Mid Season thoughts

[Blue Pike]

It’s mid season and personally I think we have a better well balanced Team than last year.The capture of Chisholm is a lucky break and at the beginning of the season I would have been happy with a mid table finish but I strongly believe we will now finish in the top five.I am happy with the Coach but wish as normal we had an extra 500 through the turnstiles but that is an old chestnut for us Fev fans.I am interested to know what others on here think about our Team at the moment and where we will finish.

[sentoffagain2]

  Think Carr quickly realised that we needed more at half back and he has addressed the issue.The Championship was a step up but he has adjusted the team and the players seem to be enjoying their Rugby.Lets not forget he has only been in the country six months.At the moment we are doing better than i expected but extra money will have been found for Chisholm and Holmes,so any extra supporters through the gate would be a big help.Our defence has been good so our points difference third best in the Championship which may help us sneak into fourth or fifth place.

[Maureen T-k]

When some folk were dissing the team on here during the friendlies and start of the regular season about where we’d finish and should we start panicking. I remember stating that I wouldn’t start panicking unless we’d got to the last few games and things didn’t look good. #Believe # HaveSomeFaith, I do and have and Top 4 

[haskey]

We still have some tricky games to play , and as 4/5 teams within 2 points of each other . I am sure Carr has them focussed on the teams below  us as well as hoping to pick off teams above., so as to get into that coveted 5 , which I am sure we will now achieve.

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

My own view is that, with the glaring exception of the Dewsbury game, our results have gone exactly as I would have predicted - although I hoped that on a good day we might have got wins at Bradford and Leigh. The only other slight disappointment is the timing of our game against Widnes.

[jamescolin]

More finance is needed to maintain and improve the team. If more bodies don't come through the turnstiles wouldn't it be good if we ALL contributed to the lottery as the chairman suggested. The extra income from that would help us maintain our position. I feel the team is now well balanced. Who we can keep on the books is vital. So let's give our full support. I wasn't part of the lottery team although I have contributed through other sources. I will join the lottery next week and urge all supporters who are not members to have a go. Action speaks louder than words.

[The Phantom Horseman]

One thing I have noticed recently that seem to havechanged significantly over the last half dozen games or so is that we are using lots of set plays/planned moves of late, and with some success too. Over the first ten games of the season there wasn't much variety to our attack and a lot of our tries were either bargeovers or fairly standard passing movements that every team would have as their default plays, but we have seen quite a few new wrinkles recently (the Cam King runaround being a notable one on Saturday).

Obviously part of that is down to having two quality halves and a more settled side, but I think some of the newer moves started just before we acquired Chisholm and before Holmes returned, and it's probably just been a matter of Carr only recently getting the time to develop more sophisticated plays having had no pre-season with the team. With almost a completely new team and coach, calls to learn etc we were probably playing with a stripped-down game plan through the early games.

I reckon the degree of success we have had with set plays lately reflects well on the coach as well of course as on the players. I felt we were likely to score every time we were in the York half in the second half, there was a period last year when Holmes and Ridyard were going well that I felt that too but I must admit I didn't expect it to be repeated this season, from where we were at Christmas the club has done some recruiting job.

[elppaxr2i]

Very similar thoughts to Les Tonks - Dews game aside its gone probably how I thought it would

I think we are in for a good second half of season - we play a lot of out rivals at home & have a very decent run in for a change where there are a lot of “winnable” games

I think we will also play a non first choice Toulouse 17 on the last day of the season - they will probably have 2nd sewn up at that point & will rest a few of their stars with their 1 vs 2 GF qualifier playoff game coming up & Toulouse have previous for tossing off the last game of the season

[J Phil Loxton]

25 minutes ago, elppaxr2i said:

Very similar thoughts to Les Tonks - Dews game aside its gone probably how I thought it would

I think we are in for a good second half of season - we play a lot of out rivals at home & have a very decent run in for a change where there are a lot of “winnable” games

I think we will also play a non first choice Toulouse 17 on the last day of the season - they will probably have 2nd sewn up at that point & will rest a few of their stars with their 1 vs 2 GF qualifier playoff game coming up & Toulouse have previous for tossing off the last game of the season

I agree with most of that but not sure that Toulouse are a shoe-in for second yet. They are only two in front of a chasing pack that involves an improving Leigh side and Sheffield. Fev are only four behind with Halifax too on the rails with us.Its definately the most exciting second half of the season to look forward to. York and Bradford are going to have a big say too. I dont think second is sewn up to be honest.

[The Phantom Horseman]

41 minutes ago, J Phil Loxton said:

I agree with most of that but not sure that Toulouse are a shoe-in for second yet. They are only two in front of a chasing pack that involves an improving Leigh side and Sheffield. Fev are only four behind with Halifax too on the rails with us.Its definately the most exciting second half of the season to look forward to. York and Bradford are going to have a big say too. I dont think second is sewn up to be honest.

Toulouse have been struglling with injuries, which has been their undoing in past seasons too. I think they have at least four threequarters out injured at the moment, which means against Toronto their left defensive edge consisted of Bretherton (a prop playing centre), Ford, whose defence is clearly the weak part of his game, and Kheirallah, a full back playing on the wing, and Toronto exposed that side badly.

They are also wildly inconsistent - they pummelled Toronto and Halifax at home but only just beat York, and were hammered by Sheffield away.

[Steve Slater]

I must say that despite the lower than usual mid-term league position I am enjoying this season immensely.

We are witnessing a team grow from strength to strength, and it reminds me of the 2009 season in which Rovers came from nowhere to beat " the best team in the competition by a country mile" Halifax at The Shay to scrape into the play-offs and record fantastic away wins at Sheffield and Widnes to make the play-off semi's, again at Halifax, although this time they were narrowly defeated. It was a most enjoyable season because the expectations weren't too high, although it was a springboard for the four consecutive league titles starting the season after.

For those who like their away trips abroad I would start saving up now, for possible flights to Toulouse and Toronto in the play-offs! 

[The Phantom Horseman]

Thinking about the recruitment in this reduced-budget season, we haven't done at all badly. The Boas brothers didn't work out (though Watson could still play a part I guess), but we moved decisively to upgrade at that position recently. Elsewhere, if you look at the replacements for the guys we let go:

Carey for Robinson
Teteh for Taulapapa
King for Wildie & Carlile
Bussey for Hock
Makatoa for Moore
Ormondroyd and Walters for Brooks
Harrison for Knowles
Day for Farrell

I'm not sure there are any of those where I'd swap back for the previous player now, am sure there will be some fans who have one or two that they'd swap back but overall considering we are working off a reduced budget our squad looks pretty good.
 

[fevtom]

There's a lot more quality in this division in recent years. There's now eight teams fighting for a play off spot and nine that are good enough to be up there if you include Widnes. A top five finish this year would be worth more than a top five finish any other year.

If we can keep it up I think we will finish above York and possibly Sheffield although I have to admit I thought that they'd have shown signs of slowing down by now. I think getting a play off spot will depend on if we can finish above Bradford and Halifax.

[gazza77]

We're much as I'd have expected so far in, though I wouldn't have realised that things would have been so tight from 2nd downwards at this point at the start of the season.

All still to play for, we've a chance of getting anywhere between 2nd and 8th based on current projections. Whichever teams get a good run going will make the play-offs, and given we seem to be hitting a bit of form and playing some nice stuff, fingers crossed we'll be there or thereabouts come the end of the season.