I think you are a bit blinkered to our obvious deficiencies there Bob. Its all well & good looking an exciting attacking team, but this ain't Gridiron, we can't bring on another team when the other side get the ball. The basic problem is individual tackling technique in several players. Sandercock has stopped us compressing like we did under Mrogan, this stops us getting toasted out wide by quick passing, but opens up the defensive spacing. It relies on better communication with your partners either side, and crucially, better one on one tackling. In a lot of cases, we ain't up for it.

I'm not saying it can't be fixed, but by the time it get sorted, we may need snookers.

I'd take the needing snookers as long as we improve throughout the year. We need to be reshaping and building to a team that just needs a couple of additions around some home grown lads and a couple of good older heads. This year was always going to be a struggle but if we can improve I'll be happy

its interesting to see how you consider Cas just a cannon fodder basement team when Hull beat them fairly comfortably,yet less than a week later they become a desperate for points team with a wizard for a half back when you lot cave in against them

With respect Barham, I think you'll find that Mrs B's opinion on our abilities/aspirations this season is a very common one. Apart from the odd "idiot", we all know that we're in a slightly false position and finishing 7th will be about par for us this season. Our next four league games could even leave us with the same points that we currently have.

Very few of us are getting carried away with any grand final or even top four nonsense. As for Friday, it's a coin toss but I fear the worst.

Bring back netherton!!!

Isn't Neth out for 12 weeks?

With respect i believe that although Mrs B claims to have no faith in her club and states continually that we will put 100+ points on you, she secretly sits at home with a copy of the league table in one hand and her 19-1 betting slip in the other praying at her shrine to Andy Lynch that beyond all hope this isnt a false dawn.

There's no dawn at all. You've said we've not played anyone yet, so there can't be a dawn, false or otherwise. The only remotely true thing in your bag of spanners of a post is the Andy Lynch shrine. He's obsessively tidy round the house according to the programme and loves doing the hoovering. He is a great all rounder. Even then, he's no Joel Clinton, mind. He's got a Vax and everything.

How clean is Joel Clintons house?

Just watched the incident on Sky. The ref got it right. Salter was not tackled when he dived to the ground. When he eventually starts to get up to play on, the Cas players grab him under the arms and dump him to the ground in the in-goal. At no point is his ball-carrying arm on the ground AND a Cas player touching him until he's dragged over the line.

If there had been a VR at the game he would have given the same decision. Another ill-judged complaint by your coach I'm afraid.

I think his comments were made in the heat of the moment, before he'd had chance to actually see the incident, a bit of Salters inexperience on show, but I bet he doesn't do it again.

This is an April Fool comment

Why so?

Kosh called it perfectly correctly. Had Salter not regained his feet, Cas would've been awarded a penalty for a voluntary tackle

Correct. I was at the wrong end of the stand to judge it on Friday night but having seen it on tv, the Cas players just hovered above him waiting for him to get back up. At no point did they lay a finger on him.

Sandercock needs to stop blaming officials and start to [i"control the controlables".[/i

Salter did nothing wrong imo. Nothing else he could of done- cas were just all over us. He got over the ingoal line into the field of play, dont see what else he could of done in the situation

Imo in diving over the line and waiting to be tackled, he's gone for a voluntary tackle, the ref says he's not tackled and taken over the line. I'm not knocking the kid, I think the ref made the right decision and hopefully Salter will learn from it.

The only thing Salter did wrong, was that he froze a bit on the floor. If he could've found a way to scurry fwd on the floor, then the Cas players would've had to have touch him/tackle him.

That's how I saw the incident.

Completely agree, the decision was correct and caused by us being on the backfoot for the last 15 minutes.
Even if the decision had been wrong CS should have focussed on the reason we were even in that postion, we should have had that game tied up but we let cas get on the front foot and never got the momentum back.
I think this is a sign of CS's inexperience and hopefully someone will have a word with him.
The best team on the day won end of.

Would you rather him not dive over the line to save a drop out and keep running? Which would make it easier for him to be carried over the line and a big hit put on him which could cause anything to happen over his own tryline?

I would have rather he'd side stepped 3 tacklers, out paced the rest and scored


It doesn't matter now, what we say he should have done, the games gone. I wasn't saying Salter cost us the game, certainly not. Just that next time he clears his in goal I bet he doesn't do it that way again.

Not quite.

This was a text book voluntary tackle by Salter and as such should have been a penalty against Rovers:

"Voluntary tackle 4. A player in possession shall not deliberately and unnecessarily allow himself to be tackled by voluntarily falling to the ground when not held by an opponent. If a player drops on a loose ball he shall not remain on the ground waiting to be tackled if he has time to regain his feet and continue play."

Salter made no attempt to get to his feet, just shuffled his knees about on the ground a bit until Cas got impatient and pushed him back.

Sandycock is starting to become a bit of an embarrassment of a broken record. Wouldn't matter so much if he was right and understood what he was whinging about.

Salter did what players do in just about every game, regardless of the rule book. How many voluntary tackle penalties have you ever seen given in SL?

I agree about Sandy needing another record mind, but I suspect he's far more qualified than you or I to know what he's on about, he just needs to keep his council.

Don't be silly, Stan. You'll be saying black is white, next.

You're right to say much is missed in RL, but Sandy was arguing the shout should have gone your way, ffs. Instead, you were lucky to get away with a drop-out - you should have been penalised.

Did he thank the ref for turning a blind eye to the blatant forward pass that led to hodgson's try?

I think he (and all coaches) should concentrate on improving his side's performance and stop whining about referees (compounded by his whining voice TBH). If his players made as few errors as refs do then rovers would probably be sat at the top of teh league