Match Thread. Pre-Season friendly. Featherstone v Leeds Sunday 27th January 2019

[marklaspalmas]

This will be an interesting one.

With Ase Boas here and Cam King flying as I type, there may be one or two new faces in our final hit-out before the serious stuff starts at Odsal.

As we're playing Leeds, perhaps there will be no DR.

That means we look to our own squad. If the two latest additions play (AB I dont see why not but CamKing is pushing it a little), and McDaniel & Richardson continue, that'll give us possibly 18 players of our own, given that Harrison, Whylie, Delaney (looked injured?) and Bussey won't be playing.

The score will be irrelevant, but we'll be looking for a good performance no doubt.

Poss line up, looking very light in the forwards on the bench:

 

[fevnut]

Might be that some of the reserves squad will get a look in. This is what I have at the moment. There may have been some changes to the reserve squad I don't know about.

Bailey Barker	P/2R
Josh Beevers	B
Adam Cooke	P
Jacob Cox	B
James Cranswick	P
Jordan Davis	F
Kai Fagan	2R
Brandon French	C
Sam Hawkins	F
Lewis Jackson	W/FB
Alfie Jewitt	C
Liam Kendall	2R
Josh Maden	HB/H
Billy Marsh	H
Harry McAllister	2R
Jimmy McDaniel	B
Linden Metclafe	H/W
Sam Otterwell	FB
Aiden Pedley	C/W
Jorge Richardson	HB
Tom Schofield	HB
Jordan Taylor	2R/C
Luke Walters	H
Ben Worrincy	P
Bradley Wright	FB
Nathan Wright	W/FB

[Rarefrith]

3 hours ago, marklaspalmas said:

This will be an interesting one.

With Ase Boas here and Cam King flying as I type, there may be one or two new faces in our final hit-out before the serious stuff starts at Odsal.

As we're playing Leeds, perhaps there will be no DR.

That means we look to our own squad. If the two latest additions play (AB I dont see why not but CamKing is pushing it a little), and McDaniel & Richardson continue, that'll give us possibly 18 players of our own, given that Harrison, Whylie, Delaney (looked injured?) and Bussey won't be playing.

The score will be irrelevant, but we'll be looking for a good performance no doubt.

Poss line up, looking very light in the forwards on the bench:

 

Jordan Taylor was in the squad last weekend too. Will be interesting to see how many reserve signings get squad numbers tonight. 

[tms]

I would have thought the two leeds loans would be getting a squad numbers  tonight so should be playing sunday

[The Phantom Horseman]

Are squad numbers being revealed tonight then? Don't remember seeing that mentioned. Not that they always mean a huge amount (especially when the new coach has only just arrived)...remember Thacks getting 7 and Holmes 19 last year when Holmes was always set to be starting.

[Rarefrith]

Jack Render has signed from Cas so that’s another

[jamescolin]

Looking his name up he looks like a three quarter or fullback with his build. Have you any details about him please. 

[Rarefrith]

1 hour ago, jamescolin said:

Looking his name up he looks like a three quarter or fullback with his build. Have you any details about him please. 

Wing or centre apparently 

[The Phantom Horseman]

Leeds have named their squad and it's a very young one. Basically last year's and this year's U19s with Golding, Ormondroyd and Walters. A lot of talented youngsters, of course - Holroyd, Mustapha, McLelland, Johnson and Trout all played in the recent England academy team that beat Australia.

 

[The Phantom Horseman]

Rovers squad named:
https://www.featherstonerovers.co.uk/news/new-players-included-in-rovers-squad-iF8zw

[jamescolin]

Do you think we will see Forde and Render on the wings?

[The Phantom Horseman]

Must admit when I saw the Leeds squad I was a bit disappointed, they actually fielded a much stronger squad against Doncaster than they are putting out against us.

But then given we are fielding a new half back, new hooker and the other half back has only played one game, as have two of the strating three quarters, it's probably in our favour not to be playing too strong a Leeds team...thinking back to the Cas game, we had virtually no good ball, only yardage sets exiting our 20, especially in the second half, and it won't do our attacking combinations any good at all if Leeds played a really strong side that dominated possession.

