Match thread: Challenge Cup 3rd Round. Thatto Heath v Featherstone Rovers. Sunday 11th February 2024.

[marklaspalmas]

Well, let's move swiftly on from that very disappointing defeat. Three tries to two and more than enough possession and field position to have won that match comfortably, despite our lack of discipline and ball control. A low quality match indeed.

Next up, Thatto Heath. An amateur club we've played before more than once. A tricky tie, but real trouble there would be a major shock.

No injuries I remember from Batley. Still no word on Yei and Albert. Good to see Bussey at 18th man. Presumably he's now ready. Arnold was absent, and Roberts was strangely unused at Batley.

Let's hope we've learned a thing or two from that defeat about how to grind out early season wins without getting frustrated.

We are almost certainly out of the 1895 Cup now, as Batley will beat Hunslet. I think the Quarter finalists will be Barrow, Bradford, Batley, Wakey, York, Swinton, Sheffield and Oldham. Only two matches for those clubs to win to get a day out at Wembley. Shame we messed that up.

However, it's the Challenge Cup now. We need to win this, then Keighley (or Hunslet) and still one more Championship/L1 team after that to have a crack at a SL team in the last 16.

Up The Rovers.

Edited February 5 by marklaspalmas

[Michael Bates]

Most obvious change for me would be Bussey in for Wynne and Hardcastle back to centre. Think it's poor that we've still no idea when Yei and Albert will be available.

[marklaspalmas]

17 minutes ago, Michael Bates said:

Most obvious change for me would be Bussey in for Wynne and Hardcastle back to centre. Think it's poor that we've still no idea when Yei and Albert will be available.

I think when Bussey is ready, that will happen

[Rovers fev]

How do we see the squad looking, will we go all out or bring in the younger/back up players 

[The Phantom Horseman]

15 hours ago, Rovers fev said:

How do we see the squad looking, will we go all out or bring in the younger/back up players 

I'd agree with the two posts above that Bussey will probably get a run this weekend. Being 18th man is probably more of an indication of being game-ready than it used to be as after two HIAs or an injury caused by serious foul play, the 18th man can enter the field.

I don't think we'll be too experimental with our side, the last thing we want at the moment is to risk an upset and the better NCL Premier Division teams are probably stronger than some of the lower League 1 teams anyway. I watched Thatto Heath's game in the previous round which was streamed live and they have some big units in their forwards (and plenty with Championship or League 1 experience), not saying we shouldn't beat them with something to spare but we need to take the game seriously.

I'm guessing the reason Roberts was unused at Dewsbury might have had something to do not only with the closeness of the game but also perhaps was influenced by Addy getting a "breather" courtesy of his yellow card, it looks like Addy is going to play big minutes most weeks. I may be wrong but I think we only used 6 of our interchanges, in mirror-action reverse (Bowes for Jones then reversed, Kamano for Springer then reversed, England for Massey then reversed), but for all that Addy had an up-and-down day on Sunday he's an important player for us and I can see why Ford might have wanted to keep him on rather than Roberts.

I thought England went okay on Sunday, he was played as a middle and managed to bounce off the first tackler on a few occasions when carrying the ball, he's played more as a back row in the past but that versatility could see him get into the 17 quite a bit this year.

[The Phantom Horseman]

https://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/sport/24103966.thatto-heath-want-featherstone-challenge-cup-tie/?ref=twtrec

[lingaro]

Should be made to play the fixture reversed. If we are to be made to play amateur teams then we should be able to generate some income from the fixture.  

[The Phantom Horseman]

58 minutes ago, lingaro said:

Should be made to play the fixture reversed. If we are to be made to play amateur teams then we should be able to generate some income from the fixture.  

No, definitely not. It's the Challenge Cup. Imagine if we drew say Leeds or Wigan in the Cup at home and their fans said if they were to be made to play Championship teams they should get to play them at home? 

 

[POR]

2 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

https://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/sport/24103966.thatto-heath-want-featherstone-challenge-cup-tie/?ref=twtrec

You just got to laugh with the reporting

THATTO Heath Crusaders will experience the magic of the Challenge Cup on Sunday when they host two-time winners Featherstone Rovers at their Close Street home for arguably the biggest date in the club’s history.

 

[Gooleboy]

1 hour ago, POR said:

You just got to laugh with the reporting

THATTO Heath Crusaders will experience the magic of the Challenge Cup on Sunday when they host two-time winners Featherstone Rovers at their Close Street home for arguably the biggest date in the club’s history.

