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2023 Squad


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On 19/01/2023 at 14:06, The Phantom Horseman said:

Not to do with our squad, but Toulouse have announced a DR agreement with Catalans. Not really surprising given they seem to have struggled with recruitment.

Further to this, they've listed their squad numbers today, and they only go up to 19. Of course they have their reserve team to call on as well as possible DR players from Catalans.

Their squad looks solid and has plenty of decent players at this level, but to me it looks significantly less strong on paper than the one they had in the Championship two years ago.

https://www.to13.com/a-la-une/le-to-devoile-les-numeros-deffectif-2023/

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3 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

 

Further to this, they've listed their squad numbers today, and they only go up to 19. Of course they have their reserve team to call on as well as possible DR players from Catalans.

Their squad looks solid and has plenty of decent players at this level, but to me it looks significantly less strong on paper than the one they had in the Championship two years ago.

https://www.to13.com/a-la-une/le-to-devoile-les-numeros-deffectif-2023/

Where are all the people crying DR teams shouldn’t be allowed to be promoted???

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5 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

 

Their squad looks solid and has plenty of decent players at this level, but to me it looks significantly less strong on paper than the one they had in the Championship two years ago.

https://www.to13.com/a-la-une/le-to-devoile-les-numeros-deffectif-2023/

And they’ll need to play more than 11 games….

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On 20/12/2022 at 20:34, The Phantom Horseman said:

First bookmaker to quote odds on the Championship (Skybet) has us as 7-4 joint favourites with Toulouse, 12-1 bar. I'd say that was good value if it was the regular season odds, but it's to win the Grand Final, which is a bit more random with at least a couple of knockout games involved. I'd still rather back us at those odds than Toulouse looking at current squads.

The bookmakers have had a rethink in recent days and we are now clear favourites at odds ranging from 11-10 (Betfred) to 10-11 (Coral/Ladbrokes). This is presumably partly on the back of our pre-season win over Hull KR but also as a reaction to the continued lukewarm vibes coming out of Toulouse, where they recently named a 19-man squad and stated at their press conference that their season aim was to reach the play-offs and then see how they go from there.

Toulouse are now 9-4 with Betfred and a best-priced 4-1 with Skybet, having been joint favourites with us last month.

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I’m tempering my expectations this year. Last year after we beat Leigh I was extremely optimistic about our chances for promotion. As the season progressed Leigh strengthened and we became what I thought was a team restricted by the game plan and lacking defensively. It’s not where you start it’s where you finish that counts. TO could pull off another Leigh and strengthen as the season progresses. I hope not and I’m trying not to get carried away. The defeat to the Dogs in the playoffs was a real low point for me. 

Edited by Normy_Rover
Grammar
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37 minutes ago, Normy_Rover said:

I’m tempering my expectations this year. Last year after we beat Leigh I was extremely optimistic about our chances for promotion. As the season progressed Leigh strengthened and we became what I thought was a team restricted by the game plan and lacking defensively. It’s not where you start it’s where you finish that counts. TO could pull off another Leigh and strengthen as the season progresses. I hope not and I’m trying not to get carried away. The defeat to the Dogs in the playoffs was a real low point for me. 

I agree with you, but maybe for different reasons. I don't think any other team will be able to go on a spending spree this year anything like Leigh did (or even like we did!), though Toulouse may pick up one or two when Elite 1 season finishes.

I've read a few people saying things already like our defence is better or we're playing more as a team, but firstly, I want to see that in meaningful games and against proper opposition. If we manage to beat Keighley and Halifax convincingly in our first two games then we'll know a lot more.

But secondly, we need to see that we can be effective over a significant period of time without the performance, especially of our older players, dropping off. For instance, we started the semi final against Batley with Springer, Koppy and Moors as our three middles, which lookd really strong on paper, but we were clear second best in contact in the middle of the field during that opening half hour.

Don't get me wrong, i'm really excited for this season, but I want to see some sustained quality of performances. We were good in pre-season and for the first two games last year, but were we ever really convincing, even with some big wins, afterwards? Let's hope the change in coaching staff, allied to what look some useful signings, makes the difference this year.

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Just can’t see Toulouse having the same money to spend as Leigh and also being fortunate enough to find players such as Ipape. Maybe they will strengthen, but no way will they be anything like Leigh. It is true though, however, that we need to see how Fev perform when the league starts, but the signs look better for me than last year.

