Match thread: Championship Playoffs Semi-final. Featherstone Rovers v London Broncos. Sunday 8th October 2023.

[marklaspalmas]

So, here we are then. After weeks of thinking we'd be playing Sheffield, or Halifax, Batley or Bradford, it's a resurgent London Broncos that stand between us and the Grand Final.

Although Rovers won at London 40-10 in April and 50-6 at home in June, Broncos are a different proposition now with Corey Norman calling the shots. Their 42-0 win at Sheffield was illustrative of that.

Rovers have had a week off and James Ford's first task will be to whittle our 25 man squad down to 21. Then 17. Who will miss out? It could be now or never for Luke Briscoe and Gadwin Springer with their injuries. Also Chisholm, Longstaff and Hau have not been called on in recent weeks. Bussey, Ford and Yei have all had recent fitness issues, so plenty of different options available for the XVII on Sunday.

Rovers will start strong favourites against a team who won 16 and lost 11 league games.

The winners of this will play the winners of Toulouse v Bradford in the Grand Final.

The possible venues are:

Featherstone v Toulouse. At Featherstone.

Featherstone v Bradford. At Featherstone.

Toulouse v London. At Toulouse.

Bradford v London. At Odsal.

Up the Rovers!

[jamescolin]

Were London very very good or have Sheffield really gone a lot downhill? When you see that Keighley gave London a good game as a bottom two team, it makes you wonder what the present standards are. 

[Featherstonerovers11]

I went to watch the Sheffield game with my son and tbh London looked good in parts but Sheffield definitely rolled over second half. Norman was the main man for them but didn’t look like a world beater 

[bigbaldnmad]

So far there have been no upsets in the play off's, there is always at least one.

Let hope we don't under perform and that if there is one, it isn't us.

[sentoffagain2]

   The improvement shown in the last month give me confidence that we can achieve promotion.It is in the players hands they are good enough.How many London players would get into our side?.And we have an almost full squad to pick from.Hope thet have noted from today's' grand final how important 40/20 are we should try at least 2.And i have being saying for the last 3 seasons we need a couple of new moves to try if needed.Just something a bit different our opponents won't be expecting.We may not use them but have a couple ready just in case.

[Bryan S Taylor]

Is it an all ticket match.

 

60 years ago today Rovers beat Australia,  it was my first match

[Wolfey Rovers]

We have beaten London for a total of 90-16 this year. But now is not the time to be complacent. We've been here and confident last year.... 

[Monkeymagic22]

44 minutes ago, Wolfey Rovers said:

We have beaten London for a total of 90-16 this year. But now is not the time to be complacent. We've been here and confident last year.... 

We can’t be complacent. But I feel that the team/club is in a much better place this year. Last season, things petered out, well before the playoffs.

[lingaro]

Agree we seem to be on an upwards trajectory this time round. 

[POR]

Nothing to do with the game but our Bradford fan is back

I’ve been made aware of two separate racist comments made by Featherstone Rovers supporters on social media earlier today. I’m reliably informed that these have now been reported. Hopefully, some education can take place because this behaviour has a corrosive effect on our sport.

[Monkeymagic22]

1 hour ago, POR said:

Nothing to do with the game but our Bradford fan is back

I’ve been made aware of two separate racist comments made by Featherstone Rovers supporters on social media earlier today. I’m reliably informed that these have now been reported. Hopefully, some education can take place because this behaviour has a corrosive effect on our sport.

The best thing is for supporters not to get involved in this kind of stuff. The comment I saw, was ill advised and given the clubs already been fined for similar, it’s stupidity to be making such comments. 

Edited October 3, 2023 by Monkeymagic22

[The Phantom Horseman]

It's frustrating that not only was the Sheffield-London game not televised, but it's looking unlikely that the full game will be made available via YouTube either. Poor for a play-off game imo.

But as others have said, I think that this is likely to be a much tougher game than the two previous ones between the teams, but also one that we ought to win.

