Quote ="SaintsFan"He also left his spot for the first try, leaving Shenton with too much ground to make up. But it was his debut so not to be too harsh on him.
Agreed. Tomkins should be at fullback next time out, regardless of how poor our halfback combo is without him (although it wasn't that much better with him!)
I agree. I also think Briscoe did very well. Roby in the second half was good too, though awful in the first.
Too many errors in the first half gave away copious amounts of possession and field position. Very poor defence from most players throughout. Graham was top dollar in defence and one or two others worked equally hard, but even Westwood, normally such a grafter in defence, decided to tickle the players rather than tackle them on too many occasions.
We looked very promising in the second half, which is unusual as that is normally when we collapse, but we need to (a) get rid of our errors - some of them are ridiculous; (b) defend because even when we had the numbers to cover we opted not to be bothered; (c) get a kicking game; (d) follow up - too many potential try-scoring offloads went unpassed because players were asleep, and (e) keep up 100% effort for the full 80 minutes. We can't do anything about the halfbacks so we have to make the best of what we have. But if we play as we played for about 15 minutes in the second half then we should have a fighting chance against the Aussies. After all, we did beat the Kiwis in the second half. We are capable, even with second/third choice halfbacks. But we have to remember we're in an international, not a friendly, and everyone has to put on their best performance rather than just a few.'"
Goulding didn't leave his spot, he had made the previous tackle (which probably saved a try at that point) and was stood at marker for the play the ball
