Wed 14th-Sun 18th Sept: The Betfred Championship Match Thread

[Barley Mow]

Discuss this week's Betfred Championship games here.

WEDNESDAY 14th SEPTEMBER
Sheffield Eagles v Dewsbury Rams KO 19:30

SUNDAY 18th SEPTEMBER
Barrow Raiders v Batley Bulldogs KO 15:00 
Halifax Panthers v York City Knights KO 17:30 (Premier Sports)

Edited September 14, 2022 by Barley Mow

[Rockingchair]

Sheffield 38 dewsbury 16

barrow raiders 32 Batley 26

Halifax 34 York 22

[Snowys Backside]

All Home wins by Lots.

[spanishknight]

7 hours ago, Barley Mow said:

Discuss this week's Betfred Championship games here.

Sheffield Eagles  by 14
Barrow Raiders  by 12
York City Knights  by 4  fingers crossed and everything else.

 

[Neutralfan7]

Sheffield Barrow Halifax 

[Ragingbull]

Sheff by 28

Barrow by 4

Blue Sox by 30

[ShropshireBull]

Sheffield done well this year, hope with ground sorted they can push on off the field too post World Cup.

[sweaty craiq]

Barrow by 12 

Fax by 40

[Harry Stottle]

Sheffield will have to much for Dewsbury.

Barrow and Fax through to the semi's, Batley player's will not want to return next week to the LSV after last week, And as a Leigh fan I would prefer Barrow they may offer a harder game.

Fax comfortably, could they even rest a couple or 3 in preperation for next weeks visit to POR?

[Piggy's mate]

Barrow v Batley the game of the week. Barrow on form, but Batley prefer the underdog status and will certainly give Barrow a game. I think Barrow will just shade it by a score

Fax will thump York and I don't care about Sheffield & Dewsbury!

[David Shepherd]

30 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Sheffield will have to much for Dewsbury.

Barrow and Fax through to the semi's, Batley player's will not want to return next week to the LSV after last week, And as a Leigh fan I would prefer Barrow they may offer a harder game.

Fax comfortably, could they even rest a couple or 3 in preperation for next weeks visit to POR?

I think you write Batley off at your peril Harry. Of all the teams I could pick to cause an upset, they'd be top of the list. Having seen 'fax last week, I'm not convinced they'll walk away with it either, their players were absolutely out of it after the game.  

Edited September 14, 2022 by David Shepherd

[ShropshireBull]

Barrow with home advantage and Fax.

[Chronicler of Chiswick]

Sheffield, Batley, Halifax.

[Harry Stottle]

31 minutes ago, David Shepherd said:

I think you write Batley off at your peril Harry. Of all the teams I could pick to cause an upset, they'd be top of the list. Having seen 'fax last week, I'm not convinced they'll walk away with it either, their players were absolutely out of it after the game.  

This is where we have the advantage over each other, we both saw last weeks encounters that the other didn't, Batley for all the effort they put in were well and truly mullered at the LSV, but as I said after the game last week, Leigh have not been tested for a while now so they keep up to their own level of intensity, they are still running and hitting as hard at the end as they are doing at the beginning of the game, they just don't turn off when the game is won this is why I say the Batley lads in my opinion will not be relishing a trip back just 2 weeks after the last encounter.

Funnily enough in last weeks report's of your game, the Fax fans were saying the exact same about Fev as you are accusing them of, that the longer the game went on the Fev player's especially the 'more expierenced' forwards were noticeably tiring.

On a scale of 1 to 10 how confident are you when meeting Fax next week? - sorry to any York fans reading this but I can't see you beating Fax on Sunday.

[The Blues Ox]

WEDNESDAY 14th SEPTEMBER
Sheffield Eagles v Dewsbury Rams Eagles by 18

SUNDAY 18th SEPTEMBER
Barrow Raiders v Batley Bulldogs Barrow by 22
Halifax Panthers v York City Knights Fax by 16

[The Blues Ox]

9 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

 

Funnily enough in last weeks report's of your game, the Fax fans were saying the exact same about Fev as you are accusing them of, that the longer the game went on the Fev player's especially the 'more expierenced' forwards were noticeably tiring.

Yeah if any team looked out of it then it were Fev, Brian Mc pretty much said the same in his interview afterwards. We looked more the fresher team at the back end of the game and I have said before if we can be close to Fev at the 60 minute mark then we will beat them. The problem is they are more than capable of blowing teams away because of their size and power before that point which is what happened in the first half on Sunday. The big question is how much did the game take out of us for the York playoff game.

Im more confident now that if we can actually make the semi final that we can beat Fev, their form has been sketchy and they are pretty much at full strength at this point, Fax have still some players to come back in and I think we have it in us to play better than we did on Sunday where as Fev this may be as good as they get.

Edit: From a psychological point of view the loss may have done us some favors as Im sure there was a lot of talk after the game about how they feel we can beat Fev, again Grix pretty much said the same in his interview, where as if we had managed to win maybe a chance of over confidence stepping in. Anyway I remeber what happened in the 2010 season. 

Edited September 14, 2022 by The Blues Ox

[This Sporting Strife]

Barrow to beat Batley. And contrary to all, I feel that York will beat Halifax comfortably. 

[Blind side johnny]

1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

Sheffield will have to much for Dewsbury.

Barrow and Fax through to the semi's, Batley player's will not want to return next week to the LSV after last week, And as a Leigh fan I would prefer Barrow they may offer a harder game.