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3 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

The bookmakers have had a rethink in recent days and we are now clear favourites at odds ranging from 11-10 (Betfred) to 10-11 (Coral/Ladbrokes). This is presumably partly on the back of our pre-season win over Hull KR but also as a reaction to the continued lukewarm vibes coming out of Toulouse, where they recently named a 19-man squad and stated at their press conference that their season aim was to reach the play-offs and then see how they go from there.

Toulouse are now 9-4 with Betfred and a best-priced 4-1 with Skybet, having been joint favourites with us last month.

And our favourite reporter has listed his top 6

1 FEV

2 Bulls 

3TO

4 Fax

5 Vikings

6 Cougars

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4 hours ago, Normy_Rover said:

I’m tempering my expectations this year. Last year after we beat Leigh I was extremely optimistic about our chances for promotion. As the season progressed Leigh strengthened and we became what I thought was a team restricted by the game plan and lacking defensively. It’s not where you start it’s where you finish that counts. TO could pull off another Leigh and strengthen as the season progresses. I hope not and I’m trying not to get carried away. The defeat to the Dogs in the playoffs was a real low point for me. 

And a wake up call,can't take nothing for granted and lessons hopefully learnt from last seasons garbage coach.

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Grandson conned me into watching gledhills latest podcast   when it came to FEV the discussion was eye opening one of the three thought we had strengthened but other two including gledhill  thought we were weaker due to us losing Morgan and Riley Dean being ok but not as good we have also lost Ben Hellewell (brilliant player) and  Jesse Sene-Lefao (who apparently had a very good year)   and our forwards are  getting a bit old so were going to lose more games this year But it's not all doom and gloom were still going to CHALLENGE for the top

Om the flip side  McKenzie Yei  is going to be unbelievable and another level in the championship 

Finally gledhill came out with a couple of doozies Ryley Jacks  is still here and the sean and leon coaching combination could be a recipe for disaster:kolobok_grin::kolobok_grin::kolobok_grin:

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2 hours ago, POR said:

Grandson conned me into watching gledhills latest podcast   when it came to FEV the discussion was eye opening one of the three thought we had strengthened but other two including gledhill  thought we were weaker due to us losing Morgan and Riley Dean being ok but not as good we have also lost Ben Hellewell (brilliant player) and  Jesse Sene-Lefao (who apparently had a very good year)   and our forwards are  getting a bit old so were going to lose more games this year But it's not all doom and gloom were still going to CHALLENGE for the top

Om the flip side  McKenzie Yei  is going to be unbelievable and another level in the championship 

Finally gledhill came out with a couple of doozies Ryley Jacks  is still here and the sean and leon coaching combination could be a recipe for disaster:kolobok_grin::kolobok_grin::kolobok_grin:

Must be aiming for the "world record" of bad takes in one podcast.

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On 26/01/2023 at 09:36, The Phantom Horseman said:

The bookmakers have had a rethink in recent days and we are now clear favourites at odds ranging from 11-10 (Betfred) to 10-11 (Coral/Ladbrokes). This is presumably partly on the back of our pre-season win over Hull KR but also as a reaction to the continued lukewarm vibes coming out of Toulouse, where they recently named a 19-man squad and stated at their press conference that their season aim was to reach the play-offs and then see how they go from there.

Toulouse are now 9-4 with Betfred and a best-priced 4-1 with Skybet, having been joint favourites with us last month.

Must admit I was starting to wonder if Toulouse were going to be competitive having seen how thin their squad was but having watched their game yesterday they are going to be tough rivals as long as injuries don't totally decimate them.

Their line speed in defence yesterday was really impressive and in my view well ahead of what we saw from any other Championship team bar Leigh last year, and that was their first game with no pre-season hit-outs. They played quickly with ball in hand too with Josh Ralph looking like he will be a standout half in this division.

Their achilles heel might be their lack of depth, they only have 22 players on their books currently I think and 4 of those were missing through injury yesterday. They'll presumably be able to add depth as the season goes on especially when Elite 1 finishes.

It has to be said Barrow were really, really poor in all facets especially completion rate, but Toulouse looked different class to them yesterday and if they hadn't missed all 6 kicks the score would have been a fairer reflection of that.

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From Matt Shaw

1 Featherstone Rovers
A new coach always comes with some uncertainty and plenty of changes to the squad also comes with an adaptation process. But on paper Fev's squad is the strongest in the competition. Their recruitment may not be as star-studded as 12 months previous but there are some really smart additions in there, particularly of Chris Hankinson who I see as a top player at this level.

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