Sat 15th - Sun 16th Jul: The Betfred Championship Match Thread

[Crown Flatter]

Toulouse Olympique 24-18 Batley Bulldogs 

Barrow Raiders 6-40 Featherstone Rovers 
Halifax Panthers 36-10 Newcastle Thunder 
Keighley Cougars 12-30 Widnes Vikings    Swinton Lions 16-30 London Broncos 
Whitehaven 12-30 Bradford Bulls 
York Knights 22-12 Sheffield Eagles 

[ivans82]

Featherstone  Toulouse and Halifax to win , as for the other 4 games anything could happen , all i would say is don`t put your money on any of them .

[distantdog]

6-6 after 20 in Toulouse. 

[GeordieSaint]

12-6 now.

[GeordieSaint]

12-12

[GeordieSaint]

16-12 Toulouse.

Edit: 20-12.

Edit Edit: 22-12.

Edited July 15, 2023 by GeordieSaint

[Henson Park Old Firm]

Anyone at the T.O game? Crowd?

[GeordieSaint]

28-12 now.

[GeordieSaint]

34-12.

[GeordieSaint]

34-12 FT.

[kiggy]

1 hour ago, Henson Park Old Firm said:

Anyone at the T.O game? Crowd?

Not as big as last match.

Still no dancing girls and band down to a plucky 4.

Referee got escorted off by security he was that bad.

[DoubleD]

3 hours ago, kiggy said:

Referee got escorted off by security he was that bad.

Isn’t that standard in France, when they don’t give the home side every decision?

[Keep The Faith]

9 hours ago, kiggy said:

Not as big as last match.

Still no dancing girls and band down to a plucky 4.

Referee got escorted off by security he was that bad.

Spoilt a good game by all accounts 

toulouse defended two tries with good goal line defence 

[Dovster]

I can't say I'm suprised. IMO the overall standard of refereeing in the Championship this year as been very poor.

[kiggy]

3 hours ago, Keep The Faith said:

Spoilt a good game by all accounts 

toulouse defended two tries with good goal line defence 

Batley's 1st try was excellent. The 2nd was inevitable after the referee's decisions in the 10minutes up to it. I would imagine that will be in the post match report to the RFL. 

However, It could have been the motivation TO needed as the 2nd half score was 22-0. They defended extremely well and Batley just ran out of ideas. I was surprised they didn't try to get it wide as that's where most success against TO has been.

[Keep The Faith]

1 hour ago, kiggy said:

Batley's 1st try was excellent. The 2nd was inevitable after the referee's decisions in the 10minutes up to it. I would imagine that will be in the post match report to the RFL. 

However, It could have been the motivation TO needed as the 2nd half score was 22-0. They defended extremely well and Batley just ran out of ideas. I was surprised they didn't try to get it wide as that's where most success against TO has been.

Batley got took over the dead ball line and Campbell was stopped scoring in the 2nd half anyway we go to the semi final 

[The Phantom Horseman]

1 hour ago, kiggy said:

Batley's 1st try was excellent. The 2nd was inevitable after the referee's decisions in the 10minutes up to it. I would imagine that will be in the post match report to the RFL. 

However, It could have been the motivation TO needed as the 2nd half score was 22-0. They defended extremely well and Batley just ran out of ideas. I was surprised they didn't try to get it wide as that's where most success against TO has been.

It's such a shame the full game is unlikely to be unavailable online.  Would be a really interesting one to view back, you just don't get a proper idea of the game from a 3-minute highlight reel.

Out of interest did you ever get to see the Featherstone - Toulouse game, Kiggy? Another game that it's such a shame wasn't televised to a wider audience, a fascinating contrast of strengths and weaknesses. The penalty count was 12-1 in Featherstone's favour that day by the way!

[susan]

On 12/07/2023 at 11:45, John Drake said:

SUNDAY

 

[The Phantom Horseman]

6 hours ago, Dovster said:

I can't say I'm suprised. IMO the overall standard of refereeing in the Championship this year as been very poor.

