Fri 22-Sun 24 Apr: The Betfred Championship Match Thread

[mickmike wilson]

Another loss for Barrow today & was kinda expected today as we’ve got a few injuries & suspensions as most also have but it’s come at a time when we’ve played Hudds, Batley, Bradford, Fev etc & we need this next off to lick our wounds & reset our season.

 

IMHO We are still way ahead of schedule & we might just make the playoffs which is a bonus & our crowds are rising & off field work in the community is great so we are all still happy campers & will continue to grow.

 

Hope J Sammut isn’t too badly injured today?

[newbe]

If (when) Broncos go down, will the two London clubs merge?

Edited April 24, 2022 by newbe

[crashmon]

London won't go down.  They will cease to exist instead

[Jill Halfpenny fan]

1 hour ago, sweaty craiq said:

Leigh 36 - 0 London at HT

We are currently that poor we'd probably have lost to London today.  No go forward in the pack and clueless on the odd occasions we attack the opposition line. Just glad we won the first four because I honestly can't see us beating anyone the way we are performing.

[Griff]

9 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

I wont believe Eagles unñess they beat Batley in the catch up game, which I dont see happening.  

I doubt if you'll see it happening for a couple of months yet.

[paulwalker71]

12 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

If I had to pick now its fev leigh York Fax Batley plus one .

I would say Leigh, Featherstone, Halifax and Batley are definite for the Top 6.

The other two teams will be making up the numbers and will almost certainly get knocked out in Week 1 anyway. The four teams above are clearly better than the rest - with Leigh and Featherstone another notch above still.

[GUBRATS]

It was a game , for about 12 minutes 

Felt for the London lads , kept trying to gee them up , it's fine being a perfect human specimen ( as we were told there were thousands of in Canada ) , but if you don't know the finer details of RL , all the physic means nothing 

A win , a run out 

[gingerjon]

32 minutes ago, crashmon said:

London won't go down.  They will cease to exist instead

There’s nothing really to merge anyway. The only reason to do so would be so the last 42 years doesn’t just vanish.

[YCKonstantine]

14 minutes ago, paulwalker71 said:

I would say Leigh, Featherstone, Halifax and Batley are definite for the Top 6.

The other two teams will be making up the numbers and will almost certainly get knocked out in Week 1 anyway. The four teams above are clearly better than the rest - with Leigh and Featherstone another notch above still.

Seem to be missing out the team clear in 3rd who beat Batley at Batley?

[Griff]

Just now, gingerjon said:

There’s nothing really to merge anyway. The only reason to do so would be so the last 42 years doesn’t just vanish.

Would it vanish ?

Or would Skolars pick up the baton ?

[paulwalker71]

10 minutes ago, YCKonstantine said:

Seem to be missing out the team clear in 3rd who beat Batley at Batley?

Fair enough.

I think over the season those four will come Top 4 - but York are certainly in line to finish in the Top 6, yes

[Griff]

3 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

Theres a space for a decent London team with a website and engagement that works but without being able to generate rev from a ground its Hard to see how. 

I was thinking more along the lines of development.

[doc]

Widnes godawful today.  Yes we have a lot of injuries. But it just shows how shallow the squad is. Do you blame the coach or injuries? 

[gingerjon]

1 hour ago, Griff said:

Would it vanish ?

Or would Skolars pick up the baton ?

They wouldn’t need to merge to do that and they’re not in a particularly strong phase right now either

[The Blues Ox]

Again I think this was a really easy round to predict with the only real surprise how easily Batley beat Widnes. people saying leigh would not put huge points on London probably not seeing how good Leigh are and how poor london are. Same for predicting a Barrow win, Ive massive respect for what barrow are doing but they are in a massivley false position in the league but they will have already done enough to stay up but have at least put themselves in the mix to try and get that 6th place along with Widnes, Sheffield, and bradford although at the moment Barrow and Sheffield do stand out from that group. 

We are now seeing injuries bite and squads starting to look thin, london and Worky will need a miracle to stay up at the moment. At the other end York, batley, and Fax are starting to show their class and all 3 should be comfortable in the top 6 in a few mor weeks and it could be a great battle for 3rd, 4th and 5th.

On our game today it never really felt like it were going to be anything than a Fax win, we scored some quality tries although we did concede some sloppy ones. Hopefully Sammut is OK as there did seem to be some concern at his injury. Im expecting a much tougher game though when we have to travel back up there on a Monday night.

[Piggy's mate]

3 hours ago, Griff said:

I doubt if you'll see it happening for a couple of months yet.

Running scared...

[Josef K]

6 hours ago, Jill Halfpenny fan said:

There are no words for this Widnes performance.

How is Matty Smith playing for the Chemics ?. 

[Griff]

9 hours ago, Piggy's mate said:

Running scared...

Just facts. There are no free weekends left. Unlikely to be played in May because the fixture list is already crowded. Mid June at the earliest. Mire likely July or August.

