Positives and negatives : Sun Feb 14, 2016 7:25 pm  

Cas are a very good side who are well coached, McShane, Gale Roberts and Dorn are an excellent fast creative set of players in key positions. They will be a match for anyone. If you put excellent players in key positions then you just need grafters around them. They did their homework and got on the outside shoulder of the very slow Finn and mentally slow Miller and simply ran round us.

England tried hard and looked the part, Bill Toupou had a good game, BBJ did his best and Howarth was excellent. I also thought Gibson defended well. For 20 minutes without doing anything great we looked OK , we were pretty good in defence, we did not offer anything in attack but we never will while ever Finn and Miller play. The pass from Miller to Gibson that allowed Webster to put Gibson into touch, the dropped ball first tackle from Walton and Finns lack of speed and bottle to drop on a loose ball all took place 10 minutes before half time so instead of going in at 6 all we went in at 18 6 and the game effectively lost.

We were very poor in second half, Cas played well and Gale and Dorn toyed with us running at Finn.

Think there must be another Anthony Toupou in Aus because the one we have is a tourist on his hols and can never have played for Aus, we lack aggression, Kirkmond is finished, Simon and Anakin need to play.

How we miss Tim Smith the RL player, not the man but the player. Finn and Miller need to be dropped, we really are shoking at 6 and 7 , with the squad we have I dont know what the answer is, can BJB play at 6, with say Hall at full back ? can we loan Hampshire from Cas ? Can Sio play at 7 ?

Re: Positives and negatives : Sun Feb 14, 2016 7:44 pm  

OK let's be honest our capt needs dropping ,now

Re: Positives and negatives : Sun Feb 14, 2016 7:48 pm  

cosmicat wrote:

OK let's be honest our capt needs dropping ,now

Which one, Scruton or Kirmond? FWIW both of them need dropping, surely Yates, Shulver, Molloy can't do any worse than so called seasoned professionals.

Re: Positives and negatives : Sun Feb 14, 2016 7:50 pm  

From someone who was there I would like to give a considered in depth analysis of the plusses and minuses of the game today . But I can't . We were gash .

Re: Positives and negatives : Sun Feb 14, 2016 7:56 pm  

Here's a positive
We're above Leeds in the table.
If we stay above them, we will be in the top 8

Re: Positives and negatives : Sun Feb 14, 2016 8:03 pm  

After that showing, it is hard to find any positives, but lets try.

I think England, and Bill Tupou played well, as did Stu Howarth. I think on his performances, Howarth needs to be around the 19 man squad, even when Moore and Simon is fit

Kirmo to me is finished, not only as a captain but as a player.

Miller and Finn together couldn't open a door. I think Miller would go well alongside a really good half back. Liam Finn has spent nearly his whole career in the championship, and watching him you can tell. He is out of his depth.

I have said it a few times, and we really do need a top quality half back sooner rather than later. If we don't have room on the cap, then I feel we need to offload some players, even if no one comes in, we can still terminate player contracts. I would go for one of the probable higher earners who isnt getting game time, or even the captain himself.

I am not sure yet about Anthony Tupou been here for a holiday, to me he may come into his own when the pitches dry out more, he is a David Solomona style player, and he was the same

Re: Positives and negatives : Sun Feb 14, 2016 8:16 pm  

Finn was lauded as the leader of this team most of pre season. That's why we brought him in. Has anybody seen him say two words to another player yet?

Re: Positives and negatives : Sun Feb 14, 2016 8:24 pm  

Eastern Wildcat wrote:

After that showing, it is hard to find any positives, but lets try.

I think England, and Bill Tupou played well, as did Stu Howarth. I think on his performances, Howarth needs to be around the 19 man squad, even when Moore and Simon is fit

Kirmo to me is finished, not only as a captain but as a player.

Miller and Finn together couldn't open a door. I think Miller would go well alongside a really good half back. Liam Finn has spent nearly his whole career in the championship, and watching him you can tell. He is out of his depth.

I have said it a few times, and we really do need a top quality half back sooner rather than later. If we don't have room on the cap, then I feel we need to offload some players, even if no one comes in, we can still terminate player contracts. I would go for one of the probable higher earners who isnt getting game time, or even the captain himself.

I am not sure yet about Anthony Tupou been here for a holiday, to me he may come into his own when the pitches dry out more, he is a David Solomona style player, and he was the same

In what way can we just terminate players contracts who have no club to go to? Those contracts would still have to be paid in full, as such we would still have the same issue - no money for a decent player.

The only options are to try and offload a player or two to another club who would pay their wages instead, although i'm not sure who ould be interested in the ones we would be prepared to release. Or we take a punt on a cheap untried youngster, which is a risk in itself.

The other option is to take an out of favour player from another club who are willing to part-payhis eages to get him off the books. Travis Burns maybe springs to mind? Otherwise we are stuck with what we have got.

Re: Positives and negatives : Sun Feb 14, 2016 8:27 pm  

At 6-12 on 38 minutes I thought we'd done pretty well, considering the hammering Childs had dished us out. Then up pops Walton and gifts Cas a 6-18. We had a glimmer of a chance to recover in the dying seconds of the half but Walton again died with the ball on the last tackle. Once Cas got the 1st score of the 2nd half the game effectively died as a contest.

How about that virtual voluntary tackle on the 6th by Michael Sio when we were pressurising the Cas . Worst bit of rugby I've seen for some time.

I thought Jones-Bishop was our best player.

Re: Positives and negatives : Sun Feb 14, 2016 8:32 pm  

England was our best player by far, BJB was poor in returning the ball, and interesting listening to Luke dorn marshalling his defence, calling the shots, I have seen nothing of that from BJB, he has not lived up to the billing of his previous career thus far, but just my opinion as I saw it today,