Must say I thought it was a bit of a mixed bag performance yesterday, even allowing for the heat, which was the same for both sides. On the positive side I thought the forwards went very well indeed given the loss of Laithwaite. Green had an encouraging debut and Crossley, Peltier and Bustin did well in the heat. Flanagan was my man of the match and really made a difference when he came on. Hallas was far more effective when he played as a backrower, he’s not suited to hooker IMO, the pass he messed up for what should have been our first try said it all.
On the minus side we kicked poorly too often. It’s a narrow pitch and Chisholm’s kicks for Ryan were weighted all wrong. Chisholm didn’t have the best of games really. He missed a lot of tackles and in attack never really got a sniff. That acceleration he had prior to his injury isn’t there at the moment. He got frustrated and you could tell. The shoulder charge he put in when the game was finely balanced was lucky it wasn’t spotted by the ref. Also, while Gibson scored a couple he still runs Grant out of space too much for me.
In defence we looked shaky on the fringes. Nobody shoots out of the line thankfully but our line speed is abysmal at times and we got caught out around the ruck a few times with players being left on the ground or being slow to get back into position. Against York we will be made to pay for this. If we do go up a real improvement in defensive line speed is needed or we’ll get a very rude awakening.
Glad McNally came through ok. He played well and I think this is good for Pickersgill as he did well when he came on fresh.