[Griff]

11 hours ago, gingerjon said:

They wouldn’t need to merge to do that and they’re not in a particularly strong phase right now either

There are no mergers. One entity takes over the other. In Broncos case, there are no assets of any significance to be bought.

[Keep The Faith]

17 hours ago, Josef K said:

How is Matty Smith playing for the Chemics ?. 

Him tyrer and Lawton went missing yesterday 

[The Phantom Horseman]

32 minutes ago, Keep The Faith said:

Him tyrer and Lawton went missing yesterday 

Watching the highlights of that game, the booing of their own players by sections of the Widnes crowd is really startling.

[Jill Halfpenny fan]

2 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Watching the highlights of that game, the booing of their own players by sections of the Widnes crowd is really startling.

Yesterday was dreadful, on the back of awful recent performance's against York, Newcastle and Leigh. Now rightly or wrongly Widnes fans believe they should be more than capable of competing with the vast majority of clubs in this division. Instead we are once again heading back to the wrong end of the table at an alarming rate of knots. Year after year we seem to get the recruitment wrong, we seem to have a particular fondness for signing forwards (and backs) who are too small or prone to injury. Batley monstered us all over the park yesterday. Now I'm obviously not privy to budgets but I'd be amazed if Batley (and quite a few others tbh) were spending more than Widnes. What I am pretty certain of is Batley are getting far better value from their spend than we are. From there we move to the teams performances, the first four wins may well have been against what turns out to be the weaker teams in the league but trust me, playing like we currently are we'd be lucky to have won any of them. Defensively we don't move forward giving bigger men more time to build up speed before they crash into our smaller players. thus we go back wards at an alarming rate. We spend the first half hour heroically defending the line before the dam breaks. From that point on its game over. With ball in hand we are no better, our forwards can't break the line, our backs are no better. On the odd occasions we do get to attack the opposition line our creativity is zero, though to be fair we usually manage to mess it up in the first couple of tackles so that does tend to reduce our options. Maybe it will improve when we get a few players back but I'm not holding my breath. For me personally, I did stay till the end yesterday, but only so I could boo them off.

[doc]

1 hour ago, Jill Halfpenny fan said:

Yesterday was dreadful, on the back of awful recent performance's against York, Newcastle and Leigh. Now rightly or wrongly Widnes fans believe they should be more than capable of competing with the vast majority of clubs in this division. Instead we are once again heading back to the wrong end of the table at an alarming rate of knots. Year after year we seem to get the recruitment wrong, we seem to have a particular fondness for signing forwards (and backs) who are too small or prone to injury. Batley monstered us all over the park yesterday. Now I'm obviously not privy to budgets but I'd be amazed if Batley (and quite a few others tbh) were spending more than Widnes. What I am pretty certain of is Batley are getting far better value from their spend than we are. From there we move to the teams performances, the first four wins may well have been against what turns out to be the weaker teams in the league but trust me, playing like we currently are we'd be lucky to have won any of them. Defensively we don't move forward giving bigger men more time to build up speed before they crash into our smaller players. thus we go back wards at an alarming rate. We spend the first half hour heroically defending the line before the dam breaks. From that point on its game over. With ball in hand we are no better, our forwards can't break the line, our backs are no better. On the odd occasions we do get to attack the opposition line our creativity is zero, though to be fair we usually manage to mess it up in the first couple of tackles so that does tend to reduce our options. Maybe it will improve when we get a few players back but I'm not holding my breath. For me personally, I did stay till the end yesterday, but only so I could boo them off.

I thought the best highlight was the Widnes fan who shouted "Keep them out Batley" as we mounted a very rare attack !

[Josef K]

6 hours ago, Keep The Faith said:

Him tyrer and Lawton went missing yesterday 

Tyrer was meant to be the new kid on the block when he made his Saints debut but sadly he didn’t reach the heights that was expected. But he did do really well at Fax, 

[The Blues Ox]

10 hours ago, Josef K said:

Tyrer was meant to be the new kid on the block when he made his Saints debut but sadly he didn’t reach the heights that was expected. But he did do really well at Fax, 

Fax legend to be fair to him, his records will take a long time before anyone else gets above him. That said the last couple of seasons were probably 2 seasons too many for him and he looked to just be in the team for his goal kicking and although it were sad to see him go his wages after so long at the club must have been pretty high and Grix was pretty ruthless with him.

Obviously as a Fax fan it does pain me a little to see everyone beating Widnes after we lost to them at home but that game was just such a freak game weather wise and fair play to Widnes they played the conditions brilliantly but its certainly one of those games you wish you could have back and play in better conditions. Pre-season I had said a few times Im not sure why people were tipping Widnes for top 6, their recruitment didn't really inspire me but there was huge optimism on the Widnes forum and then getting off to that start sent that optimism in to over drive. They are about where I would expect them at the end of the season, maybe them and Bradford get a sniff of 6th place but realistically I think 7th/8th for those two teams will be about right.

After this week I don't expect the top 5 to change for the rest of the season in anything other than positions amongst themselves.

Edited April 26, 2022 by The Blues Ox