What game was you watching? Waved the winger past for their first, dropped a kick he didn't have to catch for their third. Bombed about 4 tries with shocking passes, gave a penalty away on first tackle in possession. Apart from that he was his usual reliable self.
Donaldson Mantelato and Mimms all went well.

Tight season opener...... Both teams were nowhere near where they need to be. From a cas point of view it's a point lost but we didn't take our chances and we need to learn how to win. Hull kr played ok but like cas need a drastic improvement to get there aim of a top 8 finish. On a side note I have no idea how anyone can say hkr deserved to win.... You must have watched a completely different game to me..... A draw ... Fair enough at a stretch because we didn't bury the game but a Win .... Give over

Can you point out where anyone has said we deserved to win because, I can't see it anywhere.

Saw 2 magpies alongside the Dunswell Roundabout on the way to the game. We then go and get a point, which our spirited performance just about deserved. The omens were good.

Also said to the missus that Burtons Forearm would slag off Cockayne after this match on this forum so another private bet won. Despite this an accurate and objective critique from him of Cockayne's performance today. If only Charlie could pass. However, he did his job as the last line of defence when faced with a 3 on 1 in the final 10 minutes, so all forgiven.

All 3 Cas tries were as a direct result of mistakes by Minns, Kelly and Sio respectively. The second of Websters tries had me screaming at Sio as he had all the time in the world on the last play floated kick to let Solomona catch the ball, line him up and then flatten him immediately. Instead he hesitated and gave him space to move and make the pass. Knob.

I also put an order into the Performance Gods last night for a better Rovers defensive showing and overall I got my wish. The middle defended well, although the line speed was iffy at times.

We were wasteful in attack and didn't capitalise enough on the favourable conditions in our favour in the first half. Cas were similarly profligate in the second half.

We would have won with Campo pulling the strings. We missed his game management.

Allgood's ultra short 2 amp fuse made an appearance again within the first 40 minutes. It is becoming a needless and costly liability.

Like the look of Minns, Clarkson and Thornley. Donno was excellent.

We need to improve. I'm happier than I was, but I still have little confidence in Chester. We need to go up another level next week against the Wire.

The East Stand was very subdued again.

A draw was absolutely the fairest outcome. You can quite rightly point to your bombed chances, but we bombed just as many, plus we coughed up possession deep in our own half for both your 2nd half scores, something that we clearly could have avoided.
Both sides were missing key personnel, and both lost a player each in the 1st half ( just seen Shenton's injury on the YouTube highlights and how Powell thinks Boudebza did owt wrong is beyond me!). All in all, a below par performance from both sides and a draw was the right result.

Cas will improve no doubt. I hope we do.

Dixon gets routinely slaughtered for the same errors Cockayne makes every time he plays at full back, but Dixon can win a game in 5 seconds. If Sio isn't a full back, why did the coach give him the No.1 shirt only to bottle it after 2 trial games.
I thought Mantellato, Sio, Thornley, Minns, Blair, Donaldson, Lawler, Green & Mulhern all showed up better than Mr Cockayne did today. Admittedly, that's 9 not 10 so I apologise for the exaggeration.

Fair summary.

It's on the sky website. Powell should apologise. Boudebza does nothing. He's hanging onto his shirt slipping in the mud. He makes no illegal contact whatsoever.

Somebody has to make the one eyed on here see sense about the bigot. I'll give him he managed 2 passes for Mantelato to score from but any player should have made those. It's the other 4 that fly into touch ,hit the floor etc never mind the penalties and dropped kicks.

Tilse gets pelters from the crowd whilst Horne is so average it hurts. He wouldn't make ANY other team in the comp.

Defence was better today and we looked technically better but the conditions slowed the game down. Lawler went well in the loose but his passing was poor. Kelly sublime to terrible....see missed tackle on Webster.

Can't believe how easily our forwards were pushed back, the Cas attack made yardage very easily while our attack was just pushed back in the tackle. I thought we were fortunate today, Cas were not that impressive but yet were much the better side in my opinion. I listened to Chester after the game and he seems to think everything is rosy and we played 'well'. If we cannot defend against a lightweight Cas pack, how the hell will we be able to contain much bigger, mobile packs we will be facing very soon.

The Cas pack isn't lightweight at all. Sure they had Massey & Lynch missing but then we can point to our own absentees. I have been, and continue to be a critic of Chester but credit where its due, we matched a decent team today and showed a significant improvement in attitude to defend. Lets have a night off from our worries and pick it up again next Sunday after a typical away day surrender over in Cheshire.

A full strength Cas against us without Campo and Lunt. If we'd cut out a couple of individual mistakes and we may have won. All in all a fair result against a side who has finished in top 6 for last couple of seasons.

Agree with all this.

Our performance exceeded collectively doomy expectations today and we were a match for a Cas side that played significantly better than us last year.

One major positive is that the result will do wonders for our team confidence going forward and raise optimism that we can achieve something at Warrington next week marginally less painful than the predicted dry bumming.

We didn't play against a full strength Cas side though did we.

