Match thread: Championship Round 8: Batley v Featherstone. Friday 7th April 2023.

[LINNERS]

38 minutes ago, J Phil Loxton said:

We had some of our best talent missing in that game. So winning without them bodes well for when they return. The players hung on against a very high penalty count and six agains. The Fev following was immense.

Great following as usual. Must've been around 2.5/3k there in total. 

[Fevrover]

50 minutes ago, RPH said:

good name choice DOH

RPH don't take it to heart.

[elppaxr2i]

3 x Hamstring Injuries plus JD had a hamstring issue at the start of the season if i recall?

Sheer bad luck or something to do with whats being done in training? 
 

 

[haskey]

Solid first half, and it should have been safety first, no penalties, second half, up the field. The ref was a joke, I Always thought there was 2 teams in the game not 1. The penalty count was ridiculous. we were not squeaky clean but not that bad. The team were getting frustrated with the decisions which led to both the binnings. Not often you see the ref booed off the pitch when we have won.

Now to the game , with only 1 recognised half the flow was never going to be easy. I feel for  Dean, especially in the second half when 2/3 of his kicks went over the dead ball line for 7 tackles. Difficult to see their tries from the other end of the field. So no real comment.The no goal in the first half was a definite goal. We did enough to win under difficult circumstances. After London we deserve, and need some weeks rest to recover.

[Monkeymagic22]

8 minutes ago, elppaxr2i said:

3 x Hamstring Injuries plus JD had a hamstring issue at the start of the season if i recall?

Sheer bad luck or something to do with whats being done in training? 
 

 

Was thinking that, Club needs to look into that. 

[Phil Briscoe]

Couldn’t get there today as currently in Gran Canaria. Great to read about the great rovers support and camaraderie. We could have almost put an unbeatable 13 of injured players out today so will take the win all day. As stated I’m sure we can cobble together a 17 to beat London then we rest up. Any views on how the new props went? I was following the subs updates bur couldn’t actually see that Udyin got on??

[Wolfey Rovers]

Aydin did well, put his hand up for work. Wasn't blockbuster but he tried

Vete. One good run, one decent tackle. Put his feet up after that must of thought that was enough. Waste of time 

[J Phil Loxton]

14 minutes ago, Phil Briscoe said:

Couldn’t get there today as currently in Gran Canaria. Great to read about the great rovers support and camaraderie. We could have almost put an unbeatable 13 of injured players out today so will take the win all day. As stated I’m sure we can cobble together a 17 to beat London then we rest up. Any views on how the new props went? I was following the subs updates bur couldn’t actually see that Udyin got on??

Yeah with the players we had out you most certainly could almost make another team. Kheirallah. Hankinson.Evans. Koppy. Ford. Springer. Cooper. Lacans Taylor etc. We've had some unfortunate injuries of late most from training or warm ups. (Koppy's omission was due to suspension). We've London next week then a three week period to try and  get some bodies back.

[RobLambert]

4 hours ago, The scrim reaper said:

What a load of () you lot sometimes talk you got penalised at least half a dozen for holding down second half and a man binned, but for batley making some poor mistakes this good have been a different game today, any honest fev fan will say that you got away with one today, ask long and prycy who were (crapping) it on the touch line second half! 

Struggling to think of a more ridiculous post in the history of forums

[haskey]

Agreed Rob

[RobLambert]

5 hours ago, Fevrover said:

Ref was GARBAGE and fell for Batley's holding us down in their tackles.

Yep and fell for every other trick in the book.  Remarkable how Batley - as the team 18 pts behind at HT were so squeaky clean in that second half and were not at fault for any of the 50:50 calls.  Can't deny we were poor in the second half but its no wonder - I think panic set in when we got the ball back.

[Wolfey Rovers]

3/4 times I counted Fev players being hit off the ball, hit on suspicion. Briscoe got 2 and JD got one. They were obvious too and Vella deemed that fine which boggles my mind.

 

[bigbaldnmad]

6 hours ago, The scrim reaper said:

What a load of () you lot sometimes talk you got penalised at least half a dozen for holding down second half and a man binned, but for batley making some poor mistakes this good have been a different game today, any honest fev fan will say that you got away with one today, ask long and prycy who were (crapping) it on the touch line second half! 

You are Mark Dunning and I claim my £5.

[POR]

Interesting take on the game from our biggest fan in bradford

 

Credit to Craig Lingard’s side for showing enormous character to very nearly come-from-behind and claim a huge victory.

[Michael Bates]

1 hour ago, POR said:

Interesting take on the game from our biggest fan in bradford

 

Credit to Craig Lingard’s side for showing enormous character to very nearly come-from-behind and claim a huge victory.

Might just be my pessimistic world view showing but any side that had the amount of possession and position that Batley had yesterday should be sorely disappointed not to have won. 

[J Phil Loxton]

10 minutes ago, Michael Bates said:

Might just be my pessimistic world view showing but any side that had the amount of possession and position that Batley had yesterday should be sorely disappointed not to have won. 

