Excellent first half, but poor discpline let Batley back in to the game and we were very, very lucky to get anything from today. We really our own worst enemies.

Durbin and Watson looked a handy partnership in the first 40, came only assume Durbin picked up an injury given his absence for most of the second half?

Also found it a little surprising to see both Rowley and Knox sat in the stand during the game - a little early in the piece to be giving Jukes full reign on the bench, walkie-talkie apart, surely?

radios are there for talking on, thats why coaches use them apart from actually going on the pitch how would you suggest messages are carried - carrier pigeon?

plus Jukesy has more coaching experience than the two of them (Knox and Rowley) put togeter.

Anyone any idea who the other bloke was in the stand with them?

Just of the opinion that at least one of our senior coaching staff should be on the bench, rather than somebody who was only just joined the club on his tod. Would make sense if Rowley and/or Knox were sat on the halfway line, but they were virtually on the try line so would have seen bugger all of the second half anyroad!

Agreed, very accurate report. However another referee incurs the wrath of the Leigh faithful.
Ian Mort goes clear in the 1st half but the the move gets halted due to crossing?
Brawl on half time clearly started by a Batley player, decision - blow the whistle to end play and take no action?
Knock on by Batley player followed by a Leigh player, decision - Batley feed?
Sin binning of Aaron Smith, please could somebody tell me what it was for?
Try by Armitstead, looked perfectly good but gets disallowed for offside?
Sin binning of Mort can't disagree with, but felt he had to do it.

Week in, week out we're getting hammered by these officials and i for one am of the opinion that Leigh should ask for an interpretation in regard to these decisions. The performance of the majority of officials in this division is inept to put it politely, and as such is seriously now becoming detremental to our enjoyment of Rugby League.
Myself and Mrs Optimist shamefully did berate the officials when they left the field at full time, wasn't helped by the 3 of them all wearing smug smiles. Mr and Mrs Optimist are pretty objective regarding officials, and we fully understand that it's not an easy job, but we are now of the opinion that the this current bunch are sub standard.
Having said all that, well done to Leigh.....Never was going to be easy, poor pitch, poor weather conditions, and an even poorer set of officials.

What WAS the penalty count today? We didn't seem get many especially in the 2nd half.

Agree about the ref as I mentioned on another thread.

Another decision in the second half seemed very odd to me.

Watson kicked the ball towards Batley,s posts. It hit the Batley fullback on the shin and bounced forward into a Batley player,s hands and ref gives play on. Remarkable in view of the fact ref saw it and waved play on.

Think the ref didn't think the full back touched it. Although from behind the sticks it looked blatantly obvious that it did, I can understand the referee's unwillingness to give offside (even accidental offside) on that occasion.

We seem to struggle with discipline and our second half performances. The discipline problem should be resolved by the coach, but is there a problem with our fitness level in the 2nd half of games?

Think it was as much a problem with ball retention than fitness today, especially with Batley gaining momentum with playing downhill. In fact, I reckon they should practice winning a coin toss a lot more often in training

think they may be trying too hard!

Exactly, the slope at Batley is always going to be a big deciding factor.
No disrespect to Batley, and believe me we really enjoy the time we spend here, great community club who actually do the best they can on limited resources, not unlike many other teams, ourselves included. But the pitch really is difficult to play on.
We stood at the side and surveyed the slope and came to the opinion that abseiling gear in the 1st half and climbing gear in the 2nd half would of been appropriate

The slope, the little supporters bar, the kids running round at the back, the lopsided ground, the 100 yard long queue for cheesy chips (no I didnt

), the little wooden scoreboard, changing ends at half time.......its what makes RL great and is long forgotten by those in SL who spout about all seater stadium, baby changing facilities, and corporate sponsors.

Give me Mount Pleasant over Murrayfield any day of the week.

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I,ll second that great club great atmosphere very nice people
and best of all Batley know how to treat the people that matter
the Supporters £2 for kids £12 adults cheap prices for good food
mmmmmmm many clubs throughout rl could learn from Batley
My favourite Club after LEIGH

And yet apparentley they had very few home fans there today

Good job none of the officials what happened as we took Mennel out late again which started it all. I counted it at least 3 times happening and after Smith's Binning you could see Mennel brac himself after kicking expecting to be taken out

I got there at 1-30pm and there seemed to be quite a few Batley folk knockin about.. They must lock them int coal cellar at kickoff

i think you're forgetting gateshead are in OUR league now

I counted 12-3 for Batley. Actually we got 2 in the second half! I'm doing a feature on penalty counts, in the programme v Widnes. I know mere numbers can be misleading, but the results are intruiging!

We are bottom of the fair play league....until we sort that out, we can't have any complaints about being treated unfairly when a brawl breaks out.

I like manydont mind being on the wrong end of a penalty count in which the rules are applied evenly, in many games I have watched they are not being applied evenly.
Rowley factor?

What concerns me is how many points we scored in the second half? Can't we even manage a drop goal?

2 probs there.

a, thats a fair owd hill to conquer [ not an excuse really but cant be good

b, drop goal did you not notice that even our kick offs were goin knowhere due to the bloomin wind against us.

thus attacking uphill whilst facing gusts is not ideal??

suprised that batley did not try 40/20 in the second half

That's as big an indicator as any to their confidence (or lack of it). Glad we learned from our mistake with kicking for touch anyroad, opting to take a tap in the second half after the previous attempt didn't make touch because of the wind.

Thought there were one or two occasions where we might have taken the option of a drop goal, but they were literally just those couple of occasions where we managed to get within their 20m line.

Batley could'nt even manage to score going uphill so it must have been hard going and when they kicked the ball up field it was'nt going anywhere so was ready for a come back in second half,if they can struggled going uphill on there own ground its obvious we were going to find it just as difficult dont you thnk.