Match thread. Championship Round 23. Featherstone Rovers v Keighley Cougars. Sunday 27th August 2023

[J Phil Loxton]

Bit disappointed with that game. I went with the notion that we would see a different style of play and individually there was at certain times. However there was little coordination as a team and too many individual errors. With all the possession we had in the first half hour we had scored just six points against a very average opposition. It may be that the players are trying to learn new stuff as it looked like a new team just thrown together. We will just have to see what offerings we have next week against better opposition. 

[Phil Briscoe]

I think Joey manages his was through games by avoiding getting tackled too much. He rarely takes a hit up coming out of backfield. I think the silly offloads are to avoid getting smashed….let Luke take the hit. Very often the best option is to take the line on himself. When he does take on the defence line at full tilt he’s difficult to handle. 

[Monkeymagic22]

A bit of credit to Keighley, thought they had a real dig at us, and stood up pretty well in defence. 

[haskey]

A bit of a non event really. I thought Killer had a good game but no one else  stood out. A s quoted I thought  Keighley came to play.

[lingaro]

We actually put on some moves and tries to find the wings.  Which has been the topic of much discontent all season!  It will take a bit of time to hit the rhythm hopefully in time for a final.  I'm not reading anything into this as we were trying a different style of play. Though Chissy' defence was spot on today worked very hard. 

[Fevrover]

They beat Batley last week so that must have given them some confidence.

[wasginger]

Now we're nearing the play offs, I expect players to be more aware of dropping ball or forcing poorly executed passes. As a team we've to start showing some ruthlessness and not having lapses of concentration. Or on one occasion a player stood as second marker looking down at his arm, enabling an attacker to go past him like a cardboard cut-out. Both centres and a winger are struggling at the moment, admittedly both centres have had bad injuries, but there comes a time when you can't accept how they're playing the game. As for the winger, it seems to me to be a lack of confidence taking the ball forward, the intensity is lacking from earlier in the season. To finish with we do have an hero in the team, Killer he's playing virtually on one leg yet he doesn't let anyone down especially in his ability to be in the right place at the right time. 

[RobLambert]

1 hour ago, haskey said:

A bit of a non event really. I thought Killer had a good game but no one else  stood out. A s quoted I thought  Keighley came to play.

I thought a few stood out to be fair.  Jones for me had a great game.....

The team performance is another matter....

[elppaxr2i]

3 hours ago, sentoffagain2 said:

 We got our first three tries from Keighley mistakes 

The third try they kicked off we got them on the outside, broke through and scored, how is that a try from a Keighley mistake? 

Edited August 27, 2023 by elppaxr2i

[jamescolin]

Too many mistakes in attack but I thought our defence was superb.

[bigbaldnmad]

6 hours ago, Phil Briscoe said:

I think Joey manages his was through games by avoiding getting tackled too much. He rarely takes a hit up coming out of backfield. I think the silly offloads are to avoid getting smashed….let Luke take the hit. Very often the best option is to take the line on himself. When he does take on the defence line at full tilt he’s difficult to handle. 

Just watched the game back, and today you are a million miles off. I suggest you watch it back.

He did one poor offload to Aikens, but apart from that, all offloads looked pretty reasonable. He did plenty of carries, scoots, and made plenty of yards in doing so.

JD did two stupid offloads after slipping, both resulted in turning the ball over, but I don't hear any criticism.

I thought we were poor today. Until that shift from the kick off I thought we were looking a lot worse than under Longy, still not convinced that Ford is the man to take us up.

If we had been playing against a decent side today we would have been in trouble.

 

Edited August 27, 2023 by bigbaldnmad

[Adam B]

6 hours ago, Wolfey Rovers said:

65% of joey

That's the title of my next album sorted.

[Andrew Vause]

16 hours ago, Monkeymagic22 said:

Scratchy performance, with quite a few errors today. Couple of worrying injuries, Hau and Briscoe.

Hau was up and about and bizarrely was trying to get back on the pitch at the start of the 2nd half, he had to be gently coaxed back into the changing room. 

Briscoe was walking unaided after the match. 

If Briscoe is out there'd be a place for Craig Hall on the wing, don't know what's happened to Kyle Evans but he'd be worth a try too. 

