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

This will be our fifth league game of the season, but our third game against opponents tipped for a Top 4 slot. Widnes have won every game this year and were impressive against Halifax last week. It should be a cracking match.

Great to see Bussey, Springer and Day back against Donny. They all went ok IMO. I don't remember us picking up any injuries.

Six players are still on the injured list: Lacans, Tanner, Massey, Hardcastle, Albert and Arnold. It'd be grand if a couple or more of these were available again.

Five players were not selected v Donny: Wacokecoke, Tomlinson, Roberts, Farrar and Harris.

How Rovers shape up on Sunday will depend who is on DR. We've had seven different players so far: Gorman, Reynolds, Aydin, Hall, Fishwick, Tennison and Wallace.

The squad, and then the team is anyone's guess. There's some proper competition for places which is always good.

Dont agree they were “impressive against halifax” - 40-14 was a very flattering scoreline - they had a really poor 1st half & in the second half they got the 50/50 descisions & some of their tries came off very wicked bounces of the balls on the 3G pitch falling their way which 9 times out of 10 dont happen, but they say these bits of luck fall your way when you are at the top

Most things go through Gilmore, with Owens in close support, if we stop these two then we have a good chance, which will increase if we get Reynolds again.

Regarding injuries, i dont remember Springer coming out for the second half?

7 minutes ago, elppaxr2i said:

Dont agree they were “impressive against halifax” - 40-14 was a very flattering scoreline - they had a really poor 1st half & in the second half they got the 50/50 descisions & some of their tries came off very wicked bounces of the balls on the 3G pitch falling their way which 9 times out of 10 dont happen, but they say these bits of luck fall your way when you are at the top

Most things go through Gilmore, with Owens in close support, if we stop these two then we have a good chance, which will increase if we get Reynolds again.

Regarding injuries, i dont remember Springer coming out for the second half?

I didn't watch the Widnes v Fax game so I'll bow to your knowledge on that. It looked an impressive result on paper, and they're 100% so far. Hopefully we'll stuff em though, eh?

1 hour ago, elppaxr2i said:

Dont agree they were “impressive against halifax” - 40-14 was a very flattering scoreline - they had a really poor 1st half & in the second half they got the 50/50 descisions & some of their tries came off very wicked bounces of the balls on the 3G pitch falling their way which 9 times out of 10 dont happen, but they say these bits of luck fall your way when you are at the top

Most things go through Gilmore, with Owens in close support, if we stop these two then we have a good chance, which will increase if we get Reynolds again.

Regarding injuries, i dont remember Springer coming out for the second half?

Think it was safety not risking him 

addy went off after about an hour aswell 

12 hours ago, marklaspalmas said:

I didn't watch the Widnes v Fax game so I'll bow to your knowledge on that. It looked an impressive result on paper, and they're 100% so far. Hopefully we'll stuff em though, eh?

True M bit they were losing to at half time 14-4 to a Panthers side who according our friend  BO

Here we go 

Championship

Featherstone Rovers v Widnes Vikings

21st April, KO: 15:00

Referee: S. Mikalauskas

AND

That's mikalauskas 3 times and rush twice arnt we blessed  !

Great 

6 hours ago, Cas rover said:

That's mikalauskas 3 times and rush twice arnt we blessed  !

As always . 

22 hours ago, Cas rover said:

That's mikalauskas 3 times and rush twice arnt we blessed  !

And I thought with mikalauskas my weekend couldn't get any worse I was wrong my other Team Liverpool play in the derby on sunday and they have a certain Mr Coote on VAR in the past on VAR he didn't award a penalty and a sending off when Pickford wiped out Virgil van Dijk  and this season he's got better disallowed goal at spurs recommended Mcallister being sent off which was later overturned and more recently turned down penalty claims against Arsenal and city but having said all that I'm sure Aequitas the roman god of fairness is looking down on me to ease my suffering from incompetent officials if not BRING IT ON  two wins for me

I see that kids are going free. I would have thought at coming up 90 and following Rovers since 1938 and made a lot of contribution I would get a discount or a free ticket. I have bought my season ticket and will continue to support. But lets have a bit of thought for older supporters.

19 minutes ago, jamescolin said:

I see that kids are going free. I would have thought at coming up 90 and following Rovers since 1938 and made a lot of contribution I would get a discount or a free ticket. I have bought my season ticket and will continue to support. But lets have a bit of thought for older supporters.

To be fair though Colin although still valued members of THE BLUE WALL us oldies are not the future of the club they need to be targeting the babies and hope they will still be coming like you when they get to ninety but having said that if you get to be a concession every year on your birthday they could give you a voucher to spend at the shop or a pre-match meal for two to thank you for years of undying LOVE

On 16/04/2024 at 21:11, marklaspalmas said:

I didn't watch the Widnes v Fax game so I'll bow to your knowledge on that. It looked an impressive result on paper, and they're 100% so far. Hopefully we'll stuff em though, eh?

The second half of the Widnes game is worth a watch (Fax have put the full game up on YouTube) for the comedy effect as the Fax commentator tries to make sense of his team conceding try after try, eventually the narrative he decides upon is that Thaler has given Fax nothing, and once he decides that, it's a fun ride for the last 20 minutes or so, there's some Liz Truss-class victimhood going on there.

I've noticed a few times before on artificial pitches that one team can take over a game out of the blue, I think Widnes scored on 4 consecutive sets without Halifax touching the ball at one stage, they definitely had a couple of favourable bounces of the ball but also played some good stuff too.

They certainly have more shape in attack than we do on the evidence of that game and the concern is that their strength looks to be on the left hand side (where Gilmore plays) as it seems to be for so many of the better Championship teams, certainly Wakefield and Bradford, and we'll need to be better than we have on that side to keep them in check. They have a bit more size in the middle this year having added Kirk and Murray.