London definitely seem to be playing better than they were when we played them earlier in the season, and in the game at our place they played three youngsters from their academy who won't be anywhere near their starting line-up on Sunday.

James Ford was right when he said we need to expect a better version of whoever our opponents are in the play-offs than we faced in the regular season.

London seem to have a good short kicking game and we'll need to keep them from having too many opportunities near our line.

I'm sure London will give it everything but I'd like to think we'll win enough of the one-on-one matchups to see us home.

 

 

 

[Monkeymagic22]

Not long now . In the backs Id say, it’s a just a question of if Briscoe is in contention. I’d have Hall in, so it’s MK GG CH JL CH JF CA. The forwards is tricky, so hoping that GS is fit, I think MC MW JL BD ET DS. Leaving an interchange of GS JM CJ and JB. Really hard on those left out such as Lacans and Hau, but think he’ll go for experience.

[POR]

Featherstone Rovers v London Broncos

08th October, KO: 18:30

Referee: T. Grant

[Wolfey Rovers]

I believe our forwards will be too much for them. Keep them away from our line and their good short kick game is useless. Keep pens to a minimum and we'll be golden. Also keep hold of the ball. 

[TheYoungBaron]

2 hours ago, Wolfey Rovers said:

I believe our forwards will be too much for them. Keep them away from our line and their good short kick game is useless. Keep pens to a minimum and we'll be golden. Also keep hold of the ball. 

Oh, and don't knock on...

[Wolfey Rovers]

14 hours ago, TheYoungBaron said:

Oh, and don't knock on...

We have been in the past pretty loose at holding the ball! It's easy territory in a play offs if we keep dropping the ball

[jamescolin]

We are going to have a BALL. And dance our way through with a quick step and waltz onwards.

[The Phantom Horseman]

22 hours ago, Monkeymagic22 said:

Not long now . In the backs Id say, it’s a just a question of if Briscoe is in contention. I’d have Hall in, so it’s MK GG CH JL CH JF CA. The forwards is tricky, so hoping that GS is fit, I think MC MW JL BD ET DS. Leaving an interchange of GS JM CJ and JB. Really hard on those left out such as Lacans and Hau, but think he’ll go for experience.

I don't think that will be far off. I think Ford will play Briscoe if he's been going ok in training - he's on record as saying what an important player he is for us. Hall's played well though since returning on the wing.

If we do play Gadwin I reckon it makes more sense to start him...if his calf lets him down and he pulls up injured after a few minutes it's probably easier to reorganise interchanges, whereas if he comes on after 25-30 minutes and doesn't last long, you've probably already made 2-3 changes amongst the forwards, might have to bring someone back on who's just played a good stint, and have less wiggle room to manage your interchanges.

[philcow]

We should win  with a bit to spare but why am i so nervous and bricking it oh thats right been following Fev too long now see ya sunday

[The Phantom Horseman]

19 minutes ago, philcow said:

We should win  with a bit to spare but why am i so nervous and bricking it oh thats right been following Fev too long now see ya sunday

Strange thing is that since the play-offs returned in 2019 I think we've only lost one game where we were favourites (Batley last year, obviously) and won two where we weren't favourites (Leigh and Toulouse away in 2019).

[Fevrover]

35 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Strange thing is that since the play-offs returned in 2019 I think we've only lost one game where we were favourites (Batley last year, obviously) and won two where we weren't favourites (Leigh and Toulouse away in 2019).

We also beat York away not long after they'd beaten us in the league.

[The Phantom Horseman]

11 minutes ago, Fevrover said:

We also beat York away not long after they'd beaten us in the league.

We did indeed, but I reckon we were probably favourites that day after beating Leigh away in the previous round.

[Fevrover]

36 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

We did indeed, but I reckon we were probably favourites that day after beating Leigh away in the previous round.

Probably.

[Piggy's mate]

Good luck Fev. With Batley falling by the wayside it's Fev all the way to SL this year!