Match thread: Championship Round 12 Summer Bash: York v Featherstone. Saturday 27th May 2023.

[sentoffagain2]

10 minutes ago, Fevrover said:

What happens if he comes back but then can't play in play offs ? 

   We may have been better offering Jacks another year.I know he said he would do a second year if we had been promoted to SL.Very much like Dean as a scrum half ,perhaps not as quick off the mark but better in defence.Jacks scored a few tries from inside the 30m area and Dean also likes to take the line on.Both have similar short kicking games.Perhaps Jacks fault was he rarely performed for the full 80 min in a game.As stated in earlier posts good half backs are hard to come by.Just watched the game on TV and have upgraded Fords performance to very good.

[POR]

Had to laugh last night Brown and Amor going on about our defence saying  teams watching our performance last night will think they can get at our defence and win that makes me think they've not seen the league table 118pts in 12 obviously suggests we have SUSPECT defence 

[elppaxr2i]

You can all criticise Amor & Brown all you want, but their analysis of the Briscoe - Fitzsimmons incident was top drawer 

Edited May 28, 2023 by elppaxr2i

[The Phantom Horseman]

11 hours ago, sentoffagain2 said:

11 hours ago, sentoffagain2 said:

   PHM Ford was good tonight not tremendous our best back along with Gale who is back to his best after for him a poor season last year.six and a half out of ten for me.Although Yorks performance was 300% better than at our place.Positives as mentioned in earlier posts John Davies Mr consistent as i have said before it's not by accident he always seems to be in the right place.Smith had a good game worked very hard in the middle first half and a bit wider later on.And Jones played well 2nd half gives us pace which Wildie who i thought  was average in the first half can't.How many chances does Briscoe get always a mistake in him and lacks real speed like the kid on the wing for York showed .Briscoe should have had a yellow for that elbow and could have received a red.Why did we go left short side six times late in the tackle count in the first half when 80% of the field was open.At least we learned and didn't do it in the second half.Hankinson playing himself back in,poor attempt tackle for Yorks first try .But he did a Joey flick for one of Gales and a pass in another try.Yorks last try a chip over the top.Why was there no full back at home.FB. should have been 20 yards behind defensive line and follow the ball across the line .Basic rugby league.Lacans made a try with  the short kick and scored one but did little to join up the attack.We need a good scrum half  as much as oxygen to breath.Yei for a big man showed great awareness and agility to score his try not many props including in SL would have scored that.I am waiting for Longy's attacking magic to come into play.No get out of jail moves.Run arounds ,Back passes or the old overhead chip to the corner which Tommy Saxton scored so many tries from.We will have to improve towards the back end to achieve our goal.Comments welcome.

 

Going to  try to answer some of those points with my own views.

I thought Ford was the best player on the field by a long way (Gale was very good too). Created or threatened to create something every time he touched the ball.

Agree that York were miles better than in the game at POR, they had a real dig and we had to earn the win.

Agree that Smith played well, he looks a very solid signing and can act as a link as well as just drive the ball in.

I don't think Wildie was average, he sets up our forwards so well and understands how to work the ruck area, Jones is the perfect hooker off the bench because he has the speed to hurt tired defenses but he doesn't have the timing and nous around the PTB area that Wildie has (watch how often there's nearly a forward pass between Jones and JD because the timing isn't quite right).

Don't totally agree with the negativity about Briscoe as he brings a lot of positive stuff too but that offload in the last few minutes on our own 20 was really dumb. It's certainly Briscoe rather than Gale whose place would be under pressure from Evans.

Hankinson will be very disappointed with the missed tackle for their first try, that was uncharacteristic of him and I'd give him a pass for that on his return from an absence as he's normally solid defensively.

The try from the scrum...the attacking team already has a massive advantage at the scrum as the attacking scrum half can break before the defending scrum half is allowed to, if you don't have the full back in the line it's an even bigger overlap. It does leave you vulnerable to a chip over the top but there's a big risk in that as an attacking play, if the ball bounces wrongly you turn the ball over on the first tackle. We have allowed too many tries from scrums this year though!

I kind of agree about the suggestion that Long hasn't exactly created a team playing lots of free-flowing rugby. However I think what has happened is that he has identified that our strength is literally in our physical strength, dominating field position and restricting our opponents from having much good ball in attacking positions, and he has identified our weaknesses as sometimes trying to score off every play and not always being able to defend when we have turned the ball over in our own half.