We have a relatively new bunch of referees at that level, as most of the refs who were officiating at Championship level a year or two ago  (the two Moores, Jack Smith, Chris Kendall, Tom Grant, Scott Mikalauskas, Marcus Griffiths etc) have now graduated to mostly officiating at SL level along with Ben Thaler.

The current usual roster who seem to officiate in Championship includes (I think) 3 Aussie/NZ refs (Rossleigh, Vella & Smaill), a couple of very young men (under 25 I think) in Liam Rush and Cameron Worsley, and Nick Bennett who has been around for a few years. A couple of those guys (Vella and Rush) I think are on the full-time roster.

Personally I think they do okay in what is a massively challenging job in the modern game. I probably watch more Championship games than most people and I've watched a lot of games this season where I've seen fans on social media absolutely slating the ref yet I haven't seen any games with a series of obviously "wrong" decisions, just a string of 50-50s that would have been contentious either way.

What I will say is some of the newer Championship refs don't have the confidence in their body language that an experienced SL ref such as Ben Thaler might have, you can see some of them having to think about decisions, this can make them look hesitant and indecisive, but for me most of them do a diffcult job very well. I'm genuinely not sure what anyone hopes to achieve by just saying that the standard is poor, there's a growing shortage of refs at all levels of the game because it's a thankless task and people increasingly just think they're fair game to have a pop at.

Edited July 16, 2023 by The Phantom Horseman

[audois]

18 hours ago, Henson Park Old Firm said:

Anyone at the T.O game? Crowd?

3,557

[kiggy]

1 hour ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

It's such a shame the full game is unlikely to be unavailable online.  Would be a really interesting one to view back, you just don't get a proper idea of the game from a 3-minute highlight reel.

Out of interest did you ever get to see the Featherstone - Toulouse game, Kiggy? Another game that it's such a shame wasn't televised to a wider audience, a fascinating contrast of strengths and weaknesses. The penalty count was 12-1 in Featherstone's favour that day by the way!

The Fev v TO match should have been televised I agree. I did get to see the full match, close game but TO managed to pick the right moves late on to pull clear. One of the best defensive games for TO this season which I think surprised Fev in its intensity. I was a bit sad to hear some of the crowd abuse that got picked up on the refs mic. I thought the clubs had got that sorted.

I'm hoping at least one TO match will get televised before the play offs, but they only have 4 matches away now, so time is limited.

[Henson Park Old Firm]

42 minutes ago, audois said:

3,557

Not bad

[The Phantom Horseman]

2 hours ago, kiggy said:

One of the best defensive games for TO this season which I think surprised Fev in its intensity. I was a bit sad to hear some of the crowd abuse that got picked up on the refs mic. I thought the clubs had got that sorted.

 

I agree with your comments about TO's defence, they were phenomenal that day having been under pressure for so long. Must admit I was at the game but didn't pick up on anything untoward from the crowd.

2 hours ago, kiggy said:

 

I'm hoping at least one TO match will get televised before the play offs, but they only have 4 matches away now, so time is limited.

The fact that all Toulouse's away games have to be played on Saturday means they haven't been able to appear on the Championship's TV format on ViaPlay on Monday evenings.

[The Phantom Horseman]

Barrow sensing an upset at home to Fev, 10-10 at half time and Barrow will fancy their chances with a strong wind behind them in the 2nd half. Fev well on top early but too many handling errors in possession plus failure to deal with kick offs into the win has handed Barrow field position and they've responded with two well-taken tries. Fev played as if they felt they needed to rack up a big lead into the wind, turning the ball over 3 or 4 times when trying to play the ball too quickly.

[The Phantom Horseman]

Fev knuckled down in the 2nd half, made fewer errors, defended their line well and ground out a 20-10 win, credit to Barrow who had a real dig and never gave up at any stage.