Howarth threw an awful pass out of DH on the last when we were attacking, but I can't remember him getting in there much more than that. I thought Houghton was on the field until the end because when Sa made a break and we kept it alive it stopped at Houghton, and I think there were only 5 or 6 minutes left at that stage.

I'm a big fan, so watched him closely, did well IMO, ran well a couple of times and defended well. Needs more game time to prove he is ready.

9400 and something.

I think it was 9445 or something, tannoy was really poor in the North Stand so I may have mis-heard. Felt a lot less then last year so it surprised me a bit when announced.

Howarth came on with 5 to go, so I suppose it's hard to judge him, but looked slow with his passing and as you said gave out that awful pass.

which is exactly what both Salford and Saints fans said about him

Excellent 1st half against a rovers side that looked clueless,but what a difference in the 2nd half,talk about roles reversed.On the plus side mini looked a great signing,but thought sneyd and pryce looked an improvement on last season,but pryce is still a penalty machine and howarth was so slow he left a silver trail behind him.All in all after the promise of the 1st half abit disappointed,I know its only a friendly,but our 1st 13 had a warm up against york and rovers hadnt,still COYH.

It was no better in South. Couldn't even hear him when the teams were being announced.

The ref mad some strange decsions for both sides hope thats not going to be the norm Losing any Derby is not great but hope the fans take on board the positives and dont start all the negative stuff .Mini was terrific and Sa was not far behind.Pryce gave penalties but to be fair some were dubious I thought he and Sneyd have give us what we have missed.Cunningham did OK but lacks pace still say Rankin should do the job if not Abdull who was very lively when he came on.Poor result but far from down

A half of good intentions, would be my verdict.

Alarming how it was taken from us, the turning point started when Ellis left the pitch and went full 180 degrees when Houghton was replaced.

Really not a nomination for 'scapegoat', honestly, but Pryce was blowing a hell of a lot before half time, simply didn't look fit.

Mini, Sa, Paea, Feka, Sneyd, all looked encouraged and were encouraging, I thought.

Dissapointing to lose but hopefully lessons will be learned. The 17 that started is a good team and should give a lot of teams a run for its money.

Fair play to Rovers though who got on a roll and finished us off

Enjoyed the game despite the result . Both teams will take positives from it

First 40 kr couldn't get anywhere near us with their strongest squad, 2nd half total opposite. Had we kept full team out like kr would we had gone on to win? Probably, but this is what friendlies are for, experimenting plays and players.

Are you for real?
We also pretty much had our first team out barring injuries so don't use that excuse.
As good as we were first half Rovers were poor.
Second half when Rovers got a roll on our defence again let us down and we went back to type of 1 out rugby with little to offer in attack.
Pryce was blowing most game and that is why he probably gave away penalties due to fatigue.
For me we seemed to pick up this season where we left of the last.

Yes we had a strong team out first half prooves that. Second half changes took place and also different plays. The only concern I would have was talanoa on the wing. If price was blowing it probably because he hadn't played since last summer, friendlies are for getting fitter ando experimenting. Some great kicks from rovers that shouldve been better contested

Not sure being fit enough, but Pryce was heavily involved in all of our try's first half, his two passes for both Mini's try's were first class.

Pryce assisted 3 of 4 try's. Not a bad stat really.

Yep, conveniently ignored by some. However his penalties were definitely costly. As said before our discipline was our Achilles heel last week also. Annoying.

Changes took part on both sides. And as for plays they shouldn't change regardless of the playing staff as all systems are trained throughout every level.
We looked devoid of ideas 2nd half as highlighted when Houghton got caught in front of posts as he just gave himself up due to lack of options.
Talanoa kicks apart had a decent game. No individual was actually poor in themselves just collectively as a team we were dreadful 2nd half.
Again it just looked like a continuation of last season but will remain optimistic until the season starts and judge it then.

Changes took place I agree, but personel wise the interchanges
rovers made were stronger

If your basing our season on 40 minutes of rugby maybe we should give up


Hopefully next week we will see a full 80 minute game with less interchanges but I doubt we will

Are you saying Rovers had more strength in depth? As you know we had possibly our two starting props missing.

I didn't go today but my assessment of our squad is that we're weak at hooker and prop and our 3/4's are too slow. pryce and sneyd are a definite improvement on what we've had but not as good as the halfs at most of the other clubs we're likely to be fighting with for the 8.

9th or 10th IMO and the only doubt is when pearson will pull the trigger and sack radford

Looking at your sub bench didn't notice many u21st apart from your full back and Esselment? So probably did

I think it's understandable that you'd do well in the first half as Rovers probably wouldn't have been up to speed, due to the lack of game time and the fact some of our players haven't been training with the squad that long either. It's good to see that we hung in though.

Do we have to field under 21's on the bench?

Rovers used 19 players, we used 23. It's not good for continuity.

I think all it comes down to is that we were the physically dominant side, but Rovers had a bit more flair (mostly through Kelly) and took their chances better. On another day we would have won without really doing anything differently. Imo had we prevented Whelam's try we would have gone on to win by 20+, but that just seemed to spark Rovers up. They had a big 10 minutes which we couldn't respond to and they won. Sometimes you can play decent rugby and lose. It is what it is.

Of course in a game that matters we have to find a response when a team gets on a roll. But to simply say it's a continuation of last season is ignoring all of the very positive things we saw today.

I'll wait until I see a few proper games before I make a proper judgement. But I am genuinely enthused by a lot of what I saw today.