 

 

[Andrew Vause]

Hope I'm not being the harbinger of doom but I fear that we may have peaked already this season. Yesterday had a distinctly scratchy feeling about it and but for Mark Kheirallah the score could have been much closer. 

The first half was really frustrating bombing several sets before completion. A couple of late tries in the first half effectively ended the game as a competition.

Rovers looked a little better going uphill in the 2nd half thanks mainly to Jono Ford's introduction on the left hand side. One thing Rovers desperately need to get right for the play offs is the half back pairing as this has seemed very disjointed since the departure of Riley Dean.

One more win ensures finishing top this should be secured with 4 games remaining although Bulls and Toulouse(a) will be tough tests. It is imperative that Rovers get home advantage in the play offs, hopefully this will happen, it is also a given that we should try to finish the regular season on a high as Batley have shown what going into the play-offs with extra momentum can produce. 

On a positive note, Ford is back, Day, Yei and Bussey look quite close to fitness, and Josh H looks in good form on a health level, he won't play again this season but is hopeful to be playing once again next season. 

Briscoe took a knock yesterday but was walking okay after the game and Hau was up and about after half time.

We also need the gods smiling on us in the remaining fixtures regarding injuries, I'm sure you'll all agree we've had our fair share yet again this season. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Phantom Horseman]

44 minutes ago, Andrew Vause said:

If Briscoe is out there'd be a place for Craig Hall on the wing, don't know what's happened to Kyle Evans but he'd be worth a try too. 

 

 

Ford actually mentioned Hall as possibly being next in line in his post-game interview (and he's been 18th man for quite a few games recently). Since Evans' loan at London ended I don't think we have heard anything about him, I don't think he's made any of the 21-man squads and I haven't noticed him in any of the training ground shots, it's been a strange year for him.

[The Phantom Horseman]

26 minutes ago, Andrew Vause said:

Hope I'm not being the harbinger of doom but I fear that we may have peaked already this season. Yesterday had a distinctly scratchy feeling about it and but for Mark Kheirallah the score could have been much closer.

Yes it was a pretty low-key affair. I'm hoping that it's a combination of a game everyone expected us to win easily and a relative lack of atmosphere, but we weren't very clinical.

26 minutes ago, Andrew Vause said:

One more win ensures finishing top this should be secured with 4 games remaining although Bulls and Toulouse(a) will be tough tests. It is imperative that Rovers get home advantage in the play offs, hopefully this will happen, it is also a given that we should try to finish the regular season on a high as Batley have shown what going into the play-offs with extra momentum can produce. 

 

We're pretty much nailed on to finish top, we'd need to lose all 4 games, Toulouse to win all theirs, and for there to be a 239-point turnaround in points difference.

But yes we don't want to be limping into the play-offs, either figuratively or literally.

It might not harm us if we got some seasonal British October weather for the play-offs too.

 

[J Phil Loxton]

12 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Yes it was a pretty low-key affair. I'm hoping that it's a combination of a game everyone expected us to win easily and a relative lack of atmosphere, but we weren't very clinical.

We're pretty much nailed on to finish top, we'd need to lose all 4 games, Toulouse to win all theirs, and for there to be a 239-point turnaround in points difference.

But yes we don't want to be limping into the play-offs, either figuratively or literally.

It might not harm us if we got some seasonal British October weather for the play-offs too.

 

Well the Europeans haven't sent us any hot weather yet ( mainly due to Brexit I presume ) I reckon we might be a hot weather team by then once Jonno Ford gets going.

[The Phantom Horseman]

20 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

 

We're pretty much nailed on to finish top, we'd need to lose all 4 games, Toulouse to win all theirs, and for there to be a 239-point turnaround in points difference.

 

 

Actually I might be wrong there, it looks like the tiebreaker is still "points percentage" (points scored divided by points conceded, then multiplied by 100) rather than the straightforward points difference, presumably they decided not to change this after bringing it in for the Covid year when not every team played the same games.

[sentoffagain2]

15 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Actually I might be wrong there, it looks like the tiebreaker is still "points percentage" (points scored divided by points conceded, then multiplied by 100) rather than the straightforward points difference, presumably they decided not to change this after bringing it in for the Covid year when not every team played the same games.

    That would make it 383 Fev and 247 Toulouse.A difference of 136 + for Fev.And under that calculation although the points gap is smaller it will make it just as difficult to overturn.