 

3 wins, 2 beaten finalists and umpteen semi finals.

[Gooleboy]

2 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

No, definitely not. It's the Challenge Cup. Imagine if we drew say Leeds or Wigan in the Cup at home and their fans said if they were to be made to play Championship teams they should get to play them at home? 

 

Totally agree. The Cup has been messed about with enough and not the good of it. 

[haskey]

It should be like football , all teams in the bag at the same time.. Just think Lock Lane v St Helens. WOW

[Michael Bates]

1 hour ago, haskey said:

It should be like football , all teams in the bag at the same time.. Just think Lock Lane v St Helens. WOW

You mean like the Premier League sides coming in in the third round?

[lingaro]

11 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

No, definitely not. It's the Challenge Cup. Imagine if we drew say Leeds or Wigan in the Cup at home and their fans said if they were to be made to play Championship teams they should get to play them at home? 

 

If it's that great why aren't the SL teams taking the hit.   No terrace,  no stands just a club house .  How is that minimum standards. It should played at a growing that has.  I go and pay to watch RL professionally and semi professionaly if I want to watch amateur I'll go to the lions.  You can't draw parallels to football as the standard of grounds of amateur teams that get through are better than a lot of semi professional Rugby league teams. 

[The Phantom Horseman]

1 hour ago, lingaro said:

If it's that great why aren't the SL teams taking the hit.  

I've said in the thread entitled "Challenge Cup", and others have said elsewhere, in my view SL teams should be entering the comp earlier, it can't be right that only 3 of the 12 SL teams played lower-league opposition last season.

1 hour ago, lingaro said:

No terrace,  no stands just a club house .  How is that minimum standards. It should played at a growing that has.  I go and pay to watch RL professionally and semi professionaly if I want to watch amateur I'll go to the lions. 

Nobody's forcing you to go. The amateur game is widely regarded to be struggling hugely as it is and the agreement between the RFL and BARLA 30 years ago to have a healthy contingent of amateur teams in the Challenge Cup remains a good idea in my view to help promote the amateur game. and in those 30 years there have been 30 times when amateur teams have beaten semi-pro opposition, those "giant-killing" opportuities are what the Cup is all about in my opinion.

Our ground is lacking many of the corporate facilities that some of the bigger SL teams have especially in the IMG era, but if we got through to round 6 and drew Leeds or St Helens (for instance) at home, we wouldn't be very sympathetic if they said our ground wasn't up to their standards so we should play it at theirs. That's the point of the Challenge Cup, it's based on the luck of the draw.

 

Edited February 8 by The Phantom Horseman

[lingaro]

2 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

 

Nobody's forcing you to go.

 

Oh didn't realise. That's freed Sunday up  

[Monkeymagic22]

This should be an opportunity to maybe give a couple of fringe players a match, as for me, this will be a comfortable win. No disrespect to Thatto Heath, but if we can’t beat them easily, we are in for a long season.

[The Phantom Horseman]

Looks like the same 21-man sqaud as last week.
https://www.rugby-league.com/match-centre/match-preview/2268437

My guess is we'll go with pretty much our strongest 17 (or maybe have one of the fringe players on the bench with a view to giving them some game time if the game is under control). The last thing the club needs at the moment is any kind of an upset, and at Batley it looked like the starting squad could do with some more game-time reps with ball in hand.

[Michael Bates]

3 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Looks like the same 21-man sqaud as last week.
https://www.rugby-league.com/match-centre/match-preview/2268437

My guess is we'll go with pretty much our strongest 17 (or maybe have one of the fringe players on the bench with a view to giving them some game time if the game is under control). The last thing the club needs at the moment is any kind of an upset, and at Batley it looked like the starting squad could do with some more game-time reps with ball in hand.

Yei and Albert must be in terrible shape if they're here and training with the club. If they're not, what on earth is going on?

[The Phantom Horseman]

10 minutes ago, Michael Bates said:

Yei and Albert must be in terrible shape if they're here and training with the club. If they're not, what on earth is going on?

Yei is definitely here, and there was an update 2 weeks ago in the "Letter from the back office" saying he (and Jack Bussey) were "progressing well in their recovery", and that Albert was "due to join us shortly". But let's say a player isn't where he needs to be in terms of fitness, or is in the coach's bad books for some reason, or has some personal issues - there's a limit to what any club is going to tell us isn't there, because whatever they say the critics are going to emerge?

