Match thread: Championship Rd 2. Featherstone Rovers v Halifax. Sunday 12th February 2023.

[Eternal Rover]

Great shape to our play all round, including ending the sets well. Frustrating with leaking the late tries after such dominance. The last try was particularly soft. But a very positive start and the squad looks fitter and more enthused, so some great signs thus far.

Edited February 12, 2023 by Eternal Rover
Space errors

[The Phantom Horseman]

1 hour ago, elppaxr2i said:

Thought 2 breaks gale made were taylor made for kyle evans, i think he wouldve scored those two breaks if it was him

 

In fairness to Gale on both occasions the player he was trying to outpace was Woodburn-Hall who is really quick as his try showed. On both occasions Gaz realised he wasn't going to beat him and made sure he stayed away from the touchline.

I think Gale has played well so far this season and much more like his 2021 form than last season when he struggled a bit. He's probably going to have his work cut out keeping his place with Evans waiting in the wings as the one thing we do probably lack at the moment is pace out wide, none of our four starting threequarters are especially quick but they are all very good at winning collisions and gaining metres. One of several nice problems for Long to have, as you say I think we'll see the first real squad rotation next weekend.

[Fevrover]

A long season ahead so we can expect injurie's and suspension's so i should imagine all players will get a game at some time,some more then other's obviously.

[POR]

PEOPLE are talking about the defence and the sloppy tries but in hindsight it's just one of those things or as Matt shaw says

We've spoken Riley Dean up a lot but he won't want to watch this one back. He shoots from the line, Woodburn-Hall bumps him off and races through to score Fax's third

and

That came from nowhere. Woodburn-Hall has a second, Featherstone seemed to switch off and he just raced 50 metres untouched The scoreline looks slightly kinder for Fax now

On the flip side look at our defence in the first half when the Knob jockey with the whistle gave them repeated sets in our 20 when the game was still in the balance Bottom LINE we've just  totally out played the third favourites in the championship or as our favourite reporter says  demolition of promotion rivals Halifax Panthers 

Looking at  mckenzies yellow that's all down to the fax player staying down knob jockey all ready given a penalty BUT thinks woodburn -hall injured so that's a bad one yellow in second half high tackle on FEV   knob jockey thinks no one hurt  one of those things  no yellow

[Phil Briscoe]

Very poor turn out of fax fans yesterday. I’d estimate 120-150 and I’m possibly being generous. When all fans are together you get a real sense of how many there are and it stops stupid claims like ‘we took at least 500 fans’ that you for some reason so often get. 

[POR]

 

 

23 minutes ago, Phil Briscoe said:

Very poor turn out of fax fans yesterday. I’d estimate 120-150 and I’m possibly being generous. . 

3794 attendance compared to  3728 last year so fax MUST have brought 66 more than last year

On simon grix says his Panthers side were ‘soundly beaten’ by a rampant Featherstone Rover The difference between the teams is probably a little bit of effort and attitude at times but a lot of it is probably because of the calibre of player they’ve got, a bit better than us and when they play like a collective they are a strong force but he also said something interesting . The end of the game was how I wanted the beginning of the game to look where we were moving the ball around and stretching them. Must be talking when they scored the two tries we gifted them

[The Phantom Horseman]

1st half
Fev 809 yards, Fax 438
2nd half
Fev 689 yards, Fax 475

Totals Fev 1498 Fax 913

169 of those 2nd half Fax yards came on their last 3 sets in the closing minutes, but the figures illustrate how dominant we were.

[Fevrover]

3 hours ago, Phil Briscoe said:

Very poor turn out of fax fans yesterday. I’d estimate 120-150 and I’m possibly being generous. When all fans are together you get a real sense of how many there are and it stops stupid claims like ‘we took at least 500 fans’ that you for some reason so often get. 

Let's be fair we have occasionally taken as many to Halifax as they had there.

[The Phantom Horseman]

3 hours ago, Phil Briscoe said:

Very poor turn out of fax fans yesterday. I’d estimate 120-150 and I’m possibly being generous. When all fans are together you get a real sense of how many there are and it stops stupid claims like ‘we took at least 500 fans’ that you for some reason so often get. 

This is a problem for us more than them though. If we're taking 500 to their place and putting £10k on the gate, and they're bringing 150 and only paying £3k, our club is losing out.

[Ovenden Grunt]

...and Fax used to outnumber the Rovers fans at POR. There's a reason we don't go to this fixture and If we had 150 supporters there yesterday it's 150 too many in my opinion. Meanwhile your club lose thousands each time we play there. That's no good to anybody. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ovenden Grunt]

2 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

This is a problem for us more than them though. If we're taking 500 to their place and putting £10k on the gate, and they're bringing 150 and only paying £3k, our club is losing out.

