A little bit of a reality check today. Cas were comfortably the better team and it has shown us that we have a good few areas to work on in the next fortnight. No need to panic, friendlies often churn up some strange results but it certainly stops a few that were getting carried away with our chances this season and will remind the players that it will be a battle royal this season.

Don't take long does it . I bet certain people couldn't wait for a loss. Still that's what you expect on the Wake board.

What is clear is that there is some work to be done over the next 2 weeks to try and close the gap with other Super League teams...from today's result we still seem a distance away.

Having not gone today what let us down.

Wakey will be a better team than they were today 4-5 weeks down the line from now, when they get a bit more cohesion. Cas are a settled side and it shows, Wakey have a lot of new faces that still need to "bed in" and that isn't an instant process.

If there's anything you should be "concerned" with it'd be conditioning, Cas looked bigger & fitter for the duration...fitness is going to be a big part of it early on with heavier pitches.

Just remember it was only a friendly though, no points gained or lost from it.

Not managed to get to any of the friendlies due to work commitments (and being a tight git !!), but didn't someone post that we were looking a lot fitter and stronger than last year ???
Clearly not fit and strong enough yet !!

My biggest concern today was that we weren't making inroads in the forwards. We know our back line has some way to go, but we have consoled ourselves that the forwards will carry us through, and today they made hard work of it.

Finn was awful today, just not his day.
Johnson is a great prospect, but his positioning today wasn't good and he wasn't helped enough from inside.
BJB - still waiting for him to show up. Not the best conditions for him, but he needs to learn to follow the big guys to find opportunities.

Positives:
40:20 from Howarth
England's passing
Ashurst looking dangerous at times.

Otherwise, beaten by a side who were sharper, fitter, faster, more skilful and heading towards the top of the table.

A chastening experience today - hopefully we can use it to spur us on in 2 weeks time!

Friendly games are important, as a muscle flexing exercise just to see how you are fairing and shaping up for the new season. I am not in the least concerned with todays result because it means nothing towards our future status. We should sit back, look at the performance and improve. BS would have like a win of course but I am sure he won't be panicking about it.

I'm sure he won't be panicking, but we have to take the lessons we can learn from it, starting with recognising our failings in today's performance. Brian is smart enough to be able to do that and use it to our advantage.

Could not attend today, but my son went, he is a pretty good, level headed judge. His opinion was that firstly Cas are a very good side, we could not handle their speed of play, we obviously lack ability but we stuck at it. One of the purposes of a pre season friendly is to learn things, we should learn that we cannot have Scruton, Howarth and England on the pitch at the same time : as a group they are just to slow, bringing Sio and Arona on gave us some pace to respond. Johnson will have better games, 5 tries down his side mean that he and Gibson need to improve or be changed. We lack creativity, Finn and Miller are not going to create much, somehow we need BJB to be more involved and dare I say it we need to find a place for Hall.

When will the doom and gloom idiot brigade ever learn - friendlies mean nothing.

Cas would want to win today to make a point - doesn't mean a repeat will happen when it's a real game.

I've said it before Idrather lose friendlies because winning them gives a false impreission.

As some of the brighter posters have pointed out, we beat Leeds does that mean we are better than them - give it a rest.

I really hate friendlies they bring the absolute worst out of this forum, Wilzay and co save your moaning I'm sure you'll get your chance when the season starts. And if we win there is always that stone to crawl back under.

THE ONLY WIN AGAINST CAS THAT COUNTS IS WHEN WE PLAY THEM FOR REAL AND THAT'S THE ONLY TIME THEY NEED "FIRE IN THEIR BELLIES" THEY COULD HAVE BEATEN US A HUNDRED NIL TODAY SO FECKING WHAT.

Up the Trin.

I'm surprised at you, you gleemed all that from a friendly - can't say I agree.

We were poor today, pretty much from start to finish, apart from the opening couple of sets, and the period either side of half time.

Overall, I think the forwards muscled up pretty well, we may have made a few more metres, had the cas side not been persistently offside, which went away unpunished.

What does concern me is was our defence out wide. Especially on Johnstone's wing. You cant blame the youngster for all of this, but nothing has changed. Out of the backs I thought Gibson and Lyne tried hard.

