Its hard for a player like him because there was a lack of support today, no one running on to balls for him or making spaces for him to exploit

I know he prefers second receiver but I think we need him to play at first to speed up the distribution which is how we played and beat the 2 GF teams

Worrincy did well running some good angles when he came on, we need other players to run as intelligently then we'd give the halfs more options.

Simply shipping the ball down the line is pants and far to easy to defend against.

Sorry, yes your right and he did some good work in defence

What a shame, because of a train booking mishap, I missed the game. What a shame!

I'd have applauded the Celtic players anyway, well done to them. Just seems like a season of false dawns and giant disappointments... roll on 2010!

Most teams will spend hours working on how to target the opposition's half baccks in defence. We handed them it on a plate - whose idea was it to land every single kick off on the prop directy in front of Deacon allowing an unrivalled opportunity for one of their biggest players a 20m sprint directly into our smallest. He looked like he'd been knocked out twice but we persevered with it regardless...

What else do you expect from the legend?

Yes, that was a very obvious failing on our part. It was clear from the off that they were targetting Deacs with and without the ball but we didn't respond to it and by the second half Deacs looked punch drunk to me. Their game plan seemed to be do the simple things correctly, run hard, tackle hard, take no risks in your own half, win the kicking game and stop Deacon... and it worked to a treat, the best team won.

Shouldn't that have been our game plan too.

It may well have been but they stopped whatever our game plan was.

You would have thought that was on the agenda during training this week at some stage wouldn't you!

So the question is why has that all too often, like today, not been put onto the pitch? Rugby League is not a tricky game really if you do the basics, Celtic proved that today and proved it well.

No they didn't we didn't have a structured game plan from the first minute. All we do is feed it up and down the line and hope someone makes a tackle bust.

Thats a perfectly legitimate question which needs serious considering by the powers that be at the club.

It's basic coaching to target the weakest link.

A lot of good insight above I think. When everything goes thro' Deacon at first receiver we don't look anywhere near as threatening, Jefferies defers and isn't as effective, much prefer him to be in the key position. Deacon's also been targeted throughout the season and it looks as though the cumulative effect is starting to tell and it's becoming an obvious part of the opposition gameplan. Jefferies/Sykes was far more difficult to read.

Otherwise our forwards were not at the races, Lynch and Burgess put in reasonable stints, but Scruton and Koppy were both ineffective, although neither were given much opportunity because of slow distribution from dummy half. Halley wasn't at his best either, and as red points out was out of position twice at crucial moments. I think Platt would have been the better choice today at FB (he's till getting grief without just cause in my book), although hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I expect the gameplan was - wet weather, conservative approach, knock out the sets, play the percentages and grind them down, get field position then run a couple of set moves and bob's your uncle. Once Celtic scored and their forwards were holding their own we looked bereft of ideas. Second half we should have upped the intensity, but we still played like we assumed we'd get back into it, ithout anyone knuckling down and maintaining concentration or discipline long enough for us to make that happen. Some should tell the players that if you catch the ball from a kick-off with your foot planted over the line, it's better than catching it on tippy toes a foot in front of the line and then stepping backwards!

Ah well, onwards and sidewards...

Hmm. Went to bed with it at 4-nil, thinking 'Well, we were losing to Salford at one point before putting 96 on them'. That said, not really that surprised to see the eventual scoreline. And definitely not surprised to see RAB suddenly abuzz with activity.



I take some small consolation in the cluelessness of our guest from Huddersfield who doesn't seem to have noticed that his side mustered all of four points at home to Salford, and that my Haligonian pal that is crashing on my utilty room floor will not be able to gloat too hard as the result means the death of his flatcapper dream, a winless first season for the Crusaders. But I imagine that is little in the face of watching what sounds like a pretty abject performance in the rain with 7,000 other (last two wins not bringing them back you will note).

Where from here? Tough to say. The previously mentioned Huddersfield result provides a little context, as does the season - thirteen games, nine settled by a single score. Win all those and we'd be top or near as damnit. Lose them all and we're just shy of rock bottom. As it is we're somewhere in the middle, though sadly nearer the latter.

Meh. On my way to work. First kid that mentions the scoreline's on litter duty.

Why does it. Also any way you look at it it's 9 points from a possible 26 and that's just not good enough.

What does 'not good enough' mean? Seriously?

It means that a team that on paper that is should be good enough to be in the top 4 shouldn't be sat 11th in the league after half a season.

It means, 7 pages later, red is finally agreeing with my OP and quoting my words of wisdom.

What do you think it means?

Outside the playoffs by several points. What do you think it means?

I honestly can't recall seeing a back 3 (Platt played most of the game at wing) run sideways so much. I don't think it would have made much difference who was where.

That said, I think that Burgess, Lynch and to a lesser extent Sykes (if for his massive tackles alone) are the only ones who deserve credit today. Oh, and Worrincy who looked head and shoulders above the likes of Langley and Cook in terms of effort, enthusiasm, strong running and the lines that he kept trying to produce off a flat, slow attack.

why did we wait so long to bring worrincy on? every time he touched ball he was dangerous yet we waited till latter stages of game to introduce him. We've got to revert to sykes/jeffries pairing next week assuming nero is fit. deacon brought absolutely nothing to the game except short penalty kicks and poor passes. we look much better with jeffries at halfback and sykes doing all the kicking.

At the start of the season Worrincy didnt look much more than a squad player, it wasnt really surprising that he didnt get much game time. Over the last few weeks though he's looked like our most dangerous attacking option, along with Menzies. I dont understand why he isnt being utilised more.

Hopefully the conditioning staff are going through the dietary supplements to discover the rogue batch of valium that somehow got mixed up with the multivitamins.

It is a phrase that is used a lot but I just wonder where does it get us. I mean, take 2003. Clearly no one would say that things 'weren't good enough' that year in retrospect (plenty said so at various points through the year). But despite it being 'good enough', would you expect the coaching and playing staff to work any less hard. And so flip it around, what does 'not good enough' mean? Not much on its own. It needs to be coupled with '...and what needs to be done is... <insert>'. What is it that should be done?