Fax comfortably, could they even rest a couple or 3 in preperation for next weeks visit to POR?

In the expectation that the game scheduled for Friday would be the last of the season the Dewsbury players had arranged a weekend trip to Skegness (classy!). Given that this still went ahead I can't see them putting up too much resistance to Sheffield.

Neither of the other games can be considered as "comfortable" by any side. Fax and Barrow might just be favourites but there are no guarantees in play off RL.

[Niels]

28 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

This is where we have the advantage over each other, we both saw last weeks encounters that the other didn't, Batley for all the effort they put in were well and truly mullered at the LSV, but as I said after the game last week, Leigh have not been tested for a while now so they keep up to their own level of intensity, they are still running and hitting as hard at the end as they are doing at the beginning of the game, they just don't turn off when the game is won this is why I say the Batley lads in my opinion will not be relishing a trip back just 2 weeks after the last encounter.

Funnily enough in last weeks report's of your game, the Fax fans were saying the exact same about Fev as you are accusing them of, that the longer the game went on the Fev player's especially the 'more expierenced' forwards were noticeably tiring.

On a scale of 1 to 10 how confident are you when meeting Fax next week? - sorry to any York fans reading this but I can't see you beating Fax on Sunday.

Batley will want to win regardless of who the semi opponents are. 

In any case we play first, so won't know for sure who the semi final opponents will be. 

[Gav Wilson]

2 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

Fax comfortably, could they even rest a couple or 3 in preperation for next weeks visit to POR?

I hope Fax share your mindset Harry. 

[David Shepherd]

1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

This is where we have the advantage over each other, we both saw last weeks encounters that the other didn't, Batley for all the effort they put in were well and truly mullered at the LSV, but as I said after the game last week, Leigh have not been tested for a while now so they keep up to their own level of intensity, they are still running and hitting as hard at the end as they are doing at the beginning of the game, they just don't turn off when the game is won this is why I say the Batley lads in my opinion will not be relishing a trip back just 2 weeks after the last encounter.

Funnily enough in last weeks report's of your game, the Fax fans were saying the exact same about Fev as you are accusing them of, that the longer the game went on the Fev player's especially the 'more expierenced' forwards were noticeably tiring.

On a scale of 1 to 10 how confident are you when meeting Fax next week? - sorry to any York fans reading this but I can't see you beating Fax on Sunday.

Fax are a decent team, but there was only one set of players sat exhausted on the pitch after the game. I never got the sense that we were. I actually thought we'd foolishly put the cue on the rack a bit in the 2nd half.

That said, 'fax are always up for it at POR, but our own midden I'd be 8/10 confident of victory. But they've got to get past York yet, I known they're a bit hit and miss this season but on paper, they look a pretty similar side in terms of quality.

[roversspud]

1 hour ago, The Blues Ox said:

 We looked more the fresher team at the back end of the game and I have said before if we can be close to Fev at the 60 minute mark then we will beat them. 

You WERE close to us after 60 minutes on Sunday on your own patch and still didn't beat us.

[frank]

1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

This is where we have the advantage over each other, we both saw last weeks encounters that the other didn't, Batley for all the effort they put in were well and truly mullered at the LSV, but as I said after the game last week, Leigh have not been tested for a while now so they keep up to their own level of intensity, they are still running and hitting as hard at the end as they are doing at the beginning of the game, they just don't turn off when the game is won this is why I say the Batley lads in my opinion will not be relishing a trip back just 2 weeks after the last encounter.

Funnily enough in last weeks report's of your game, the Fax fans were saying the exact same about Fev as you are accusing them of, that the longer the game went on the Fev player's especially the 'more expierenced' forwards were noticeably tiring.

On a scale of 1 to 10 how confident are you when meeting Fax next week? - sorry to any York fans reading this but I can't see you beating Fax on Sunday.

Harry I was looking at a photo of the Leigh team and there is a  load of big Polynesian guys in the team. Maybe that's why they are running up some big scores. Of course I haven't seen  any of Leighs games  so what type of footy is being served up?

[Rockingchair]

As regards the fax-fev fatigue debate at the end of the game a few fax lads sat down because they’d lost a close game not necessarily because of fatigue, the only one who actually laid down was joey leulie who had a foot/ ankle injury . The fatigue/ slowness I observed was the interchange when cuthbertson and Lockwood came on vs fairbank and gwaze , fax’s interchange seemed more successful. Fax lost arundal early meaning gee had to play centre, usually barber ( who won our starman awards )would have dropped in and is ( has Grix stated )is in the 17 for this week. I expect walmsey to return and gives an added aerial threat too with also tangata more than likely to return .

[Harry Stottle]

2 minutes ago, frank said:

Harry I was looking at a photo of the Leigh team and there is a  load of big Polynesian guys in the team. Maybe that's why they are running up some big scores. Of course I haven't seen  any of Leighs games  so what type of footy is being served up?

Quick, expansive, powerful and very fit with it, as the season as gone on they have been performing better and better, but they have not had the intensity of hard games to contend with from the opposition as you can see from averaging 48 points for per game and conceding less than 8.

Hopefully the semi final will prove a better contest - yes, I am confident of a victory - in readiness for what I expect to be a a tough match in the final, and as they say it is not over till the fat lady sings, the sporting world is awash with the clear favourites being knocked off their perch,  so I am taking nothing for granted in that game, but if pushed I will say Leigh will win.