Personally, I would make changes for Widnes from this, but mainly in the backs. I would even bring Jowitt or Tansey to full back with BJB back on the wing. I would even give Walton a go, after his game against Fev.

I also thought both half backs today were well below par

An overlap or overload on the edges means that the markers and A B defenders haven't done their job properly it doesn't necessarily mean the wingers been caught out of position.

I'm going to have to be the one that says it but I'm not sure Johnston is ready yet.
He was poor against Fev, dropping a lot of ball and like it or not Solomona dominated today.

Personally I'd play Walton and move either Gibson or Tupou to the wing.
For now.

https://audioboom.com/boos/4099621-bria ... castleford Think the most telling point from this analysis is that Cas have just come back from warm weather camp and Wakey have been flogging the players. it showed.

https://audioboom.com/boos/4099621-bria ... castleford Think the most telling point from this analysis is that Cas have just come back from warm weather camp and Wakey have been flogging the players. it showed.

Don't agree at all - that's the way to destroy a player. If these were real games maybe, but to do it to him because of a few friendles shows zero faith - might as well give him to Cas now and save the bother.

I don't know whether you see it as a positive or a negative but you're right.

It's one thing getting off a plane from walmer climes and playing an exibition match in front of your own crowd. We'll see how it pans out in a few weeks time as to who's really got it right.

I've already said it but these games mean nothing - the SL games are the ones that do and that's always a different ball game - all teams only have so many wins in them so don't waste them on these games.

Been a supporter for many. many years, but never bothered with pre-season friendlies and never will. They're just bulled-up, meaningless training sessions with over inflated admission charges. Results such as the Leigh v Wigan game bear this out

I wondered this morning if we got beaten how long it would be before some so called fans would be on here to have a moan .im not sure some of them actually follow trinity!
It's gong to take time for the team to start gelling,and we certainly will not iron out any problem areas by the time we have completed our friendlies.iam pretty certain also that brian smith will have also pinpointed our problem areas from today and will act accordingly?so to all the idiot brigade ...you need to brace yourselves because there will be some more losses to come, before we start getting things right . It was never going to happen over night.
Cas looked good, and it looks like Mr powell wants his settled team off to a better start than last years 0 : 3...we played a good team today and can't expect to be doing the things they are ,from the off!
Your right about friendlies vastman. Win em all and were world beaters... Loose em all and were crap. There is just no pleasing some people..
Let's see how the season unfolds first!
UP UP TRINITY...

Got that right mate... Wigan never seem to win their friendlies !!

What's the difference between dropping a player because of poor performances in a game and dropping a player because of poor performances in training?
It's nothing to do with destroying a player it's about having the right players on the pitch on game day. He's still young, he will improve but the way to destroy him is to leave him in the team when he's not at the right level (defensively)

Feel free. I was disappointed today, but not despondent! We showed frailties, but that's the point isn't it, to find them in order to work on them. I wasn't bothered that we lost at all, but we were well beaten in the second half and you have to credit Cas for some pretty decent play that we could not manage ourselves.

We will probably get more benefit from today's game than Cas will, provided the information is used correctly, and of that is here is little doubt!

Still looking up, but today was challenging.

Once again, 98% of tries scored on the edges have their Genesis at the play the ball, defences work from the middle OUT, if you get a lazy marker who doesn't push out onto the A defender then the A cannot push out onto B and so on. What happens then is the attacking team gain an extra player (or two) on the outside which means the outside defenders have to jam in, in an attempt to shut the play down but that's exactly what the attacking team want as it means they go out the back and create the overlap.

If the outside defenders don't step in then the attacking team hit the lead runner who goes between the inside defender who's turned in or been static and the outside defender who's stayed out on his opposite number.

In both cases the problem starts because of lazy inside defenders!

Being caught in no mans land out on the wing is not necessarily the wingers fault but a systemic breakdown which requires lots if coaching in order to fix it!

Those writing Tom Johnstone off because Solomona got a bag full of tries need to learn how the game is played!

Spot on. The thing we need to fix up most is in the middle of the park - this is where our 'strength' is, but we were beaten there today and hence beaten out wide. We contained Leeds and hence gave ourselves a chance to win that game.