Match thread: Championship Round 2, Featherstone Rovers v Wakefield Trinity, Good Friday March 29th, 6pm

[The Phantom Horseman]

Think MarkLasPalmas is on his travels at the moment so I thought I'd step in to start the match thread.

So...round 2 in both senses of the word. We landed a famous win against the odds in the Challenge Cup, but that counts for naught on Friday and they will be bristling for revenge.

In terms of line-up...pending updates but it seems very unlikely Lacans will be available. That will mean Bowes continuing to fill in at half back and presumably a first start for Turner, who showed definite glimmers of his ability at Leigh. Far from ideal that the two halves who were at the helm of all our pre-season work are now gone (one permanently, one temporarily) but that's the hand we've been dealt.

Day will miss out, assuming he doesn't challenge his 1-match suspension, and with Bussey still out, looks like England and Tomlinson might be a back row combination that we wouldn't have anticipated a few weeks ago.

Yei would be available to play as his tribunal doesn't take place until next week, but he didn't look anywhere near fully fit to me at Leigh and it might not be a bad idea if he uses his ban to get his knee strength back.

Remains to be seen if Tanner is back, but you'd think we will be looking to Hull KR for a little support in the pack here, depending on who's available.

The forecasts at the moment look to be more for showers than heavy rain but that could change.

Either way, we'll be firmly underdogs once again against the league favourites. But it's been a fun ride being underdogs so far this season.

 

Edited March 25 by The Phantom Horseman

[Michael Bates]

I don't think Day's ban will be Friday, from the TotalRL article 

Quote

Bans for players from Championship clubs, however, don’t apply this weekend as any Operational Rules Tribunal hearings would be heard on Tuesday April 2.

 

[The Phantom Horseman]

3 minutes ago, Michael Bates said:

I don't think Day's ban will be Friday, from the TotalRL article 

 

Good spot.

[J Phil Loxton]

Think I would recall Gorman for fullback from HullKR  Put Aekins in the halves with Turner. That would enable us to have a decent goalkicker. Gorman played really well at Batley after a couple of early errors.

[jamescolin]

I would like that. Hope he is available.

[The Phantom Horseman]

Lacans has put a photo on his Instagram wearing a surgical boot with the comment "RL got me again" so you'd presume a fair lay-off beckons.

[jamescolin]

Hull KR have been having trouble with goal kicking, but Gorman didn't play. It appears that Litten is now the first choice so we might get Gorman on the team sheet.

[RobLambert]

4 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Lacans has put a photo on his Instagram wearing a surgical boot with the comment "RL got me again" so you'd presume a fair lay-off beckons.

Yep.  Do we have any other type of lay-off when it comes to key players ?  Anyway I hope its not too bad and he can return to his best form - whenever that may be.  In the meantime I hope we can avoid playing Aekins in the halves or top 6 may be a pipe dream.

[RobLambert]

4 hours ago, jamescolin said:

Hull KR have been having trouble with goal kicking, but Gorman didn't play. It appears that Litten is now the first choice so we might get Gorman on the team sheet.

To be fair imo Gorman is nowhere near SL standard - even though he looks a decent prospect so I can't see him getting in the first team unless HKR have an injury crisis.  I might be wrong but I think he might be available to us most weeks from now.  The problem is - would we play him at FB and if not - where ? 

[Rovers fev]

I’d go with Gorman at 6 and keep aekins at the back, having an experienced voice at the back is key for us

gorman looks like a good runner of the ball and could take the line in more which bowes doesn’t offer 

addy can organise from 13 and then let turner and Gorman run 

[Monkeymagic22]

Can’t say that I am very confident about this match. Wakey have had a week off and have a point to prove. We had a tough match on Saturday and have a few games players out. This team has already proved me wrong, but I’d expect a heavy defeat. 

[The Phantom Horseman]

Interesting debate about the full back half back options and not really sure where I stand on it.

For me, Aekins is an 8.5 out of 10 Championship player at full back, but only a 7 out of 10 at half back.
But I think Bowes is only a 6 out of 10 at half back (don't get me wrong, he's done a really good job filling in, but it's not his natural position either).

So if Gorman is, say, a 6.5 or 7 out of 10 Championship full back AND a significantly better goal kicker than anyone else we've got available, is our net position better with him at 1, Aekins at half and Bowes on the bench? It's a close one for me.

[sentoffagain2]

     Not for me if you asked the supporters who went to the Batley game i would guess 80% would pick Gorman at full back.