I think they still have a fair bit to prove and it's early days to suggest they can maintain their current high-flying position as they had a similar start last year. They did win at Bradford though and look sure to pose us much more of a test than Doncaster - I've watched that game back again and if Doncaster play like that regularly they'll be in a relegation battle for sure and I wouldn't be getting carried away with that game because they were pretty dreadful.

Hopefully now we are getting some of our forwards back we should be able to get the better of the field position battle. It will be interesting to see if Turner can have a similar impact to last week, that was by some way his best game for us so far and he linked up really well with Brad Day. If he can cause the same problems for the better defences he'll be amongst the best half backs in the division.

Presumably Reynolds will be available to us again and he might be with us for a few weeks at least if things go well until Lacans returns. Addy has had a couple of quiet games the last 2 weeks after playing a few stormers so it will be interesting to see if he can bounce back to his early-season form.

Hopefully with being on an unbeaten run Widnes will bring a fair few over.

15 minutes ago, jamescolin said:

I see that kids are going free. I would have thought at coming up 90 and following Rovers since 1938 and made a lot of contribution I would get a discount or a free ticket. I have bought my season ticket and will continue to support. But lets have a bit of thought for older supporters.

From a financial point of view, free kids leads to potentially more adults and general spending on supplementary items such as food and drinks. It's also helping generate interest in the club for the longer term. 

Without commenting on the overall pricing structure, I'm not sure reducing the price for older supporters would have the same short or long term impact. 

2 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Presumably Reynolds will be available to us again and he might be with us for a few weeks at least if things go well until Lacans returns.

 

Reynolds is in the HKR 21-man squad for their game in Catalans on Saturday evening  (as is Aydin), though whether he makes the trip might be another matter.

BUT...he's received a 2-game ban for "Grade C Foul and Abusive Language towards the Match Official". Which means he'll be unavailable for Whitehaven away and Halifax at home.

21-man squad has appeared on RFL website. Reynolds not included so presumably playing at Catalans for HKR, or at least flying out.
Reiss Butterworth (a hooker), Corey Hall and Leo Tennison included on DR. Presumably Bowes will fill in at half back again given we have called in a 3rd hooker.
Massey, Tanner and Albert all in the 21, interesting to see who plays, pretty strong squad on paper (apart from only having one recognised half back).

Butterworth has had some good reviews, Hall went well last week .

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 squad is looking healthier now, with just Hardcastle and Lacans still out injured.

I think if we assume that the 3 DR players are going to play, then the team more or less picks itself apart from prop.

Aekins

Wynne Hall Minikin Gale

Bowes Turner

Prop Jones Prop

Day England Addy

SUBS: Butterworth + 3 more Props.

We have seven props to choose from, and five will play. Tanner, Massey and Albert are all coming back off injuries. Springer and Bussey have had recent knocks. And there's Kamano and Tennison. I think we pick the fittest five and maintain that rotation throughout the season, injuries permitting.

That means Wacokecoke (now 2nd choice behind Wynne) and Tomlinson miss out. Also Roberts, Harris and Farrar were not selected. Then there's Arnold. I think those six players will struggle for game time as the season progresses if we continue to have 3/4 DR players available each week, and of course if we avoid a horror injury run.

2 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

21-man squad has appeared on RFL website. Reynolds not included so presumably playing at Catalans for HKR, or at least flying out.
Reiss Butterworth (a hooker), Corey Hall and Leo Tennison included on DR. Presumably Bowes will fill in at half back again given we have called in a 3rd hooker.
Massey, Tanner and Albert all in the 21, interesting to see who plays, pretty strong squad on paper (apart from only having one recognised half back).

Could Butterworth potentially play half?

31 minutes ago, marklaspalmas said:

Aekins

Wynne Hall Minikin Gale

Bowes Turner

Prop Jones Prop

Day England Addy

SUBS: Butterworth + 3 more Props.

 

That's more like it, a good looking squad, just missing that general at 7 but hopefully Addy can lead us round the park.

1 hour ago, gazza77 said:

Could Butterworth potentially play half?

Well, he used to play half back for Sharlston....think he's played a bit of half back elsewhere but has been more of a hooker in recent years.

It would be a very stiff task asking him to come in and play half back for a club whose systems, terminology etc he doesn't know though. When Bowes made the switch to half back for us he would at least know the system, the calls etc from a full pre-season. That's why I reckon Bowes will be back at half back this weekend and probably the 2 following weeks.

Saw the fax game and boy oh boy the delusion of that commentator is epic,got completely battered 2nd half and ofc that was thalers fault,high shots,thalers fault, incorrect plays,thalers fault,offside,thalers fault ,little mention of the perfectly good try lyodd scored that was disallowed moments before fax went up other end and scored through kavanagh , little mention that Widnes were actually better team in the 1st just didn't execute,fev should win on quality but this is definitely a different Widnes team to past 3yrs,more shape,more structured,better defensively,much bigger team ,rock up like you did against Bradford and you've got major problems 

8 hours ago, ghost of uncle fester said:

Saw the fax game and boy oh boy the delusion of that commentator is epic,got completely battered 2nd half and ofc that was thalers fault,high shots,thalers fault, incorrect plays,thalers fault,offside,thalers fault ,little mention of the perfectly good try lyodd scored that was disallowed moments before fax went up other end and scored through kavanagh , little mention that Widnes were actually better team in the 1st just didn't execute,fev should win on quality but this is definitely a different Widnes team to past 3yrs,more shape,more structured,better defensively,much bigger team ,rock up like you did against Bradford and you've got major problems 

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.

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