After all the (mostly justified) criticism of our defence this season I thought today it was fantastic. It HAD to be fantastic as our attack was absolutely appalling and our discipline was worse but I will leave that for now. For 50 minutes the match was played almost entirely in our half. The weight of territory and possession against us was massive and yet we never let them pull away and I always felt once we finally got a bit of ball we would come back strong.

We defended countless sets and repeat sets on our line and their only tries came off a ricocheted short kick which could have gone anywhere and one defensive lapse on the back of 2 penalties. The freakish try at the end when we made a balls up of the kick off was comical and very sloppy but the game was wrapped up by then so can laugh about it now.

The less said about our attack today the better. It was back to the Middle 8's type performances. Passes went to ground, to knees, over heads, forward passes, intercepted passes, terrible offloads! On the odd occasion a pass did find somebodies hands they dropped it anyway! Absolutely appalling for an hour when all we needed to do was roll up the middle to make decent yards.

Penalties were shocking and can't even blame the ref this week. Sloppy lazy pens late on in the tackle count. We piggy backed Fax up the field time after time and a better attacking side would have been out of sight by the time we woke up. Great defensive effort though.

When we finally did get a set on Fax's line we seemed to score straight away almost every time. Nothing special needed. Crash balls for Reni and Hock, simple step from Smith and a trademark Higham scoot from a yard out. So simple and yet it seemed to take us an hour to figure it out and cut out the constant errors.

Attack 4/10 (1st half 2/10)
Defence 8/10
Discipline 3/10

Performance was nowhere near good enough and yet we (eventually) walked out with a reasonably comfortable win. One point off top even with all our injuries, loss of the coach, loss of poster boy Brierley and all the other issues. With Batley, London, Sheffield, Bradford and Fax out of the way early on we don't look in bad shape at all.

Season is going well and we haven't played anything like 100% so far this season. There is clearly so much more to come from this team. Today we played like we had never met before for an hour but as soon as we started completing sets we rolled down the pitch with ease and racked up points quickly.

Frustrating performance, but made for a very exciting game!

Feeling very positive tonight, the worst is surely over and the best is still to come!!

Id probably point more to our misfiring attack rather than great defence. The way we finished last season If we had played anything like that it would have been another comfortable win as I would assume that was up there with your worst performance of the season. This season we are a long way off that standard that we set ourselves last year and we are struggling to make the top 4. Now I wouldnt normally be too worried but Sheffield, Batley, and London we really nothing special so it does not say a lot about us.

Admittedly I have not seen Bradford play yet but the Championship as a whole looks even more unlikely to provide anyone with promotion to SL than ever before.

Think our 6th different half back partnership had something to do with it.....but not everything.

Hahahaha we ate going to be hearing about that famous last season of your for the next couple of years i can sense it. News flash mate. Its a new season

We aint got going yet either is his point and today for 60 minutes we had the edge just but our lack of that knock out blow in these tight games is biting us in the backside as a two score advantage means teams have to chase the game, we never got it again today so once you scored you were right back in it.
Not looking good for us at the minute but we came good last year so who knows?
Like many from what we have seen so far (only Fev and Bradford of the top 6 to play yet) I don't think a Championship club will beat a SL club to get up this season sadly, hope I am wrong.

Erm.....thats why I mentioned this season in my post.

Think part of our problem today wasn't so much with us but with how strong Fax's defense was. Compare how we tackled with one man trying to make the tackle with his fingertips and a 2nd tackler only coming in to wrap him up,the Fax player being able to get up quick & speed the game up. Compared to how Fax tackled, 4 men in every time forcing us on our backs, slowing it right down, winning & dominating the ruck. We made a lot of silly mistakes today but some of that might have come from how Fax stopped us playing like we normally do. I do think if we tackled like Fax did today we'd be unstoppable with the forwards we have, instead we seem to be using our forward's excellent skill to put one less man in the tackle which doesn't seem to be helping us. I thought & still think Jukes was the right man for the job & think he'll only get better but we did come up against a better coach today who knew how to set up his team against us. An excellent win. Considering everything a fantastic start to the season. I can't wait to see this team fully fit.

The bookies saw it coming.

Im not sure what you mean, by the time we played our last friendly against Widnes they had us as 3rd favs. Even before yesterday they still had the impression we would finish 4th.



The ones they look as though they got very wrong were Batley and Leigh. Batley were never such big outsiders considering their signings and although Leigh should have been that short, once it all started to fall apart though they do not look anywhere as near dominant as they should be.

Quote ="Greg Florimos Boots"Im not sure what you mean, by the time we played our last friendly against Widnes they had us as 3rd favs. Even before yesterday they still had the impression we would finish 4th. [uThe ones they look as though they got very wrong were Batley and Leigh.[/u Batley were never such big outsiders considering their signings and although Leigh should have been that short, once it all started to fall apart though they do not look anywhere as near dominant as they should be.'" Batley yes, Leigh no. Despite our adversity/Injuries so far this season,we are still odds on. www.oddschecker.com/rugby-league/championship

Quote ="Greg Florimos Boots"Im not sure what you mean, by the time we played our last friendly against Widnes they had us as 3rd favs. Even before yesterday they still had the impression we would finish 4th. [uThe ones they look as though they got very wrong were Batley and Leigh.[/u Batley were never such big outsiders considering their signings and although Leigh should have been that short, once it all started to fall apart though they do not look anywhere as near dominant as they should be.'" Batley yes, Leigh no. Despite our adversity/Injuries so far this season,we are still odds on. www.oddschecker.com/rugby-league/championship

No club in RL should have those pre season odds, silly at best.

Im not sure, with the team Leigh had assembled they really should have walked the league but its unlikely it is going to happen now with what has gone on. I think if you had Rowley in charge and a full team you would have still walked it. Bradford for me certainly do not look better than last season and there would have been no one else to challenge.

Lets wait till we do have a full team out

IMO we are better off with a change of coach but in this sport injuries are a given and we had been very lucky for 2 years so were due a run, the avalanche was a bit much though.

We had a fare share in the middle 8s.

That was more wear and tear rather than injuries, some of them played too often.

Every club was in the same boat as us, with 'injuries' in the Qualifiers. Unfortunately, just about everyone handled it better than us. At least we've seen some rotation so far this season. Alright, it's been ridiculous in the backs, but the forwards have been rotated pretty well so far. (except Higham, that is!)

Good to see you`re still chatting bubbles.What makes you think Rowls would`ve made any difference with the amount of injuries involved.He`d have gone for the miracle 6 pt play in yesterdays game with a minute left,fortunately our game management has changed and we went for the 2 to close out the game.