of the best and most loyal fans in rugby league, we also have - like every club - a fair few fair-weathered ones. Put it this way, if we managed to have a successful season and reached the Grand Final against a team who were already promoted via their IMG score, I bet there would be plenty of Fev fans turn up.

Not sure about this "no one will go because it's friendlies in all but name" line. It's no different from a few years ago - here's a "friendly" at Warrington in 2011 that saw Fev fans turn out in their thousands

Indeed, the letter gradings are pretty meaningless/misleading. If you get above 15 you're guaranteed a place in SL, and if you get below 7.5 you're not allowed in SL. Apart from that, it's just the 12 teams with the highest number of points each year who will be in SL the following season.

Yeah, we know JD is going to the Bulls. ETset to join Koppy and Wildie at Oldham according to Yorkshire Live. Some team they're going to have for League 1.

Which game does this throwback make you think of first? For me it's this game in the Regal Trophy from 1991. Losing 18-16 with half an hour left and down to 12 men... https://www.facebook.com/FevRoversRLFC/videos/1354987111557168/

Not a good look at all for the club, of course, but hopefully gets sorted quickly. Suspect this happens across RL a bit more often than is reported.

LOL, within a short while of Shaw posting his story we've had 2 Bulls fans rushing breathlessly to this forum to share it and a third starting a fresh thread about it on the General forum. Yes, we get it, you're all deeply "worried"

I don't think he has played a recognised game since playing for us in the 2019 final has he? Couple of pre-season games in 2020, did his ACL and retired at the end of that season. Think he's even less likely than Chisholm to be able to return close to the 2019 version. Hooker would be a much easier position to fill than middles. Seeing a few posts from people saying they wouldn't want Nathan Massey, fair enough, but who are we going to sign instead? We've literally only got Springer signed on as a middle so far, plus Yei if he stays. We've lost Lockwood, Smith, Cozza, Moors and Kopczak, we are going to need some more grunt in the middle and there probably aren't too many unsigned middles left in the Championship.

Although if Matt Shaw is right we are about to sign a couple more veteran forwards https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/featherstone-rovers-close-duo-squad-28020677

An interesting and thoughtful post. I'm not sure that contract terms have necessarily been the issue because a few players seem to have suggested they were told they were no longer required. From the outside it seems like the club worked out that it could only afford to keep 10 or 12 players on anything like the contracts we were paying previously and that once that number had been decided on the rest would just be allowed to leave. The fact that we announced all 16/17 leavers at the same time might back up that theory. I think everyone over the age of 31 has gone, which I guess would tie in with a rebuilding strategy.

I bet Titus Gwaze is thrilled.

Far too early to say, Colin. We're in a bit of a rebuilding mode. Think we only have 7 confirmed at this stage plus about 6 more that we think are stopping (becasue they weren't on the leavers' list). We'll need 10-12 more to be added between now and February and we don't really know what calibre they are likely to be at this stage. Given we are reportedly going with half the playing budget from last year, I wouldn't expect too many blockbuster signings, but we'll have to wait and see.

Not sure about that, Ford was already director of rugby when we signed Chisholm and Dane had had some of his better games against York so you'd think Ford was very much on board with the signing. I think all of us could see that the Chisholm we saw this year wasn't quite the player of 2019 or even 2021, perhaps not surprising seeing as he's now 33. Given we are clearly making a break from the old guard, keeping Lacans rather than Chisholm is very much in line with that policy. The common theme amongst a lot of the departures is that a lot of the over 30s are gone. Lockwood (37), Moors (37), Kopczak (36), Hall (35), Ford (34), Taylor (33), Kheirallah (33), Wildie (33), Chisholm (33), Davies (32), Leilua (31), Smith (30) and Hepi (30)...even Briscoe's 29, only Cozza, plus Hau (who we always knew was on a short-term deal) were relatively young.

Very sad news and a very good point. I can remember in the 1970s the shock as the news filtered round the grounds one Sunday afternoon that Leeds' half back Chris Sanderson had died in a game at Salford. More recently there was the tragic Danny Jones incident. We're all quick to criticise players on social media but these guys put their bodies on the line every week. Heartbreaking news for Adam Johnson's family and all the players involved in that game must be in a state of shock too.

My guess is that the plan was: - let the top 4 or 5 really big earners go - keep a core of 8 or 9 of the remaining players that we considered most valuable - let a bunch of other players that we didn't rate quite so highly leave. To be fair, I think as it stands most of the ones we look to be keeping are the ones most of us on here would have most wanted to, with the exception that most of us would have kept JD over Day and some would have wanted to keep Briscoe. As you suggest, it will be interesting to see if the remainder of the squad are cheapish squad filler-type players or whether we can pull some rabbits out of hats and attract some more players of quality similar to those already signed on. Martin Vickers said in an interview the other day that we will be reducing our investment by 50% next year and is talking about the aim next year being top 6, I'm not unhappy with that as I think it's a realistic approach with no P & R available, and we can go back to being the plucky underdogs again hopefully.

Exactly what I have been thinking. Obviously some of it is down to the conditions but I can't remember seeing such a compressed defence as this in a top-level game.

Am sure Rob was saying that re-signing a high-calibre player like Aekins is a sign that we aren't just focussing on off-field activities from now on.