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Moyles? Nowt to do with Fev. Personally I don't like Nicki Campbell on Radio 5 live.

calm down people. i saw some of the game whilst out for a mates birthday.

i am still confident that if we get to the grand final we can beat them, we had a lot of chances. things are always a lot tighter in a final and i feel we can score enough points and the defense will be that much tighter to pick up a 2 point win

stop the whinging Fax fans - the best team won - you were outplayed & outcoached - forget slopes,Mr Hicks,dropped balls etc etc (boring...)

was Black injured ? if not,why didnt he play from the start ?

Fev are a decent side ,but they ARE beatable - mighty TO13 managed it once and nearly caught them out in their home game game only losing cos' of basic errors at the end

good luck in your next game

Another game to go yet. Some of the whinging and moaning about Fev from posters like TF2 is quite simply embarassing. They crushed us, they lived off our mistakes, of which they would know we will make plenty and took advantage nearly everytime. We have struggled for years against teams that play to a very structured game plan, Haven, Barrow and now Fev. Against the best pack in the league we needed our forwards to stand up and be counted. Unfortunatley for us too many were left wanting. As for Black been on the bench this is because our coach is a tactical genius who thinks that we must have an interchange hooker. Well surely after 20 minutes he must of relised there wouldnt be any penalties for not standing square and his tactic would be wasted. Penky can do 80 minutes without a problem, so im not sure where Holroyd fits in to the team. Thought Worrincy and Barlow were our standout players. On Aizue maybe MC was saving him for the playoffs either that or trying to get rid of him didnt work and he thought he might as well play him afterall hes a lot better than Ostick and Cherryholme ven on his worse day.

Good post.
I thought Wrenchy worked hard, especially that tackle in the first half down the flank when nobody was at home.
5 Coaches there last night, plus lots of travelling support,bit of a let down, my body language walking out at the end was like the team's after that first crucial score in the second half.
Need to do better.

As a neutral, I thought Fev thoroughly deserved the win and were far from boring. Their try from the cross-field kick was a particulary entertaining piece of play.

There's no doubt that Fax have some of the best players in this league but that doesn't make them the best team. Loads of talent but, at times, too many individuals. It must be brilliant to watch them at their best frustrating when it doesn't come off. The team would also fare better if players like Penky and Nash (great players IMO) concentrated more on the game and less on playing for cheap penalties and starting scraps. The same can be said for Sam Barlow (except for the great player bit!!).

At the end of the day the best team won. Nothing to do with decisions going against you, the slope on the pitch or any of the other excuses given by some of the more blinkered fans on this thread.

Still think you'll make it to the final, depending on which Barrow team turns up for the next couple of games.

Bit demoralised but still Thursday to go, remember the other year when Haven beat us 3 times but we beat them in the play-off, maybe history can repeat itself but against Fev.

Things I thought we did wrong were:

Short kick offs, in my opinion we should have kicked into the deep corners in the first half especially, pin them down their end, wait for a mistake, instead we did the short kick offs and put ourselves under immense pressure when there was no need to, 2nd half Fev kicked it deep into our own half all the time, even when it went dead it was a tap deep in our own half, surely its common sense.

Playing Bannister at centre, a centre he is not, yes I know we have injuries, as much as it pains me to say I'd have played Pats at centre and White on the wing, at least then the weak spot is on the wing and not in the centres where there is more action seen.

We did not hold them down in the tackle, why didnt we do this, we are allowed to, Fev did it and all I heard were people moaning from Fax about holding down, they weren't, they were doing what they were allowed to and using up all their allocated tackle time, we seemed to let go of the player as soon as he was heading for the ground in the tackle and they simply got a quick play the ball then and we were constantly on the backfoot due to this, at times it was like men against boys and touch and pass for them, even Bazza on Sky said our first offload didnt come until the 42nd minute I think.

Down but not out, one good thing is we can't play worse then that again surely, it was worse then I thought when I watched it on Sky.

One thing though Fev have some great kids in their team, that centre Zakbaker or whatever, great talent.

Zak Hardacre - and he played on the wing! Good lad!

