Just got back from Wrexham, and the game has certainly given me some food for thought.

First of all, I'd like to give a big congratulations to Crusaders, they played very well and fully deserved the win. Alot of sides will get done over down there this season and imo they won't be anywhere near the wooden spoon. Also I'd like to say it's a decent set up down there and I hope they kick on and make a success of it.

Now to our performance. Simply put, we were like a ship without a rudder. Defence, fine, go forward, not a problem, kicking game, pretty good, attacking options, none existant. Tansey was the only one who looked a threat when he had the ball, Washbrook is not a scrum half, and as much as I hate to say it, I think Rich Horne's best days have been and gone. We were actually pretty good in our approach work, we made a few breaks and the pack took us into their half again and again, but when we got there we didn't know what to do and were reliant on a piece of individual brilliance or a forward crashing over. There is no doubt in my mind that if Long and played we would have won, probably quite comfortably too. Lauaki is becoming a bit of a worry. He does some brilliant things and then comes up with some ill disclipline and undoes it all. I'm not saying he cost us the game today but his penalties were certainly a factor imo.

That said I'm not too worried, just like people were wrong to get carried away after two games it would be silly to get too disheartened by this game. The effort was there, this was evident from our goal line defence in the first half, we just seemed to lack the final pass. Games like this crop up every now and again, I look back to games like London at home in our first game at the KC, and Leigh away when we scraped a draw. We would be foolish to think we could be at the top of our game every week, every team will get results like this some time or other. As I've said earlier people are not giving enough credit to a Crusaders team who look pretty good this year.

The proof of how far we have come will not be in the fact we lost today, but in how we bounce back next week. Tbh I don't have a clue whether Long will be fit or not, but either way, if we play well next week this will be put down as a blip and we will be able to get on with the season, if however we put in another display like this one I will start to get a little worried by it.

good post

Good level headed post.

how did fitz and o'meley go? didnt gather much info from the radio, and was Horne as bad as some on here are implying? Washy sounded dire on radio, but you never get the same insight of the radio as someone whao had been to the game!

Fitzgibbon was Hulls best player by a mile, then O'Meley, then Tansey. Horne was worse than Washbrook but Washbrooks performance was still not good enough.

O'Meley was the pick of the props imo and Fitz put in another commited display. Horne and Washy both tried hard but it just seemed like every time they got the ball the momentum stopped. Some credit has to go to the Crusaders defence for rushing out and cutting off the wide runners but they just seemed to take far too long to get their passes away and ended up just holding it and cutting back inside.

cheers, bring on the quins

mmm maybe not lol

At last, someone who is speaking sense.
Some of the over-reaction on here has been unbelievable.

As has some of the over hype bollox

Good post.

We win a game and people talk of MOS awards etc. We lose a game and it's Agar out etc etc.

It's really quite tedious on here so well done for being more balanced.

Good post ZH.

Defensively we never controlled them and they will us with second phase possession from offloads. They had all the territory in the 1st half and to go in at 12-12 was quite good. 2nd half was better but we failed to produce with the ball in hand.

I blame attitude more than anythign else, like most of the fans I think the players turned up expecting to win and you can't do that in SL anymore.

Tansey must play 7 whilst Long is out, he was head and shoulders our best player today. Even if it means changing 4/5 other players it has to be done. Also Hall needs to play centre, he showed today how elusive he can be with ball in hand.

The other thing is it's easy to blame Horne and Washy but there were so many times when they tried to take on the line with no support that it was untrue. It was one out most of the time. The other thing I noticed again with our attack is the lack of width and wrong focus. When the dummy half passes the ball the next player is too close. The next player should be a bit wider and then next player wider still and then have the runners off that man which means the attack is focused on fringe defenders. By the time we get the ball out that wide it's gone through 3/4 pairs of hands and is way too slow. This results in us attacking the wrong defenders and the halfbacks having less time and space. I don't know why we don't do it???

Still it's one game, just like Saints was so lets see how the Quins game goes.

I guess it could have been far worse, had Agar not played mind games about Long.

Great post

Good post.

I was pretty cross listening on KCFM yesterday (and that was just DDD), but you put a decent spin on it. Roll on Friday!

All good points. I think we've had enough of the wrong attitude for 2 years now and it's time the coach stopped putting teams out with anything other than the right attitude. He might think about dropping certain 'names' and replacing them with hungrier fringe players to achieve that.

Great post, good to see both positives and negatives and not the extremes, which is too common on here.

And I agree Staffs, I think he said in his post-match interview that there will be a couple of changes, will be interesting to see what he does. About Luauki, he does need to control his temper and stop mouthing off. He did it against Hudds, and did again yesterday, from what I've heard on numerous occasions. We do need to take his rough with the smooth, but only as long as there is more smooth then rough!

I hope he does, I fear he doesn't have the guts though.

I fear this too. We need to try our fringe players out, the earlier the better. What better chance then at home when our some of out starting 17 are in bad form/injured.

in hindsight he should have tried sone of them yesterday, seems ome more "senior" players were a bit complacent.

Although be fair to Crusaders, they appear to have played well too.

Oh hindsight eh! But I agree, sounds like Crusaders played really well.

You can analise this until the cows come home. It's only one game. Crusaders will upset a lot of teams this season.

Funny that they did a number on Dull FC, though!

I'd stick to worrying about Melbourne if I were you, oh and Wakey, oh and Cas

Let us see how Dull you look in the WCC

Not as funny as what Wakey and Cas did to you was, however.

Looking forward to the WCC are you?