So how good was that win? Was the defence a major improvement and who were the stand out players? I ask as i cant go at the minute, Great result im assuming it was a great team effort, Now we need to back it up next week against Broncos!

Fabulous game. Could've gone either way til late on. Not error free but a massive improvement, defended really well apart from Ratchfords soft try, go forward very good, Travis added some bite in the middle & what a debut from Alex Brown...don't think we'll see Caro back quickly.

Really was a great game. Score maybe flattered us in the end but we did dominate the second half and nilled Wire in the second half. Great to see the commitment from the boys for the whole 80mins. Brown impressed me and especially after his performance against FC in the friendly.
Well done to the lads! Hope they back up against London now and get on a roll

I was very unsure of Brown playing after the derby but he stood up brilliantly against an established centre/wing pairing. Against a centre other than Atkins I imagine we could've seen him making a few more yards with ball in hand.

Burns had a quiet game but he helped organise and steady Rovers when Dobson was tied up and showed great effort to chase that kick down to force the drop out.
Carlile had another solid game, will be very unlucky to miss out when Withers is back if he does.

I thought that Tuimavave had a really good game, I've been quite critical of him but today he ran the ball in hard and defended solidly.

Salter defended excellently, he was really up against it with Westwood in the first half but more than but more than held his own.

Obvious big mention for Brown who took the ball in well, tackled hard and made good metres.

For once it seemed that the players listened to Sandercock at half time and cut out the indiscipline, stuck to the game plan and eventually the pressure told.

A classic Mental Girlfriend Syndrome game that has us all back in love.

Completely agree.
Must mention Micky P, really led for the front & made a huge difference during his first spell.
Like the look of Burns, he was very vocal from the start & he & Dobbo worked very well together considering it was his first hit out.
I'm not even thinking about next week, I'm just going to enjoy this one

Paterson had a good game, proved a handful, Defo one of Mikas better games too, Brown as said above did really well. Burns is gonna be very good, as is Eden.
Tuimav.....was ok IMO, one good strong drive, Carlile is average IMO, I thought we lost go forward when J.Hodgson went off and came on strong when he returned. Lovegrove wasn't at the races today.
A great victory, plenty of errors and pens again but defencivley we were really good, believe it or not

My biggest gripe/concern is why can't we produce that performance on a more regular basis? The effort was outstanding. The application got better throughout the game. The tackling was pretty solid throughout. It could've been a JM side the way we closed the game out in the second stanza [size=50(Stevo hasn't said it for a while)[/size

OK, we gave away soft/silly/annoying penalties, but in truth I'd point more of that towards the utter useless official that is Mr Hicks. Still, overall he wasn't that bad.

Have to agree with the way the Goose saw the game. Tuimavave was excellent, real solid graft today. Impressed me. Salter - I really hope my memory isn't letting me down here. The first tackle on Riley to stop him getting out of his in goal, was a belter. Sure it was by Salter and then finished off by Burns. I thought that moment was a bit of cliché 'game changer'. From that point the crowd and the players appeared to believe. In general the second half performance was outstanding from tactics to tackling. Brilliant. Although I must say, I thought Warrington were absolutely awful second half - no direction to their play at all. But seeing as we won I'll put that down as a result of the application our boys showed.

As we've seen this team can beat and lose to anyone so it's far too early to suggest we've turned some sort of corner. Just adds to the mystery what to expect from Rovers.

I didn't see this victory happening after the shambles last week against the Reds. Well done to all concered

Other way round,excellent chase and tackle by Burns with Salter coming in to help resulting in the drop out.

Great team performance by Rovers and Burns definately seemed to have a calming influence on the team, leaving Dobbo to get on with what he's good at. Great debut from Alex Brown.
Also thats the first time Sandy has been able to put out his 1st choice half backs for a long long time.

I thought Burns would make a difference for you guys.
The fact that he is too mad to know when he is beaten and keeps giving 100% all the time should get some of your surrender monkeys (Pato, Mika etc) to get their lazy s into gear.
Sounds like ET has got match fit too. He takes a while to get fit, but once he is he will do a lot of your donkey work and let others like Paea and Pato do the flashy stuff.