Good point that people are missing. Whether it was our discipline or otherwise. The fact is that Fev withstood a tremendous amount of pressure against a big penalty count and six agains against Batley who were attacking down the slope. Too much credit is going to Batley for the come back and not enough credit for Fev withstanding a second half onslaught. I know Fev are top of the league and everyone's target but credit sometimes has to be aimed at them. Batley are a very solid team and you have to earn the right to beat them and Fev did just that.

[POR]

2 hours ago, Michael Bates said:

Might just be my pessimistic world view showing but any side that had the amount of possession and position that Batley had yesterday should be sorely disappointed not to have won. 

They are  M apparently 

Architects of our own downfall in that first half and our mistakes lead to most of the Fev scores. 

Fev got away with one today I think most fans would say that but for our first half mistakes which lead to 3 tries, and the one mistake in the second half which cost a try and was the only time they got anywhere near our line, it could have been a different result for us,

A couple fewer mistakes and we could easily have won it.

You can never tell, but given our dominance in the second half it's likely that we would have won but for that silly moment.

[J Phil Loxton]

18 minutes ago, POR said:

They are  M apparently 

Architects of our own downfall in that first half and our mistakes lead to most of the Fev scores. 

Fev got away with one today I think most fans would say that but for our first half mistakes which lead to 3 tries, and the one mistake in the second half which cost a try and was the only time they got anywhere near our line, it could have been a different result for us,

A couple fewer mistakes and we could easily have won it.

You can never tell, but given our dominance in the second half it's likely that we would have won but for that silly moment.

They probably don't realise that mistakes lead to many tries or else not many would be scored. It's capitalising on mistakes that makes an average side a good side.

[POR]

1 hour ago, J Phil Loxton said:

They probably don't realise that mistakes lead to many tries or else not many would be scored. It's capitalising on mistakes that makes an average side a good side.

The problem they have J they think that the mistakes are all down to them don't realise teams make mistakes because of the pressure put on them by the opposition

[Fevrover]

2 hours ago, POR said:

They are  M apparently 

Architects of our own downfall in that first half and our mistakes lead to most of the Fev scores. 

Fev got away with one today I think most fans would say that but for our first half mistakes which lead to 3 tries, and the one mistake in the second half which cost a try and was the only time they got anywhere near our line, it could have been a different result for us,

A couple fewer mistakes and we could easily have won it.

You can never tell, but given our dominance in the second half it's likely that we would have won but for that silly moment.

I would love to know what the score could have been if we had got all them 6 agains and penalties lol.

[Michael Bates]

53 minutes ago, Fevrover said:

I would love to know what the score could have been if we had got all them 6 agains and penalties lol.

I'd like to think with that amount of possession and position we'd have put 60 on not just Batley yesterday, but anyone in the league. We had about 4 sets in the last 25 minutes. 

[The Phantom Horseman]

22 hours ago, J Phil Loxton said:

Good point that people are missing. Whether it was our discipline or otherwise. The fact is that Fev withstood a tremendous amount of pressure against a big penalty count and six agains against Batley who were attacking down the slope. Too much credit is going to Batley for the come back and not enough credit for Fev withstanding a second half onslaught. I know Fev are top of the league and everyone's target but credit sometimes has to be aimed at them. Batley are a very solid team and you have to earn the right to beat them and Fev did just that.

Yep that was my instinct too, so I went back and checked the stats on the replay #anorak alert.

We unsurprisingly had the edge in stats going downhill first half - 66 plays making 698 metres, they had 58 plays making 407m.

But in the second half...we only had 10 sets, with 42 plays producing 414m. I don't know if you're meant to count set restarts as separate sets, but if you are, Batley had 24 sets, with 86 plays producing 664m.

86 plays against 42...as JPL says, whether it was our discipline or otherwise, probably a fair effort defensively to hang on. We had 3 defensive lapses that I noticed - Dean's missed tackle for Batley's first try, a really poor combined effort by Day and Vete for their second one, and a missed tackle that led to a half break which didn't lead to a try, but otherwise we knuckled down pretty well defensively in the circumstances.

Edited April 9, 2023 by The Phantom Horseman

[sentoffagain2]

         We did have two interceptions against us one in each half when if the pass had landed we had a very good chance of scoring tries.Luckily we had the pace to chase the Batley players and caught them without too much damage being done.Batley do the basics well but do lack a bit of pace.When people have viewed the game i would be interested to know how the goal kick we didn't get 2 points for looked from head on.From behind the sticks it was in no doubt in my mind about that.

[RobLambert]

3 hours ago, sentoffagain2 said:

         We did have two interceptions against us one in each half when if the pass had landed we had a very good chance of scoring tries.Luckily we had the pace to chase the Batley players and caught them without too much damage being done.Batley do the basics well but do lack a bit of pace.When people have viewed the game i would be interested to know how the goal kick we didn't get 2 points for looked from head on.From behind the sticks it was in no doubt in my mind about that.

The Fev TV replay doesn't prove anything.  Hally seemed to take a long look at the posts after they didn't give it though.  Luckily it didn't matter in the end.  He's had a few of those.  Obviously he tends clear the uprights quite a bit which probably works against him with the touch judges unlikely to give anything that looks close.