Tansey is our go-to player regardless of shirt number when Long's not there. He's our best organiser and has a great dogged attitude. May as well get him as involved as possible. Before today I was against shifting players round but we've got nothing in the halves without Long at all and Tansey is the best alternative IMO.

Indeed.

What happened to Fittzy thought he was a leader?

But not a half back oddly enough

Another very good game from Fitz. He can shoulder the burden of sorting the forwards out pretty well, but it's harsh to expect him to play scrum half as well as putting in 40 odd tackles a game.

I agree he aint a half back but he was the captain today and should have maybe took charge and called a few plays.

Sorry MRS B i didnt mean it to sound harsh, just a bit dissapointed.

How about he did but the other 16 muppets didnt take the lead as well????

Sorry MRS B i didnt mean it to sound harsh, just a bit dissapointed.

Amen to that. Anyone suggesting Fitz failed to play a leadership role today are bonkers. There were at least 3 rounds of the Super Fitz chant in the first half alone after great individual efforts by him. Let's see the stats to see whether or not he led by example.

Whiting to FB, Turner to centre, Washy and Tansey in the halves and Horne dropped.

Spot on Mrs B.

Wasn't there today but both halfs sounded totally anonymous. Hardly heard their names mentioned. Tansey has that spark we need.

In the post match interview, Agar said Long was "probably doubtful" for Friday - whatever the hell that means.

The clown on Blunderside said Fitz had a pretty poor game in his after match commentary.

Washy didn't exactly pull up any trees either.

Agar has known about Longs injury all week. Shocking that we didnt have any creativity at all. 5 drives and a kick tripe!!

Yeaman and Horne should both be dropped next week IMO, Whiting had a mare admittedly but he at least played well in the previous 2 matches. Calderwood back on the wing, Hall to left Centre, Turner or Whiting to play 6/3 whichever way round. Still not sure about 7, Tansey is probably the best suited but I like him at FB. Only other real option is Berro to 7 but it hasn't worked for 2 years so why would it now.
As for the forwards, Moa in for Radford and Tickle back for Burnett.

*runs screaming from the building*

It didnt work for 2 years because when he was asked to play there he was also trying to play hooker at the same time because we have been so poor for 2 years

Today shouldve been: horne at 6 with berro at 7, houghton at 9 with washy on the bench to give houghton a breather, turner shouldve been in at centre at least

Why did Hall go swanning over to the left hand side twice in he past 5 minutes? he left Whiting, no disrepect here, on his own having to play both centre and wing and expected to score on both occasions he had the ball by having to go round the welsh left wing partnership as he had no one to pass to. If Hall was to take the ball off Whiting there he wouldve gone in for 2 tries.

Moving Berrigan to the halves weakens the hooking position as well. Berrigan is the only one who provides any direction from dummy half. Other than scooting I'm not sure what Houghton offers tbh.

I agree with that last paragraph , asked me mate where Hall had gone thought he'd been subbed .

To be fair to Hall, he ended up on the wrong side of the pitch after desperately attempting to produce something from deep in our own half. The better of our two wingers today IMO. In fact Whiting and Hall were the better partnership for most of the game. Very disappointed with Yeaman and Briscoe in defence - neither one of them has a clue how to handle a high kick under pressure.

Thought we really missed Tickle today - his workrate and the lines he runs.

Ridiculously underrated by many of our fans, easily our best/most consistant second row forward.

Hall played well today, agreed. As you say tried to conjure something from nothing, a long shot, bet we clearly were having no joy from more conventional clueless bashing away at the line type options.