Match thread: Championship Round 5. Featherstone Rovers v Widnes. Sunday 21st April 2024.

[Fevrob]

15 minutes ago, Featherstonerovers2000 said:

Both Charlie Harris and oli farrah are playing for hull fc reserves today

They might be getting promoted to Hull FC’s first team, they can’t do any worse

[marklaspalmas]

17 minutes ago, Featherstonerovers2000 said:

Both Charlie Harris and oli farrah are playing for hull fc reserves today

Interesting. Makes sense.

[The Phantom Horseman]

1 hour ago, J Phil Loxton said:

We all tend to put the blame onto the ref for our teams shortcomings and you can't blame commentators for being a little bias towards their own team but this guy and Gledhill at Bradford are real comedy value. Thaler did a good job except for that disallowed Widnes try. For the life of me I couldn't see anything wrong. Maybe Thaler thought the grounding was suspect but it seemed that the ball bounced up after downward pressure. That bit of Morganesque quote during commentary ( for those who can remember Mick Morgans commentaries) when the guy became totally exasperated and said something on the lines of " what the hell are they doing?" was priceless. I agree with TPH above Widnes have got some good shape and will be more than a threat tomorrow if they are allowed to play like that.

I agree with all the above but for me the Halifax fella is just a fan with a mike like a lot of club commentators and he doesn't have any agenda, he just got exasperated watching his team getting heavily beaten and reacted like a lot of fans on the terraces would, it was quite amusing to listen to as a neutral but I think most of us can probably relate to how he would have been feeling. Gledhill's a different kettle of fish, he tries to pretend he's a journalist as well as a club commentator but is so obviously biased it's painful, to be fair most reasonable Bradford fans seem to find him a bit embarrassing too.

Edited April 20 by The Phantom Horseman

[fevnut]

22 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Most teams play six middles in their 17 (3 start, 3 off the bench) and we have 8 in our squad who have played that as their main position this year which is a welcome development - Addy, Albert, Bussey, Kamano, Massey, Springer, Tanner and Tennison. We are still a bit in the dark about what to expect from Massey and Tanner this year, but on paper that's a strong group. Assuming the RFL page is correct (it hasn't always been), there's no room for Roberts, or the DR middles Aydin and Fishwick (though Aydin may be playing for HKR tomorrow).

Perhaps 1 or 2 of Albert, Massey and Tanner might not be quite ready yet, but otherwise there are some tough decisions for Ford. Switching Bussey to back row in place of England is one option, which would be harsh on England as he's played pretty well, but for me Bussey's a better player than him in either position.

The RFL Match Centre version of the squad is now confirmed on the Widnes official twitter page. See the full squads set out in possible line-up by clicking on this link.

https://bit.ly/4aZP25B

[POR]

1 hour ago, Fevrob said:

They might be getting promoted to Hull FC’s first team, they can’t do any worse

Funny thing F if Hull win today reserves go top of league

[haskey]

As MPL says in makes a lot of sense to give these fringe lads some game time for you never know when they may be needed for the team.

[The Phantom Horseman]

3 hours ago, Featherstonerovers2000 said:

Both Charlie Harris and oli farrah are playing for hull fc reserves today

Gorman, Fishwick and Wallace are all playing for Hull KR reserves today, which would seem to back up the suggestion that they would have been available to us but weren't selected this week.

[POR]

Here we GO

[J Phil Loxton]

I got ready to be miserable with seven minutes to go. That's what the championship rugby is about. Good fightback by good opposition and an exciting finish for the home crowd. Well done both sets of players especially Wynne who played well. It was baffling when Widnes were held up over our line on the last tackle but were given more tackles to score. There didn't seem to be a wipe out by the ref. Enjoyable when you win but Widnes played well.

[gazza77]

25 minutes ago, J Phil Loxton said:

I got ready to be miserable with seven minutes to go. That's what the championship rugby is about. Good fightback by good opposition and an exciting finish for the home crowd. Well done both sets of players especially Wynne who played well. It was baffling when Widnes were held up over our line on the last tackle but were given more tackles to score. There didn't seem to be a wipe out by the ref. Enjoyable when you win but Widnes played well.

