The Blues Ox

Toulouse Olympique v Newcastle Thunder Toulouse by 62 SUNDAY 12th FEBRUARY Barrow Raiders v Sheffield Eagles Sheffield by 10 Batley Bulldogs v Swinton Lions Batley by 26 Featherstone Rovers v Halifax Panthers Fev by 14 Whitehaven v London Broncos Haven by 4 Widnes Vikings v Keighley Cougars Widnes by 16

Yeah we are really due a year where more than 1 team can win it.

Was a good watch. Mason is very clearly a very knowledagble bloke when it comes to Rugby League. He seems a really likable guy.

Fev looked good no doubt about that but maybe Keighley have been a bit over hyped after watching that. Yes they have made some very good signings on paper but the Championship is a class division and its a huge step up for some of the Keighley lads if they are thinking they maybe there or there abouts the playoffs. Fev's pack will dominate most teams in most games so that was no real surprise but Keighley's pack looked painfully under sized and they look like they may struggle against a lot of teams which, like a few posters said above, just means Gale and Chisolm are going to struggle too. I also thought to me the commentators over played the "Credit to Keighley for not giving up" card a bit too much. I thought after about the 3rd Fev try their body language was awful and that thumping was on the cards very eary on and I think it was only Fev pushing it a bit too much and a bit of rustyness that kept the score away from 70 or 80. All in all its probably a big wake up call for Keighley but their season won't be decided by games against Fev so they can pretty much forget about last night as no team around them is likely to pick up points from that match either. For Fev its a potentially tricky game out of the way and they were able to cruise in to what should be one of their toughest matches of the season next week.

This may be flawed logic but do you think the girls game at the grassroots level is growing too fast? Participation numbers are up year on year but not enough to support the number of new clubs that are popping up which is stretching a lot of clubs thin. This season we will see a lot of non full sided games as teams struggle to fill their squads and with "super" clubs in some areas, parents are inclined to take their children to these teams and this year we are seeing a number of traditional clubs who have been involved in the girls for a long time unable to enter teams in age groups or even fold. What are your thoughts on this?

Imagine. I think there would be some uncomfortable decisions been made by the RFL if it happened. But great thing this year is that unless its Toulouse that go back up Im not sure the result will be exactly what the RFL wants.

Ah so you have them losing in the playoffs, who beats them?

Barrow Raiders v Toulouse Olympique Barrow by 8 Bradford Bulls v Whitehaven Bulls 16 Halifax Panthers v Sheffield Eagles Fax by 10 London Broncos v Batley Bulldogs London by 4 Swinton Lions v Newcastle Thunder Swinton by 16 York Knights v Widnes Vikings York by 12

Who do you reckon will be the 1 team to beat them Harry? Im going to go for Keighley by 4. Only for the reason everything here seems to be set up for a great underdog David V Golliath opening TV game surprise.

Ive studied it and my findings were as follows - 1. Move Fev's older players around the pitch and hope it pays off in the last 20 minutes. 2. Quick play the balls to get their big forwards on the back foot as much as possible. 3. Look to turn Fev around early in the tackle count if possible again looking to tire out their pack. 4. Have to take risks and look to get some offloads away in the tackle again hoping to beat Fev on fitness. 5. Spend pretty much 2 million pounds to assemble a team that would survive in SL. Ive emailed Halifax and hope that they can act on my findings.

That's the spirit.

Maybe contract bonuses for reaching the semi final? I know not reaching the semi final has allegedly saved Fax a bit of money involving contracts for this coming season so maybe thats partly the swing?

Oh I just took it that he were a Bulls fan with him been the leader of the Bulls hype train. Not sure about the galvanising the playing squad comment though. I saw people calling for his head at the back end of the season. Im not sure keeping Patton and bringing in Arundel is going to help much with the squad atmosphere either.

https://www.totalrl.com/predicting-the-championship-top-six-play-off-teams-ahead-of-battle-for-super-league/ Obviously I know the guy is a Bradford fan but where is this hype coming from? It's not really seen on the Bulls message board, I don't use Facebook that much so can't speak for that and yeah they have made 2 or 3 decent signings but a jump from missing the playoffs to 2nd? Just seems a bit of a reach.

Have I noticed a bit of an improvement in things though? I actually read the Nobby article which makes a change from me taking one look at the headline and deciding not to.

Haha yeah I got that a bit back to front. Will edit it now thanks.

In the first instance (attacker getting pushed behind their own line) I believe the ref should call held when more of his team mates add weight to the tackle but not sure how it works the other way around and to be fair the first one is most ignored anyway.

Like Saints wern't paying some of those players. At the end of the day as soon as Leeds and then York decided they were going to start paying players, Amy was always going to go to whichever one she thought would be able to keep her profile at its highest.

"League Express Editor In Rant At Elon Musk, Were You Shocked?"

Are you saying that Fev didn't win the league last night because Facebook is telling me otherwise.

How do you stop someone scoring 5 yards away from the line?

Brilliant.

It was never going to happen, Wakey brought on their 5th string while Fax always kept their best 13 on the pitch at all times to make it a touch closer.

"We couldn't believe it, could you?"

They will have all these stats but as I imagine its clicks that they make money from then all that matters is that there has been an increase in people arriving at the website. I imagine most regular readers will be using adblockers anyway and theres a chance they may have stats on that as well so that would be intersting to know.