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

7 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

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.

Good assessment. These young refs do things to the book. Judging by my own working experience whenever I got a new job I would make sure that I worked to the book. However when you've been in a job for a while you know which corners to cut or not as the case might be. As you point out TPH they are doing it within the laws of the game and we can only hope that they apply the law consistently to all teams.

44 minutes ago, J Phil Loxton said:

Good assessment. These young refs do things to the book. Judging by my own working experience whenever I got a new job I would make sure that I worked to the book. However when you've been in a job for a while you know which corners to cut or not as the case might be. As you point out TPH they are doing it within the laws of the game and we can only hope that they apply the law consistently to all teams.

Indeed, I am not a fan of criticising refs and I'm certainly not doing that here, but I do think there have been different levels of interpretation of some of the new rules in the Championship games I've seen this season.

True a certain Mr Rush seems keen to up hold the new rules and yes we haven't had him this  semester but in the past two seasons 7 times 6 wins and one loss the last game of longy's tenure  Just a thought why don't we get Dave Merrick to give him  RING and ask him what he want's us to do to help him

Rovers 21 man squad named 

With Day and Roberts suspended,

and Lacans, Bussey, Massey and Arnold injured,

our squad is bolstered by Fishwick and Gorman from Hull Kr.

With Aekins, Gorman and Turner set to be 1, 7 and 14, it'll be interesting to see who plays where.

Perhaps Gorman will be at centre, Bowes and Turner the halves, and Hardcastle 2nd row with England/Tomlinson in the absence of Day.

Kamano back, so one out of him, Springer, Tanner, Albert and Yei may miss out assuming Fishwick is picked 

I’d rather not see bowes at 6 again I think he could be a real good 9 but 6 is definitely not his position moving forward 

25 minutes ago, Rovers fev said:

I’d rather not see bowes at 6 again I think he could be a real good 9 but 6 is definitely not his position moving forward 

With Lacans out, our options are limited.

12 hours ago, marklaspalmas said:

Rovers 21 man squad named 

With Day and Roberts suspended,

and Lacans, Bussey, Massey and Arnold injured,

our squad is bolstered by Fishwick and Gorman from Hull Kr.

With Aekins, Gorman and Turner set to be 1, 7 and 14, it'll be interesting to see who plays where.

Perhaps Gorman will be at centre, Bowes and Turner the halves, and Hardcastle 2nd row with England/Tomlinson in the absence of Day.

Kamano back, so one out of him, Springer, Tanner, Albert and Yei may miss out assuming Fishwick is picked 

Day isn't suspended until next week is my understanding. I believe he failed a HIA at Leigh.

12 hours ago, Rovers fev said:

I’d rather not see bowes at 6 again I think he could be a real good 9 but 6 is definitely not his position moving forward 

Indeed, but just as many would make the exact same comments about Aekins in terms of playing half back versus full back, and realistically it has to be one or the other for the time being.

Pre-game interview with Fordy which includes a couple of injury updates too.

https://www.facebook.com/FevRoversRLFC/videos/1130409634808732/?mibextid=WC7FNe&rdid=PGYmDzmCRkXp5ijw

1 hour ago, Michael Bates said:

Day isn't suspended until next week is my understanding. I believe he failed a HIA at Leigh.

Righto

In view of latest info. How do you see the line up for this match for the Rovers

James ford said gorman is a natural center. We could see him in the centers with aekins still at FB. Turner/Bowes halves

Who would you drop for Gorman, Hardcastle or Minnikin WF ???

8 minutes ago, haskey said:

Who would you drop for Gorman, Hardcastle or Minnikin WF ???

He might move Hardcastle to second row with Day being injured.

Hardy to second row 

I’d leave hardy at centre we’ve got England and Tomlinson to cover the edges 

      Don't understand Ford making out how good Gorman is at centre when he had such a good game playing Full Back at Batley.Unless he wants to play Aekins there and not in the halves.I would have Gorman full back Aekins and Turner  in the halves.

       Having done some research Gorman did get young player of the year award while playing centre in the Hull KR reserves last season.

Both teams announced. We are missing Tanner, Yei, Bussey, Massey and Day (plus fringe players Roberts and Arnold) from our forwards as well as Lacans. Gorman plays centre, Bowes and Turner in the halves.

Strong team for Wakefield with Thornley returning and ex-NRL Ky Rodwell making his debut.

1 hour ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Both teams announced. We are missing Tanner, Yei, Bussey, Massey and Day (plus fringe players Roberts and Arnold) from our forwards as well as Lacans. Gorman plays centre, Bowes and Turner in the halves.

Strong team for Wakefield with Thornley returning and ex-NRL Ky Rodwell making his debut.

Given the missing players, right selections for me. No point in having more players than necessary being out of position.

Just now, gazza77 said:

Given the missing players, right selections for me. No point in having more players than necessary being out of position.

Yeah I agree.

WAKEFIELD TRINITY gained revenge their Challenge Cup Sixth Round dumping, overcoming a stubborn Featherstone Rovers side to take home a  Wakefield broke the deadlock early...

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A defeat but not a too disheartening one. I think we mostly matched them in the middle. Our right edge defence was all over the place in the first half. We're crying out for a general type half back to play with Turner in Lacans' absence, which would allow us to spell Jones and Bowes making them more effective. We're probably one light in the forwards too with injuries/suspensions/lack of fitness. 

Don't think Wakey are as effective as Leigh was when they were in the championship. Two men sin binned and it was only three tries to two. It did look ominous when we went 12- 0 down but this team is built around team spirit this season. Well done to the players that stepped in for our injury situation. With Bussey Day and Lacans back we will be difficult to beat.

Playing Wakey , a full time team, with a player missing for half of the second half was always asking too much. We again made a fist of it and we were certainly not disgraced.

 However we do need to sort our halves out, and get rid of Wacokecoke as he was terrible tonight.