Match thread: Championship Round 19. Barrow v Featherstone Rovers. Sunday 16th July 2023.

[Monkeymagic22]

We’ve got a few harder matches coming up after a weeks break and for me, we need to be playing the strongest possible side to enable us to have an idea before the playoffs. Hopefully Ford might be fit for the Fax match.

[eltel]

51 minutes ago, Monkeymagic22 said:

We’ve got a few harder matches coming up after a weeks break and for me, we need to be playing the strongest possible side to enable us to have an idea before the playoffs. Hopefully Ford might be fit for the Fax match.

longy seems to like changing the team regularly trying to keep players happy but it ain’t working get a settled side baring injuries and stick to it as at the moment it’s pair any 2 from 3 which is causing problems and his sub methods are rather poor.

Anyway I just can’t see him at fev next season.

[Fevrover]

1 minute ago, eltel said:

longy seems to like changing the team regularly trying to keep players happy but it ain’t working get a settled side baring injuries and stick to it as at the moment it’s pair any 2 from 3 which is causing problems and his sub methods are rather poor.

Anyway I just can’t see him at fev next season.

Imo and its only my opinion  i think that's why Fordy as come to Fev. We shall find out eventually. 

[The Phantom Horseman]

It's interesting how the format of the comp is impacting people's reactions to games as the season goes on.

Yesterday was undoubtedly one of our lesser performances, our middles in particular weren't as dominant as usual, though you have to give Barrow plenty of credit for that.

But in a system where the league leaders were promoted automatically, we'd all be saying something like "job done, have to win ugly sometimes, another step nearer SL". Instead it's like we're in a phoney war, and we're all watching each game looking for clues as to how vulnerable we may or may not be in the play-offs.

There were 2 particular areas that caused us trouble yesterday - we failed to retrieve the ball on the kick off after each of our 4 tries, and we committed offences when playing the ball four times (I think) - either knocking on when playing the ball or being penalised for not playing it properly. A bit of a freak number in each case, but it does show how the odd thing going wrong here or there can change the outcome of a game.

We still looked a bit vulnerable out wide at times, but some of that is down to getting the numbers wrong or playing a very compressed middle. In particular, I think criticism of Briscoe for their 2nd try is harsh, yes he jammed in but Barrow had a 5 on 4 on that play and with Hall jamming in on the full back Briscoe would have left a huge gap for the centre if he had stayed on his wing. Unfortunately for him/us the Barrow half back executed a superb cutout pass, but Briscoe was essentially having to guess between which of 2 players to cover.

Edited July 17, 2023 by The Phantom Horseman

[Michael Bates]

It might be a bit of an unpopular opinion (especially on Facebook), but for me, no Ford equals no promotion. The rugby we played when he was available was vastly superior to anything we produced before and since. None of our other halfback options have the "general" trait that he does.

[Phil Briscoe]

3 hours ago, eltel said:

longy seems to like changing the team regularly trying to keep players happy but it ain’t working get a settled side baring injuries and stick to it as at the moment it’s pair any 2 from 3 which is causing problems and his sub methods are rather poor.

Anyway I just can’t see him at fev next season.

Agreed. Every time Long is interviewed he talks about the importance of the spine and having regular players in those positions building up an understanding with each other…but he keeps changing the spine!!?? Granted some of it has been forced by injury. 
I think there might be a transfer of power happening in the background to Ford. We don’t see Long being as visible with interviews etc all of a sudden.

[The Phantom Horseman]

1 minute ago, Phil Briscoe said:

Agreed. Every time Long is interviewed he talks about the importance of the spine and having regular players in those positions building up an understanding with each other…but he keeps changing the spine!!?? Granted some of it has been forced by injury. 
I think there might be a transfer of power happening in the background to Ford. We don’t see Long being as visible with interviews etc all of a sudden.

Long did the post-match interview yesterday. From the interview/commentary point of view George Riley seems to have missed more games than he's attended in the last few weeks which might have impacted on the overall number of interviews put out.

It's a difficult one as you can understand why he might not want to drop Aekins, he's played well all year and probably done everything asked of him (including relinquishing his full back slot to Kheirallah). It might also be that the loan of Astley was arranged before Chisholm was signed or with the knowledge that Chizz wasn't going to be match-fit for a week or two when we signed him. Long can't win can he really, if he had kept Aekins and Lacans at half back after we had signed Astley and Chisholm everyone would be moaning about them not being given a chance.

[georgeb1]

5 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Long did the post-match interview yesterday. From the interview/commentary point of view George Riley seems to have missed more games than he's attended in the last few weeks which might have impacted on the overall number of interviews put out.

It's a difficult one as you can understand why he might not want to drop Aekins, he's played well all year and probably done everything asked of him (including relinquishing his full back slot to Kheirallah). It might also be that the loan of Astley was arranged before Chisholm was signed or with the knowledge that Chizz wasn't going to be match-fit for a week or two when we signed him. Long can't win can he really, if he had kept Aekins and Lacans at half back after we had signed Astley and Chisholm everyone would be moaning about them not being given a chance.

nice problems to have 

[The Phantom Horseman]

1 minute ago, georgeb1 said:

nice problems to have 

Indeed. Everything this year for Fev fans though is through the prism of whether we can get promoted or not; there's a feeling it's literally now or never.

It probably seems strange to fans of other teams to see Fev fans getting antsy when we've won 18 of 19 in the league, but rightly or wrongly it's all going to boil down to 2 games in October.

[Monkeymagic22]

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that Chizz was a Long signing, he seemed relatively luke warm in the interview before the match.