So I think that's why the game plan is a bit stripped down, we are aiming to grind down our opponents by making more yardage than them, being patient and not worrying about trying to score on every set, making them start in their own 10m as often as possible, and gradually wearing them down until the gaps open.

Yesterday was a classic example of that, all 3 of their tries came from when we dropped the ball inside our own 40m and they barely made it into our half of the field for much of the game. Gradually they tired and got worn down and we ended up scoring nine tries.

 

 

[lingaro]

We don't need any other half backs than the ones on the field yesterday.  They need a few games to bed in but for me they complement each other perfectly.  

[Daft old hooker]

Thought we went well yesterday I think sometimes it’s difficult to get the level of consistency due to the changes in the team, I think that’s the first time I’ve seen Ford and Lacans together but they did well.

The first and last tries we conceded were disappointing just down to poor tackling the middle one was a good move by York.

Did Wildie get an injury yesterday? Didn’t see him return to the field after he went off in the first half.

[Michael Bates]

25 minutes ago, Daft old hooker said:

Did Wildie get an injury yesterday? Didn’t see him return to the field after he went off in the first half.

Pretty sure he was on the field at the end of the game but Jones was still on as well.

[roversspud]

44 minutes ago, Daft old hooker said:

 

Did Wildie get an injury yesterday? Didn’t see him return to the field after he went off in the first half.

Don't think Wildie was injured as saw him doing warm ups down the touchline during the second half. We only have limited amount of substitutions available and SL is clearly preferring spelling our big lads.

[POR]

Now the dust has settled I'm hearing lots of talk about FEV's style of play or should I say lack of it  Even viaplay said we're not blowing teams away like liegh did  last year but got to say  I don't give a flying fig how we play as long as we get the job done looking at the table twelve  from twelve tells me it's a job WELL done

[lingaro]

We scored some lovely tries. 

We haven't had the luxury of a settled side all season, unlike Leigh. 

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

1 hour ago, POR said:

Now the dust has settled I'm hearing lots of talk about FEV's style of play or should I say lack of it  Even viaplay said we're not blowing teams away like liegh did  last year but got to say  I don't give a flying fig how we play as long as we get the job done looking at the table twelve  from twelve tells me it's a job WELL done

Last season Leigh's average result was 48-8, this season we're averaging 42-10 so yeah, they blew teams away far more convincingly......

[The Phantom Horseman]

I thought the ViaPlay commentary and analysis was generally okay. Brown is much better and offers more insight than Amor in my view, Brown was uncharacteristically poor when we played Bradford in a televised game earlier this season (when he tipped Bradford to win and seemed determined to try and back up that tip through his in-game comments) but he's generally pretty good and I think his comments about us on Saturday were reasonably well balanced, I don't think it's unfair to suggest that we don't look unbeatable because anyone who has watched us this season knows that we still have looked vulnerable at times despite our 12-12 league record.

Amor seemed to change the narrative depending on what had just happened. For instance with 10 minutes gone after we had just been held out on the 6th tackle for the second time a couple of yards from York's line he said "I have to question Fev's attack...they've just tried to knock the doors down, they're not really playing much rugby".

Kev Brown rightly pointed out that they were just doing what Long had said he wanted them to do, "earning the right and playing with a little bit of patience and burning the juice out of York's legs and waiting for the opportunities to come."

90 seconds later we scored our first try and Amor said "it looks like they're playing against an under 13 side, they're running harder, passing the ball at will, moving the ball..everythng they're doing seems to be quicker, I do feel for York for the rest of this game." Quite a turnaround!

But generally they were ok I thought. In games like this the analysts are always going to try to be positive about the underdog. The coverage and analysis on the two ViaPlay games was miles better than what was served up on the OurLeague games, for sure, though it was good to have the option of watching those too.

 

Edited May 29, 2023 by The Phantom Horseman

[POR]

2 hours ago, Les Tonks Sidestep said:

Last season Leigh's average result was 48-8, this season we're averaging 42-10 so yeah, they blew teams away far more convincingly......

Agree L but don't think  they look at stats possibly  the 100 they scored against york may have clouded their judgement

[David Shepherd]

We’ve not really had a settle halfback partnership yet. Or team for that matter.
 

When we do finally click, someone is going to be on the wrong end of a biblical shellacking.

[POR]

5 minutes ago, David Shepherd said:

We’ve not really had a settle halfback partnership yet. Or team for that matter.
 