Cas had their first choice spine playing today. As Stan pointed out in the previous post, they were missing Lynch and Massey in the pack.

By contrast, we were missing 5 of our top 13. We had Charlie at FB, Lawler starting at hooker in SL for the first time and Greenwood at LF for just 7 minutes.

We should have been in the clear by half time, but we weren't because our completion rate was about thirty seven per cent

Most of the first half was played in Cas's half but we endeavoured to wang the ball into touch or just drop it.

Playing in wind and rain, the golden rule is to control the football and compete your sets, we did neither.

Cas were pretty poor over the eighty, but were distinctly better in contact.

Cockayne is not the answer at Fullback I don't know who is, he still does not understand or know how to take a high ball under no pressure, you turn your body to the side, and if you don't catch it cleanly it goes behind you. What you absolutely do not do is front up to it like a hooker showing off her tits. He did do well for Mantomato's second try.

I thought Lawler went really well, made a great break,in the second half but does need to be able to up his speed of distribution at this level.

Donaldson was a deserved mom, puts 100% into everything he does. Decent larker.

Minns was badly at fault and schooled for both of Webster's tries, although, I have to ask where was Horne for the second, it's his job to take Minns under his wing, I don't think he did that today.

Mantomato's conversion was probably the best I have ever seen given the conditions and context of the match.

It wasn't great and too many individual errors but the fact they beat us at home last season and not being at full strength yet this season, today was slight progress.

But did your shirt arrive in time

At a second look it was Kelly who missed Webster twice. From the scrum Minns took Dorn on the overlap leaving Kelly to deal with Webster. I thought Minns defended ok.

With five players out, including two vital players from our 'spine', in what would be Rovers strongest line up and Greenwood's injury playing havoc regards substitutions and a game played in a gale errors were inevitable, as they were in the Wigan game played in similar conditions. BC knockers conveniently forget he also put JM in for both his tries and saved a try with a very good tackle on the Rovers line.

Progress made, more needed. Draw a fair result IMO.

Fair summary, we should have been well up at half time but did the usual Rovers trait of not being patient enough and tried to push the pass instead of building pressure.
Once Cas got a foothold I thought there was only one winner but they certainly tired late in the game and the kick from Mantellato deserved to win the game, I personally thought it was unkickable in those conditions.

Donno was clear MoM, Lawler went well and controversially I thought Tilse had a very good last stint defensively.

The allgood yellow was a joke, he got a punch to the top of the head when he was trying to get up and play the ball, this was totally ignored by the officials and then he stupidly reacted, how that was a Cas penalty is beyond me.

I agree! How was he in the running for MOM? Great point and finish tho, felt like a win

It was a full-on eighty minutes from Rovers and TBH it is exactly what we want to see every week.

A marked improvement in intensity and aggression and a good platform to work from although it is still messy aroun the PTB.

Execution was overall lacking with the wrong player delivering what ought to have been two walk in tries but that is Ben - never a FB which refelcted in his overall performance. Cas must be kicking themselves for not capitalising on his poor positional play and his error rate.

Three major pluses for me were the front row, Blair & Donaldson. I thought the front row stood its ground with Green once again the stand out player and we got a glimpse of Allgood returning to form. Blair kept the team ticking over in the wet and windy conditions and had to deal with some very poor passing from PTB, but as first receiver he looked very comfortable. Donaldson had a cracking game in both defence and attack, and showed what a good aquisition he is. thoroughly deserved the try and we need to see more of this from now on.

The main negative was seeing too many players on the ground at the PTB (Horne being the main culprit) which for me is bordering on criminal, but thankfully Cas didn't exploit it. If it happens next week Clark will destroy Rovers down the middle.

Overall it gets a 5/10 from me. Mantomato should have got MOM, never understood why it is announced with five minutes to go, as we saw lots can happen in five minutes.

We fronted up well overall, esp considering we lost Greenwood early on. The clearing work done from the backs in the last 20 mins or so was excellent. Time and again they managed to punch holes and gain ground. To which something Cas in opposite circumstances struggled to do without our assistance, be it discipline or bad errors.

You can argue about the merits of the draw but Cas literally had so many opportunities to go for a drop goal, you get what you deserve through incompetence/arrogance by not doing so.

Our attacking play by in large was a poor standard. I'm not going to get at Cockayne for a part of the game he doesn't have. Had he possessed a passing game, I'm sure he would've moved to the halves rather than the wing. So it's no surprise when in difficult conditions he was found lacking. That been said, Albert Kelly was far from anything other than average. He wasn't helped by the slow service his way (how many times was tackled whilst kicking?). I'm sure if Marsh was playing, the pitchforks would've been out. Also thought Kelly looked a little heavy ...

Mantellato's finishes were of the highest order and I almost doubt I'll ever see a better kick @ CP again than that effort. I think it's a game to look back on for the positives. To continue to the end and scrape a draw, certainly should give everyone a big lift. It was almost like the legacy of the Wembley dissapointment and other general negative tones lifted at that moment and the team/crowd were back as one. Here's hoping ...