Mind, I can see some fans getting carried away if we beat a very young Leeds team (as we probably should), in the same way plenty got carried away in the opposite direction when our own very inexperienced team lost to Hunslet Parkside.

 

[gazza77]

I'd suggest it will also benefit our coach in terms of getting a first hand look at players we may see on DR at some point during the season. Not sure we'd learn much getting tonked by the Leeds 1st team. 

[9' oller]

"All leeds I mean fev are we"

[Blue Pike]

Half time Fev 22 Leeds 4

[Blue Pike]

What happened in the second half when we had a good half time lead. Hopefully our Coach has a better idea of playing staff before next weekend 

[The Phantom Horseman]

1 minute ago, Blue Pike said:

What happened in the second half when we had a good half time lead. Hopefully our Coach has a better idea of playing staff before next weekend 

Was only listening to RoversTV commentary but in the first half we played all our starters against a very young (but talented) Leeds team, we were down the slope and had the wind at our backs, and we dominated as you'd expect.

2nd half we were uphill into the wind and steadily took off more than half of our starters, and Leeds dominated.

Pretty much as you'd expect, really.

The really negative thing is Josh Hardcastle getting a red card for a tip tackle, now that we could have done without.

 

[jamescolin]

Had to leave 20 minutes before the end . So cold. Reckon age is catching up. What was the final score please?

[elppaxr2i]

28-32

That was an alarming collapse for me - i know that will not happen in the league with that amount of changes that occurred but the second string need a lot of work

What went through Hardcastles head when he was making that tackle i will never know - will deffo cop a ban for that

[Private Baldrick]

I wouldn't go as far as calling it 'an alarming collapse', not totally unexpected given the taking off of the vast majority of the starting 13. Probably shows the difference in class between our reserve grades and Leeds's 2nd string. For me there were plenty of positives from the first 40 and I believe the coach will have got a lot out of the game as a whole. My positivity is growing for the season and confirms my belief that the top 5 is a very achievable target. 

[Steve Slater]

1 hour ago, Private Baldrick said:

I wouldn't go as far as calling it 'an alarming collapse', not totally unexpected given the taking off of the vast majority of the starting 13. Probably shows the difference in class between our reserve grades and Leeds's 2nd string. For me there were plenty of positives from the first 40 and I believe the coach will have got a lot out of the game as a whole. My positivity is growing for the season and confirms my belief that the top 5 is a very achievable target. 

Not just the difference in class between reserve grades and Leeds 2nd string, there seems to be a difference in class between the PNG players + Cameron King, and the remaining first teamers from last year, all of whom are top Championship players. If that continues to be the case things are looking good. Trouble is there is no squad depth, but add a full complement of D/R fringe first teamers and you will have a very strong side, probably better than last year.....until the injuries and suspensions bite?

[The Phantom Horseman]

17 minutes ago, Steve Slater said:

Not just the difference in class between reserve grades and Leeds 2nd string, there seems to be a difference in class between the PNG players + Cameron King, and the remaining first teamers from last year, all of whom are top Championship players. If that continues to be the case things are looking good. Trouble is there is no squad depth, but add a full complement of D/R fringe first teamers and you will have a very strong side, probably better than last year.....until the injuries and suspensions bite?

Yes that's a good summary. We need to remember that we are running on a much-reduced budget this year so one or two gambles have to be made. Yes we ended up paying the price for running with a small squad last year given DR didn't really help us towards the backend of the season but it seems a more reasonable gamble this year.

The number of players who currently look like genuine 1st teamers might be small but there seems little doubt that we are going to use DR more this year and as mentioned before Leeds have a MUCH deeper squad this year - they have 35 compared to 30 or 31 the last two years and looking at their squad there aren't any who aren't up to playing at Championship level. Dunno if we are still set to get a couple on loan or not but three each week is going to make a difference to us. Also, there's going to be a big difference between bringing a reserve like, say, Jimmy Beckett in for an odd game to cover injuries, to suddenly having six or seven reserves on the field at the same time.

What we probably can't afford is a long-term injury to either of our halves, but it's difficult to justify carrying a quality 3rd half back on a low budget. Equally, if we get seven or eight out injured at the same time, we may struggle, because you can only bring in 4 on DR, but that's where we are financially.