Match thread: Championship Round 22. Sheffield Eagles v Featherstone Rovers. Friday 18th August 2023.

[The Phantom Horseman]

A few positives and negatives for me but a solid win overall.

Start with the negatives...
Still a bit clunky at times with ball in hand and communciation sometimes lacking.
A few basic handling errors.
A couple more occasions when we were opened up out wide (though the scrum try from Sheffield was just a well-worked move that was difficult to defend).
Sheffield looked the better team in my view for the first 20 minutes or so, though they did really have a dig early and we gradually wore them down.

Positives...
There were times when we looked to have better shape and were moving the ball more quickly in attack.
Some signs of improvement in numbering up in defence on wide shift plays, we didn't get so many of the 4 vs 2 scenarios we have seen all too often this season.
Big games from Moors, Kheirallah and Hau in particular, and after a quiet and relatively ineffective 1st half (bar one chip for a try) Chisholm looked much livelier and more creative in the 2nd half.
Players seemed to want to play for each other, getting round each other after big plays etc, didn't seem to be any dropped heads following the coaching change.
Pleasing that on last night's evidence the players aren't tied to the 5-drives-and-a-kick regime. We scored two tries running the ball on the last tackle and two more tries from kicks before the 5th tackle.

We did get the bounce of the ball a bit more I thought than the Halifax game which made a bit of a difference.

Hope we can build on that.

 

[Michael Bates]

The only way you can defend the move for Sheffield's second try is to be offside. If the defending scrum half can't move but the attacking one can do what he wants, the first man from the scrum has to be 5 yards offside or it's a walk in for the winger as we saw yesterday. 

[The Phantom Horseman]

9 minutes ago, Michael Bates said:

The only way you can defend the move for Sheffield's second try is to be offside. If the defending scrum half can't move but the attacking one can do what he wants, the first man from the scrum has to be 5 yards offside or it's a walk in for the winger as we saw yesterday. 

Yes, it's no wonder some teams choose to go offside deliberately at those scrums . Add to that the fact that the full back can hide behind the scrum (Hooley at Batley is good at that) and then run either side as the ball comes out, and it's a big advantage to the attacking side. It's been one of the more disappointing aspects of the last couple of seasons that we don't seem to have made many big plays from scrums ourselves, usually just ploughing the ball in from first receiver, I suppose backing ourselves to score inside the six tackles rather than doing a more adventurous play on the first tackle.

[POR]

18 minutes ago, Michael Bates said:

The only way you can defend the move for Sheffield's second try is to be offside. If the defending scrum half can't move but the attacking one can do what he wants, the first man from the scrum has to be 5 yards offside or it's a walk in for the winger as we saw yesterday. 

Exactly M for me you should always give away a penalty STOP the try

[bigbaldnmad]

How did the more or less same team we beat fairly convincingly beat Batley away by 43 points?

The only change was Jesse out and a couple of positional changes.

Obviously Batley's season ended at Wembley.

[The Phantom Horseman]

7 hours ago, bigbaldnmad said:

How did the more or less same team we beat fairly convincingly beat Batley away by 43 points?

The only change was Jesse out and a couple of positional changes.

Obviously Batley's season ended at Wembley.

Am only guessing here but Batley have a fairly small first team squad, they have a bit of a dad's army pack like us (but with much less depth), and presumably players have had to keep sucking it up and playing when carrying niggles or simply ready for a break after a very busy schedule.

As you suggest, on paper there's no way that Batley team would be shipping 40 points at home in normal circumstances but it happened against Bradford a couple of weeks ago too, and they lost to Keighley last week, I think they must just be a beat-up team at the moment and as you say probably a bit "over the top" mentally since Wembley .

[Daft old hooker]

9 hours ago, bigbaldnmad said:

How did the more or less same team we beat fairly convincingly beat Batley away by 43 points?

The only change was Jesse out and a couple of positional changes.

Obviously Batley's season ended at Wembley.

Think they are a bit shot at the moment, if they don’t turn it around soon they may not make the playoffs.