When we do finally click, someone is going to be on the wrong end of a biblical shellacking.

IN his pre - match SL said we've had five different combos in the halves

[marklaspalmas]

26 minutes ago, POR said:

IN his pre - match SL said we've had five different combos in the halves

He meant seven.

[RobLambert]

11 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

I thought the ViaPlay commentary and analysis was generally okay. Brown is much better and offers more insight than Amor in my view, Brown was uncharacteristically poor when we played Bradford in a televised game earlier this season (when he tipped Bradford to win and seemed determined to try and back up that tip through his in-game comments) but he's generally pretty good and I think his comments about us on Saturday were reasonably well balanced, I don't think it's unfair to suggest that we don't look unbeatable because anyone who has watched us this season knows that we still have looked vulnerable at times despite our 12-12 league record.

Amor seemed to change the narrative depending on what had just happened. For instance with 10 minutes gone after we had just been held out on the 6th tackle for the second time a couple of yards from York's line he said "I have to question Fev's attack...they've just tried to knock the doors down, they're not really playing much rugby".

Kev Brown rightly pointed out that they were just doing what Long had said he wanted them to do, "earning the right and playing with a little bit of patience and burning the juice out of York's legs and waiting for the opportunities to come."

90 seconds later we scored our first try and Amor said "it looks like they're playing against an under 13 side, they're running harder, passing the ball at will, moving the ball..everythng they're doing seems to be quicker, I do feel for York for the rest of this game." Quite a turnaround!

But generally they were ok I thought. In games like this the analysts are always going to try to be positive about the underdog. The coverage and analysis on the two ViaPlay games was miles better than what was served up on the OurLeague games, for sure, though it was good to have the option of watching those too.

 

Commentators are always positive about the home team as well - same applies to football or any other sport - which is fair enough - but just puts into perspective how ridiculous it was that strictly speaking it wasn't a York home game - it was the summer bash !

Never been a fan of the concept of the Bash - and I'm not sure how any Rovers fan would be - given our 2/7 record but for some reason I think I'll miss it..... 

[marklaspalmas]

6 hours ago, marklaspalmas said:

He meant seven.

Ford & Lacans is our 7th different halfback combo in 13 matches in 2023:

Ford-Dean 4
Lacans-Dean 4
Lacans-Wildie 1
Dean-Taylor 1

Dean-Hall 1
Dean-Wildie 1
Ford-Lacans 1

 

[georgeb1]

17 hours ago, POR said:

Agree L but don't think  they look at stats possibly  the 100 they scored against york may have clouded their judgement

did you have to , still having KNIGHT mares

[POR]

10 hours ago, marklaspalmas said:

Ford & Lacans is our 7th different halfback combo in 13 matches in 2023:

Ford-Dean 4
Lacans-Dean 4
Lacans-Wildie 1
Dean-Taylor 1

Dean-Hall 1
Dean-Wildie 1
Ford-Lacans 1

 

And people wonder why we don't play free-flowing rugby 

[Fevrover]

16 minutes ago, POR said:

And people wonder why we don't play free-flowing rugby 

Some only see what they want to - it's Fev after all !

[Fevrover]

3 hours ago, georgeb1 said:

did you have to , still having KNIGHT mares

You've come along way since though.

[Rovers fev]

I’d stick with lacans and Ford for the forceable, as good as Dean has been he isn’t ours to keep, lacans has a very good short kicking game and it’s fast off the mark and arguably had better defence than Dean 

 

it’s only Ford and lacans first game together and I thaught it was one of our best attacking displays 

 

[georgeb1]

Just now, Rovers fev said:

I’d stick with lacans and Ford for the forceable, as good as Dean has been he isn’t ours to keep, lacans has a very good short kicking game and it’s fast off the mark and arguably had better defence than Dean 

 

it’s only Ford and lacans first game together and I thaught it was one of our best attacking displays 

 

lacans and ford an excellent combination , well impressed you lucky fans

[David Shepherd]

59 minutes ago, Rovers fev said:

I’d stick with lacans and Ford for the forceable, as good as Dean has been he isn’t ours to keep, lacans has a very good short kicking game and it’s fast off the mark and arguably had better defence than Dean 

 

it’s only Ford and lacans first game together and I thaught it was one of our best attacking displays 

 

Agreed.

I may be in a minority, but I've not been that impressed by Dean.  He had one blinder of a game at Keighley and has been fairly ordinary ever since.