[The Phantom Horseman]

7 hours ago, Monkeymagic22 said:

Can’t say that I am very confident about this match. Wakey have had a week off and have a point to prove. We had a tough match on Saturday and have a few games players out. This team has already proved me wrong, but I’d expect a heavy defeat. 

I don't think it will be surprising if that happens, though I thought that before the Cup game too. They won't have to play Doyle (who we exploited badly) as a middle again, I think Thornley might be back so they won't have to play Griffin at centre, and they have a couple of possible newcomers to add strength to the pack. Add to that the fact that they're a full-time team who have had a week off to focus solely on this game whilst we were in a bruising game at LSV and they have to be hot favourites.

Still looking forward to it though, once again all we ask is that they have a dig, and it wouldn't half shake the league up if we can push them close or beat them again.

Edited March 26 by The Phantom Horseman

[lingaro]

Have we started watering the pitch yet? 

[The Phantom Horseman]

17 minutes ago, lingaro said:

Have we started watering the pitch yet? 

Funny you should say that, I wandered past the ground this morning and took this photo, we're just doing a little light irrigation to promote normal grass growth.
 

[J Phil Loxton]

1 hour ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Funny you should say that, I wandered past the ground this morning and took this photo, we're just doing a little light irrigation to promote normal grass growth.
 

They seem to be obsessed about the weather and our " sloping bog of a pitch" on the Wakey forum. All I can say is that our players didn't do too badly on a pitch similar to their own at the weekend. Obviously being new to this league they might not know that our pitch is generally in mint condition. They just turned up on the wrong day in the cup tie and unfortunately grass tends to get a bit boggy when it rains for a considerable time.

[The Phantom Horseman]

1 minute ago, J Phil Loxton said:

They seem to be obsessed about the weather and our " sloping bog of a pitch" on the Wakey forum. All I can say is that our players didn't do too badly on a pitch similar to their own at the weekend. Obviously being new to this league they might not know that our pitch is generally in mint condition. They just turned up on the wrong day in the cup tie and unfortunately grass tends to get a bit boggy when it rains for a considerable time.

We had exactly the same scenario with some Leigh fans in 2022 which was the last time the pitch was in that kind of condition. I suspect the same will happen as happened then if Wakefield improve past us like Leigh did - they'll write that game off as being solely down to the conditions.

[gazza77]

45 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

We had exactly the same scenario with some Leigh fans in 2022 which was the last time the pitch was in that kind of condition. I suspect the same will happen as happened then if Wakefield improve past us like Leigh did - they'll write that game off as being solely down to the conditions.

If I was a Wakey fan, I'd be writing it off as being because DP doesn't have a great record at knock out rugby.

Fortunately for them, promotion this season won't be based on just a handful of end of season games.

[haskey]

Or I ask is that we make a fist of it

[Monkeymagic22]

1 hour ago, haskey said:

Or I ask is that we make a fist of it

I agree, no expectations this season. 

[The Phantom Horseman]

Fishwick and Gorman in the 21-man squad on DR. Brad Day is not in so presumably his suspension starts this week because it was a challenge cup game?

Unsurprisingly Lacans is absent, Massey, Bussey and Arnold still out injured, Roberts still suspended.Tanner is back in the squad so let's hope he's able to play as we're looking pretty threadbare.

[J Phil Loxton]

16 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Fishwick and Gorman in the 21-man squad on DR. Brad Day is not in so presumably his suspension starts this week because it was a challenge cup game?

Unsurprisingly Lacans is absent, Massey, Bussey and Arnold still out injured, Roberts still suspended.Tanner is back in the squad so let's hope he's able to play as we're looking pretty threadbare.

Did Day go off for a head assessment? If so that's perhaps the reason he isn't playing this week.

[The Phantom Horseman]

I'm normally the last person to comment on this sort of thing but I hope we've done our homework on the referee this weekend. I've watched a lot of Championhip games on YouTube this year and in my opinion the younger referees such as Cameron Worsley and Liam Rush are being really zealous on the new interpretations of the rules especially around the ruck and incorrect play-the-balls. We've had regular SL referees in Jack Smith, Ben Thaler, and Scott Mikalaukas the last 4 games and I hope we can adjust because when I've seen Rush this season he has been very strict on these type of areas, and Wakefield have the advantage of having seen him at first hand when they played Barrow recently.

Not a criticism of the ref, he's only applying the rules, but we need to be squeaky clean on Friday.

Edited March 27 by The Phantom Horseman

[The Phantom Horseman]

45 minutes ago, J Phil Loxton said:

Did Day go off for a head assessment? If so that's perhaps the reason he isn't playing this week.

Yes he did so I suspect you're right.