Correct

[Rovers fev]

Ford was class and Dean was still involved but not the same performance as last week which isn’t expected from a young kid 

yei needs to reign it in otherwise could get banned alot this year

next week is a good chance for people like hall Evans Joey and lacans to fight for a spot on starting team 

[Monkeymagic22]

It’s a tough one next week, do we rotate or do we keep playing the same team in order to them better gel together. Plus we can’t afford to underestimate any team in the division. Personally I’d give Joey a run out and Moors if  he’s ready. Really hard to drop players after the first two matches though.

[The Phantom Horseman]

4 minutes ago, Monkeymagic22 said:

It’s a tough one next week, do we rotate or do we keep playing the same team in order to them better gel together. Plus we can’t afford to underestimate any team in the division. Personally I’d give Joey a run out and Moors if  he’s ready. Really hard to drop players after the first two matches though.

Long has made it clear he'll rotate the squad and he's absolutely right to do so. With 27 league games plus the possibility of say 3 or 4 games in the Challenge Cup and 1895 Cup, you have to give players a rest especially the older middles such as Koppy, Lockwood, Taylor, Moors etc, if you want them to be fresh and in good nick at the business end of the season. All the more so because our hardest point of the season on paper is from August onwards with our last 4 away games at Halifax, Sheffield, Bradford and Toulouse.

I think he will have made it clear to players that it won't be a case of "dropping" them, but that most if not all the squad members will get playing time through the season.

[POR]

Interesting take from  yesterday's game 

Over 3794 so was there 3795  8000 or was it actually 3794 seems a bit  silly 

Edited February 13, 2023 by POR

[Fevrover]

3 hours ago, Ovenden Grunt said:

...and Fax used to outnumber the Rovers fans at POR. There's a reason we don't go to this fixture and If we had 150 supporters there yesterday it's 150 too many in my opinion. Meanwhile your club lose thousands each time we play there. That's no good to anybody. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHEN have Fax ever had more fans then us at P O Road ? I've been going for 52 years and i can't say I've ever noticed.

[lingaro]

3 hours ago, Ovenden Grunt said:

...and Fax used to outnumber the Rovers fans at POR. There's a reason we don't go to this fixture and If we had 150 supporters there yesterday it's 150 too many in my opinion. Meanwhile your club lose thousands each time we play there. That's no good to anybody. 

 

 

 

 

 

You won't be coming next season. 

[J Phil Loxton]

3 hours ago, Ovenden Grunt said:

...and Fax used to outnumber the Rovers fans at POR. There's a reason we don't go to this fixture and If we had 150 supporters there yesterday it's 150 too many in my opinion. Meanwhile your club lose thousands each time we play there. That's no good to anybody. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think it's just the haters that don't turn up. I think Fax have lost a lot of their home support which reflects on the percentage of their away support. It's hats off to to the tireless jobs of some of our players in schools etc and the forward thinking board and various volunteers that have helped in building up Fevs attendances. To get 3794 with little or no away following needs to be applauded. 

[Fevrover]

3 hours ago, Ovenden Grunt said:

...and Fax used to outnumber the Rovers fans at POR. There's a reason we don't go to this fixture and If we had 150 supporters there yesterday it's 150 too many in my opinion. Meanwhile your club lose thousands each time we play there. That's no good to anybody. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I won't go to Halifax haven't been for years, a few grounds i won't go to so i suppose it works both ways.

[Robin Evans]

18 minutes ago, Fevrover said:

I won't go to Halifax haven't been for years, a few grounds i won't go to so i suppose it works both ways.

Pretty much

[POR]

Personally I couldn't' care less if our visitors only bring one man and his dog it's more important for us to get more bums on seats to cheer the lads along 

[jamescolin]

Should we from a finance point of view start charging dogs for their entry or is that too WOOF.

[Michael Bates]

55 minutes ago, POR said:

Personally I couldn't' care less if our visitors only bring one man and his dog it's more important for us to get more bums on seats to cheer the lads along 

Pretty much this. Any club hoping to have their revenue boosted by away fans is doing it wrong. Get out there and be proactive yourselves.

[Ovenden Grunt]

3 hours ago, Fevrover said:

WHEN have Fax ever had more fans then us at P O Road ? I've been going for 52 years and i can't 

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Ovenden Grunt

[Ovenden Grunt]

More than a few times.