Fair play to you Roops, you've been spot on with your analysis and predictions for all our signings.
Hope the Knights have a good season for you.

My first live game this year & did not know what to expect, what I did see was that our looked the part, Whelham looked dangerous & Salter defended well & the reaction of the team to two potential game changing plays (Dobson missed touch & back to back penalties piggy backing them into our 20) they worked extra hard as a team to defend the mistakes that a team like warrington would normaly capitalise on. Also they were able to reduce the number of penalties to a more repectable level plus less mistakes with ball in hand gave them an even amount of possesion so the energy levels were kept up. Now lets hope we keep up the same level week in week out. But as the league is going we will play better & losse & play worse & win.
One thing I did notice was Patterson rip a strip of Eden after he tried a stupid off load then appeared to then have a quiet word & explain what he had done wrong.

Patterson is going to be massive for us. Probably bigger for us then Newton. Certainly looking forward to the grounds firming up as we've a very fast squad of players across the full squad now

Paterson has more to his offload game than Newton, but lets not diss the contribution Clint made. Paterson needs to find hard graft & consistency before he can be mentioned in the same breath.

Yep agree, Newton Rovers best player in the last 20 years or so for me. Paterson is on the right track though, he does have more to his game then Newton but what Newton could do, he did very well; hence the dream team selection.

Anyone else notice how often the Warrington water carrier was on the pitch?

He was on, coaching and directing the team during the full set of six leading up to Warrington's second try. Not only that, he was wearing very similar colours to the team so could have been mistaken for a player when glnaced at.

I noticed but only because where we stand there is a very gobby woman stood behind us who's pet subject every game is water carriers. She screams for the officials/police to "gerrim off the effin pitch, he shunt be there". This week she was worse than ever, so I took notice. Their water carrier was only ever on the pitch when they had possession, and therefore entitled to be there. If he was to be mistaken for a player, then, as they had to ball, it would more than likely have caused them, rather than us a problem.

I wish someone would either (a) explain the rules on water carriers to the gobby cow, or (b) hire an assassin.

A few years back, water carriers were a constant issue on the pitch (I'm sure a ref intervened during one game). However, yesterday was the first time in a long time that I've really noticed, simply because he wasn't there just to check on the fitness of the player but was clearly instructing the players on the set moves to make and barking out a few orders. Lee Briers in disguise maybe?

I know it's creeping into our game more, but I'm fed up with certain teams that constantly try and move off the mark after a tackle. It happened several times yesterday and on a couple of occasions we were penalised for not letting them play the ball. Such is life I suppose. Maybe we should do it a bit more (although we'll be caught out no doubt).

Apart from that, great performance by the whole team. Passing across the full width of the park is something I haven't seen Rovers do for years. Amazing what having TWO halfbacks can do to your team. Alex Brown had a great game (with only one real mistake). His try was good, but his tenacity to chase down his opposite number in the second half in broken play in the corner summed up his enthusiasm. So Caro or Brown? At least it's nice to have such a difficult decision for a change.

Difficult decision? About as difficult as [i"Um Bongo or Black Sheep sir?" [/i

Paterson has done ok, gone missing at times but can produce and create. Newton was class for Rovers and a player I have missed massively, I would have him back tomorrow, as you can see! Paterson has a very very long way to go before he can be compared to Newton.

In the same way as Paterson cannot yet be compared to Newton, so Newton should not be considered our best player in 20 years when without Michael Dobson we would be a shadow of ourselves.
He is monumental for Rovers.

Their water carrier was often on the pitch without water ???????????????????

Dobson is one of the best 7s in the league easy! I hope we take some of this into the game against the Broncos and do a job on them, prove the doubters it wasnt just a flash in the pan.

IMO only Dureau & Brough can hold a candle to him in this league. We are bereft of talented scrum halves in this country, fortunately I believe we've got the best.