Marks out of Ten : Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:49 pm  

A disappointing day, I'm sure we all agree.

Effort

7/10 - I think the effort was there overall, although I was disappointed with the mental attitude 20 mins after half time. The Sarge error, crucified us psychologically. I took note of his body language when he came back on in the second half and it wasn't good. Likewise the rest of the team, we were 'sulking'. They should be able to take those knocks mentally, put the error behind them and move on. One error with 40 minutes to play, shouldn't cost us the game. We never got over it mentally.

Attack

5/10 - A 5 could be generous. We lacked creativity, inspiration and ideas in their half. Poor. The sooner we get Sherwin back, the better.

Defence

8/10 - We defended our line well today and seemed to show some pride. The defence for the second try was poor.

Discipline/Errors

6/10 - Plenty of dropped ball, but this was down to our poor attacking decisions. Some things never change with silly penalties. Seen a lot worse

Fitness

6/10 - Disappointing, Some players out on their feet, but I suppose it is the first game. They were the fitter team. There's no excuse for ANY team to be fitter than the 17 in our side.

Crowd Contribution

4/10 - Poor. Quiet, didn't really have much to shout about - but in a game that is evenly poised maybe the crowd can help more ?! The boos were down to frustration. I've said enough about the 'simpletons' and the boos. We've had 3 months of positivity and it's a lot harder to take when we see 'dumb rugby'. Frustrating.

Played one, lost one. 7 thousand gone home disappointed. Lets see what the next 80 minutes bring !

: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:56 pm  

Cannot disagree with any of that

I hate to pick players out but Widders is a definite disappointment for me, his fitness, awareness, and i have to say from what i've seen, ability is laughable, he came over here with a very good reputation and to me he seems lazy, overweight and not interested.

I will however give him credit for the 2/3 runs he made which made good impact, i am yet to be impressed by anything he has done though

: Mon Feb 16, 2009 11:28 am  

Defence

8/10 - We defended our line well today and seemed to show some pride. The defence for the second try was poor.

Got to credit Danny Orr for this quick thinking, saw that McG was commited in the tackle and put a great kick for Dorn to chase v's Dixon .....miss match ...result try

All told : Mon Feb 16, 2009 1:15 pm  

Forgetting the other thread with the right and wrong of boo-ing your own team, I hate to say but things looked very similar to the last few first SL games of the season we have experienced.

A lot of hard graft on show - some encouraging signs. Definitely a theme from ay of our last 4 SL seasons.
A lot of mistakes - could do better. We made 8 or 9 decent chances and scored twice. London made 3 and scored 2 - been another theme for us - patience and not trying to score every set.
Tale of missed chances. How often do we say that.

I am not a TM knocker, becuase I happen to think he's a great coach, but there is something in our application I find concerning. There were periods when we pressed the London line, particularly in the 2nd half and the right side attack could have got a blanket out and had a picnic, Evans and Dicko seemed to be the right option, but there was little shape to switch from short side running and join the play.

Conclusions:
First..... to stay on topic - 6/10.
Second..... I think the halves today have played Sherwin back into the team if fit for Friday - be that right or wrong.
Third..... With time to prepare, a long pre-season and stability in the coach, I hoped we could have got off to a better start without having to roll out the "give us time to gel" line.
Fourth.... If we beat the Pies and Salford at home - all this will be chip wrapper and it will be all on for the top 8 again!

Re: All told : Mon Feb 16, 2009 1:31 pm  

mdean wrote:

I am not TJ Hooker

I wondered what the hell you were on about at first glance, until i realised i'd read it wrong.