Exactly. Entertaining game, outcome uncertain up to the end. 

[sentoffagain2]

       Agree about the held up one.Ref said we played at the ball which was kicked about a foot straight at our player.Never played at in a month of Sundays.Thought our forwards looked shattered half way through the second half and expected Widnes to win.But we dug deep and it is good to see the ball thrown about when required rather than the biff down the middle.Just a mention for Gale  he worked his socks off taking the ball out of defence time after time.A good win in a game i expected to be tight.

[haskey]

Sweaty palms  job when Widnes went ahead, You can never be disappointed with Rovers. At the moment we certainly play to the end.This tackle over the line was a shocking decision by the ref, who had a fair game up to that point. I thought it would go down to the wire in fact down to the last few minutes. Well done both teams for an enjoyable match 

[Rovers fev]

The lot we got from hull KR are some of best we’ve had ever from a DR agreement, hall and butterworth big standouts hope we can keep them for the forceable 

[jamescolin]

Great display by all the team.  What a comeback. UTR

[RobLambert]

1 hour ago, Rovers fev said:

The lot we got from hull KR are some of best we’ve had ever from a DR agreement, hall and butterworth big standouts hope we can keep them for the forceable 

All the tries were down Hall's side though weren't they.  I'd need to see them again but we're getting something very wrong defensively.

[sentoffagain2]

31 minutes ago, RobLambert said:

All the tries were down Hall's side though weren't they.  I'd need to see them again but we're getting something very wrong defensively.

   Left side last two seasons right side this season.

[Michael Bates]

I was shot down in flames when I suggested it was a defensive structure problem not an individual's problem on Facebook. Interesting how we seem to be conceding the same sort of tries with different personnel in place. We've defended narrowly for at least the last 2 seasons and seem to concede a lot out wide.

[wasginger]

Having watched a few SL games this weekend, we're not the only team struggling with defending out wide.

[Stephen P]

clearly wakecokecoke's fault - the guy never made a tackle all game !!

[gazza77]

7 hours ago, wasginger said:

Having watched a few SL games this weekend, we're not the only team struggling with defending out wide.

I suspect we score most of ours out wide. Works both ways.

[J Phil Loxton]

4 minutes ago, gazza77 said:

I suspect we score most of ours out wide. Works both ways.

Correct. Nobody has said Widnes are poor at defending out wide when Wynne galloped in for two late on. The trick is to draw defenders to the middle and then throw the ball to the edges quickly. You don't want teams to get cheap barge over tries, so it's vital sometimes to have a short line defence. I think all our tries were executed out wide even Halls try despite him being able to go under the sticks.

[The Phantom Horseman]

For me, there are 3 contributory factors to our poor defensive record on our right edge this year, it's not just 1 thing...

1) on occasions our centres and wings have made poor reads and jammed in opening up gaps. That's what happened with the 1st Widnes try, Hall made a poor read coming in to help Bowes with his man and leaving a huge gap for the centre, aided by a great pass from Gilmore.

2) We have got the numbers wrong/not shifted across fast enough on plenty of occasions leaving the centre/winger with little chance.

3) We have played a number of teams whose best half back in terms of creating shape/organising passing moves plays on their left hand side, so against our right. In those terms (ie creating openings and exploiting defensive weakness), Gale is better than Lino, Lilley is better than Davies, and Gilmore is better than Lyons and they all play on the left. No coincidence that I think Wakefield, Bradford and Widnes have all scored a lot more down their left side against other teams as well as us.

[sentoffagain2]

            That seems a logical explanation. TPH does seem to have all the stats at his finger tips good job someone does.

[Wolfey Rovers]

How did tanner get on? It's good that we are getting some of our pack back! Once we have a full pack will lay a good platform for turner/lacans

[Rovers fev]

Anyone know when lacans is due back