[Rovers fev]

Even if he’s 80% fit a run out against an amateur team isn’t hard going even if he played 15-20 off the bench it’s better than nothing,

the club has never been good regarding injury updates/players that are still overseas, hope Albert isn’t getting paid while he’s not here 

[gazza77]

22 minutes ago, Rovers fev said:

Even if he’s 80% fit a run out against an amateur team isn’t hard going even if he played 15-20 off the bench it’s better than nothing,

the club has never been good regarding injury updates/players that are still overseas, hope Albert isn’t getting paid while he’s not here 

Depends whether 80% fit means unfit, or still injured.

 

[The Phantom Horseman]

Some updates from Fordy regarding injuries etc from the RoversTV interview...
Bussey " had a lower-than-Grade 1 hamstring issue with his rehab, following on from his calf return, we're not worried, we just need to make sure when we get him back he stays back."
Yei "He's working really hard on his knee rehab, there's lots of progress being made but he's not quite ready yet, I think Mackenzie will be a couple of weeks"
Albert "He's going to be on his way from PNG soon and we're really looking forward to linking up with him."

Edited February 12 by The Phantom Horseman

[The Phantom Horseman]

Nobody's actually commented on the game, which is on RoversTV now, but I guess it went pretty much as many would have expected, with an obvious gulf in class.

The team selection was quite interesting with Ford making changes to the right hand side, which has looked the weak area of the team so far. I don't think we've seen enough from Wynne so far to say he's a better option than Hardcastle at centre so that wasn't really a surprising change, and England got a chance on that right edge having played well in the middle at Batley.

You'd think Bussey will be the number one candidate for the right back row position when he returns, and I still think we might see someone like Senior of Hull KR drafted in on the wing when the league season starts. Wacokecoke is promising but had yet another moment where he drifted in from his wing unnecessarily on Sunday (luckily the Thatto player didn't see the masssive overlap that had been left open but against a good Championship team against an Eden or Walmsley it would have led to an easy 70m try). He also doesn't seem to get as involved in yardage sets as the other outside backs and has had very few carries in the last couple of games. Think he probably just needs more time in and around a first-team setting in training.

Elsewhere Massey showed a bit more than in his previous games and Tomlinson showed some very good creative touches, but you have to bear in mind the opposition.

With a week off next week there will be more time for work on the training paddock and Ford has revealed that we'll be having an opposed training session with Dewsbury which is probably a good idea as we still don't have the numbers to do 13-on-13 training sessions.

[Rovers fev]

3 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Nobody's actually commented on the game, which is on RoversTV now, but I guess it went pretty much as many would have expected, with an obvious gulf in class.

The team selection was quite interesting with Ford making changes to the right hand side, which has looked the weak area of the team so far. I don't think we've seen enough from Wynne so far to say he's a better option than Hardcastle at centre so that wasn't really a surprising change, and England got a chance on that right edge having played well in the middle at Batley.

You'd think Bussey will be the number one candidate for the right back row position when he returns, and I still think we might see someone like Senior of Hull KR drafted in on the wing when the league season starts. Wacokecoke is promising but had yet another moment where he drifted in from his wing unnecessarily on Sunday (luckily the Thatto player didn't see the masssive overlap that had been left open but against a good Championship team against an Eden or Walmsley it would have led to an easy 70m try). He also doesn't seem to get as involved in yardage sets as the other outside backs and has had very few carries in the last couple of games. Think he probably just needs more time in and around a first-team setting in training.

Elsewhere Massey showed a bit more than in his previous games and Tomlinson showed some very good creative touches, but you have to bear in mind the opposition.

With a week off next week there will be more time for work on the training paddock and Ford has revealed that we'll be having an opposed training session with Dewsbury which is probably a good idea as we still don't have the numbers to do 13-on-13 training sessions.

I think wacokecoke just needs abit of time and confidence, luckily we’ve got hardy Gale and minikin who all get invlolved in the hard carries, England I think will be more effective through the middle sort of like a John Davies of the last few years, still sounds like Reynolds is carrying his quad issue which ruled him out against dewsbury but with 2 weeks till our next game it gives time for him and bussey to get right along with yei, also gives time for tanner and Albert to arrive and asses there fitness