Get it right part-timer

Centres were Liam Welham and Sam Smeaton, 2 excellent centres (Jesse Joe Who?)

A great night for us, thought we played well from minute 1-80 but we were very poor on the short kick offs a tactic that we always seem to be poor on

Im interested to know why people are encouraged by a defensive effort of conceding 18 second half points yet no one has mentioned the fact you got 0 points in the second half offensively, surely that is more of a concern?

Execution is my concern. We clearley carved out 4 or 5 chances in the first 20 minutes of the 2nd half and if a couple of those come off I think we may have had momentum in our favour. As soon as Fev scored I knew it was game over as it totally took the wind out of our sails. We looked out of it totally.

We by no means played well last night but given the injuries we are carrying its not a surprise. If we can respect the ball for 80 mins and defend as a unit we will see you in the GF.

After that 15 minute period in the 2nd half I knew it was not going to be our day, 4/5 chances if we had some luck or a bit more composure we could have taken better.

Our one on one defence needs sorting, Maloney and Ostick particular were falling off tackles from very early in the piece. Fev targeted that and came through with the rewards, some of the tries they scored were very preventable if we had showed some more endeavour in defence.

Our kick pressure was simply embarrasing. I can't recall any time where there was a Fax man within 3 yards of Finn, Kain or Briggs when they kicked the ball, that great try from the cross-field kick would never hav e happened if Finn had been pressured.

Our kicking game was poor as well. Branighan's poor kick in the first half where we lost 20m of ground changed the whole game. Instead of drilling it deep down the slope and keeping Fev in their own half, Fev played the ball 20m from our line and scored from the resulting set of six and then the very next one. Instead of being 6-6, we suddenly found ourselves 16-6 down.

Our backing up was dissappointing too. Its usually one of our strengths that when Penky, Black, Branighan and Holroyd run there is always at least a man on their shoulder looking to push on, that didn't happen, Fev's support was excellent.

There was no shortage of effort and desire though. Black tried his heart out at hooker, and was buzzing around trying to make things happen. Another night most of the chances we carved out in the second would have stuck. Royston was everywhere, Barlow and Wrench tried their hearts out. Aizue was simply awesome, Worrincy was our only outside back who came away with any positives. Holroyd played very well but Branighan was anonymous, his first poor game in a Fax shirt.

Simply put though Fev have been better than us every time they have played us. Simple yet effective SL-esque style rugby, built on a great defence. Fax need to take a leaf out of their book.

Best team won on the night. Fev were more professional, more clinical when it mattered and I bet their completion rate was much higher than ours which was around 50%. You won’t beat any team with that sort of completion rate. Again a lot of the battle was won around the ruck. Fev dominated speed of play, both in attack and defence. At times I do think they push the boundaries a bit and there always seems to be that third man joining the tackle late (sometimes very late), but they are clever with it and hey if you can do it right and not get pulled up for it, why not, it has certainly been effective.

For us we did make mistakes and lost our concentration at times, but it wasn’t a lack of effort. And who knows had we managed to turn that early 2nd half possession into points, it could have been a really close call.

But I think one of the major factors for Fevs success this year has been their relatively injury free campaign. Most of the other sides have suffered from injuries to key players, several being out at the same time over parts of the season (and for us at the wrong part of the season). In contrast, Fev have suffered very few problems. Not only do you have players keeping in good shape, but this means your team is settled, you don’t have to shuffle positions, and this brings consistency. But even then you still have to keep up that level of performance and well done to them because they certainly have done that. It’s a bit like when we finished 3rd in SL back in 98, when we had a fairly injury free season. Even though we didn’t have the best individuals, it ensured players were constantly match fit, were used to their positions and we played consistently well.

Anyway I hope we can turn it around again next week. Biggest fear is that with some players already playing when not fully fit, a few others came off carrying knocks last night and we haven’t many left to bring in!!

spot on with the injury excuse gizempo,it certainly prevented TO from reaching the playoffs - they had injuries to the players most difficult to replace it seems and with not enough quality back-up (probably the same story for the Catalan Dragons !)
Fevs' relatively injury-free season has been the big issue for me - they are a decent side and well organised by DP,but they are beatable as TO proved