Great night. Lino showing that, when he’s fired up and confident, he’s still one of the best running halves in the country. And he did a right job on Appo, who gave halfbacks nightmares all last season. Good prep from the coaches. Helps having Griffin outside him, who’s easily a super league-quality player. Atoni, Bowden and Pitts all dominant, and Olpherts did exactly what he’s been brought in to do - play like McGilvary. And loved Hood’s little battle with Hallas.

On the other side, I was quite surprised by how easily Bradford gave away yards, and I don’t know how bookies and pundits are predicting they’ll finish top 3. Not much depth and their goal line defence was appalling.

We should really benefit from a week off, rest any niggles and go to Featherstone with a point to prove.

Good performance last night for a round 1 fixture. It wasn't perfect but definitely something to build on.

Lino was the best player on the field last night, showed that behind a pack that gets on top and gets quick PTB's he's got space to run the game. He had a hand in everything good last night. Griffin back to 2nd row showed extra quality we don't get from him in the centre. Jowitt was also proving that, for me, he's the best full back in the league barring his small lapse in discipline.

Olpherts had a decent enough game and provided yardage we missed against Fev, but his defence did worry me a little bit. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt for now considering he's not played in a long time.

Overall, it's a good start, up the Trin!

What a good night and great to be back on the western terrace with a lot of old friends there who I'd not seen for years. Performance wise I think there's lots more to come, we didn't seem to have the flow and crispness at times but I'm sure the team will improve when the grounds dry out. Massive effort from the club the fans and players, we now have hope

I'm not really sure why Jowitt kicked off.
On the highlights I can't really see that the Bradford player does anything wrong.

Anyone have a better view from North Stand lower section?

What's the new Western Wall like up close?
It looked great from the opposite side but I wondered if some disgruntled away fan could pull it all down or even set fire to it?

to be honest it was too packed to get a decent look at it.

Oops Haha looks like they do now!

Souter unnecessary slid in when Jowitt scored. Jowitt might've thought that it was his knees. McGowen escalated it by running and and was lucky not to go as well

Looking at the video Jowitt half heartedly threw the ball towards Souter but It didn’t even hit Souter. L

Sin bin a bit harsh on both counts but McGowan was the one who kicked it off running in from some distance.

Not sure what Jowitt was binned for tbh.

Can’t see anything coming from that. Barely counts as handbags.

He'll have been sent for starting it. The handbags wouldn't have started without his action.
Needs to be better than that but I can't see any follow up issues at RFL.

I think Max is probably getting peed off with being targeted with head shots and late hits during most games this year.

But if the ball didn’t hit the player what did Jowitt get sent for?. He threw the ball half heartedly on the floor and it looked like McGowan thought it had hit his team mate and ran in looking for a fight.

Don’t suppose it matters much now though.

It does if Max gets a ban - stranger things happen.

Yellow card = matter closed, I believe??

They review it completely independently so they could upgrade it to a ban, but as you said before, I honestly can't see it. The yellow was stretching it a bit.

Well the bookies are probably taking a longer view rather than focusing on one match where Bradford had a lot of players missing. They will improve on last night's performance.

And to some others, if you think Bradford are 'niggly' and try to slow the game down.. you've seen nothing yet. And you'll see alot poorer refs than Marcus Griffiths in the Championship. Cannot blame those sides, its a mostly part time league working on a fraction of the budgets Wakefield have. I'm sure it'll be a more competitive match in the return leg at Odsal.

Yeah maybe wakefield will have some players vack too

Hopefully so, I think we all want to see the best players on the pitch.

I'm not really up on the Bradford team.
Who was missing?
Are they likely to be back for the 1895?

Of the players likely to be in our 17:

Blackmore, Arundel, Baldwinson, Scurr, Doro, Johnson and Davies. I think the club still have to solve the gap left by the long term absence of Tom Holmes after his devastating health news. We have a couple of new signings from Oz waiting for clearance in Ott and Fulton which should help in the coming weeks.

No excuse having players missing ,we had that problem for years .Think we should give Wakefield credit for the way they played ,and remember there is a lot of new players getting to no each other.so as the season goes on we should get better What ever we do we always get negativity.Read a post on this forum making a big thing about there were empty seats in the East stand so they could not be a crowd of 7,200 Knock of a thousand and it is still 2,000 give and take above what we have had for years in S L .6, 200 plus was some thing the last board could only dream of

Hmm. I'd forgotten about some of those.

I don’t know about the injury situations at the other championship clubs other than at Trinity and now the Bulls.

The soft surfaces at some grounds and rubbish weather at this time of year will certainly have contributed to teams having injuries…. Some worse than others….. however the amount of cup fixtures jammed into the start of the season before league games has also contributed to the list.
The 1895 cup needs to be put back to a straight knockout cup, and spread out a little more evenly to avoid teams starting round 1 will long injury lists…

I agree, 8 games before a ball is kicked in the season is too much. Though I think there may have been a friendly or two in that.

Seems a few championship clubs have picked up some injuries.

Either that or the cup games start even earlier and have 2/3 weeks between them.