Wakefield performance : Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:37 pm  

What did you think to theperformance today?

Re: Wakefield performance : Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:52 pm  

Quel Suprise! wrote:

What did you think to theperformance today?

We were terrible, tackling was appalling at times, discipline was poor and had no real idea in attack...disappointed for the fans who travelled in good numbers in the 2k crowd. The only plus point for us is that no league points were at stake.

Wakefield wanted it more today, given their result last week they wanted to put things right and they did.

Re: Wakefield performance : Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:57 pm  

Well, I can give you reasons as to why Wakefield won. Here's what I posted on Cas forum:

Let's be truthful, we were bloody awful. Good job the game wasn't relevant in terms of the season itself.

I genuinely thought that Millward had completely changed the way we played until the firsty 40 minutes today. If that was our initial gameplan then please help us now.

Boring one man rugby, a lack of idea, a lack of discipline, general disinterest and more missed tackles than the Bulls and Hudds games put together. It was a complete embarrassment.

We only scored in the first half by virtue of a Cockayne cock-up and then played for the first five mins of the second half and last five mins.

We were comprehensively beaten today by a more enthusiastic, willing, enterprising side. Ours looked clueless. Simply no positives to come out of that.

To tag on, Wakefield were excellent and some of the passing was a joy to behold. I'm sure their fans will be excited by that as it was a vast improvement on last season by far. They punished what was a lacklustre side.

Re: Wakefield performance : Sun Jan 22, 2012 9:24 pm  

damage was done in the first 40 minutes, penalised far too much, plus the odd mistakes, contributing to hardly having any ball (cant play with out the ball) think we only got in their 25, on 2 or 3 occasions, slightly better in the 2nd half, but credit where its due, wakey played some good stuff and took full advantage of our weak performance, it would have been nice to win again, but that's life.

Re: Wakefield performance : Sun Jan 22, 2012 10:28 pm  

I've read that 6/7 of your starting team were out, is that right (i'm not up with your current team).
You had spells in which you made ground quite quick but for the majority of the game you just lacked pace. I thought your 8 looked good, reminded me of a young Lee Crooks.

Re: Wakefield performance : Sun Jan 22, 2012 10:37 pm  

Fair play to Wakey today, they played well.....and played the conditions well.

As for Cas, I'm not reading into our performance too much. Even before kick off there were a few things that I would have changed. Firstly, those at the game, wrapped up in hats, scarves gloves and the lot, would agree that it was cold today. Very cold!!!. Wisely Wakey didn't spend a minute more than they needed to on the pitch before KO. A wise move in such conditions!!

Wakey ran well from Dummy half, and caught us on the backfoot very easily (as they did at our place last year.) We have plenty of players capable of this, but few who seem to have the confidence to do it. Wakey's deep attacking line was also refreshing to see. We seemed very flat and were soon stifled by a quick and enthusiastic defence.

Also we looked a little bit light weight in our forwards, and hence never built a platform of control from which our backs could work. We could definitely do Huby, Jackson and Walker back. A few big hits from these guys would definitely raise the teams spirits and raise their performance with it.

Re: Wakefield performance : Sun Jan 22, 2012 11:50 pm  

Not much to add to what's already been said - both very fair assessments of the game.

You must have been hacked off to see McGoldrick pick up where he left off last season and contribute to the penalty-fest in the first half; was it 3 or 4 he gave away for high shots? Just what your team-mates need when they're already on the back foot.

Re: Wakefield performance : Mon Jan 23, 2012 8:52 am  

Thought a near full strength Wakey side (3 players missing) absolutely smashed a strongish Cas side.

However enjoyable the bragging rights are it was just a friendly.

Only comment regarding both Cas and Wakey is that you don't look fit, not even close. We did. The rest is speculative because friendlies always are.

Re: Wakefield performance : Mon Jan 23, 2012 9:30 am  

vastman wrote:

Thought a near full strength Wakey side (3 players missing) absolutely smashed a strongish Cas side.

However enjoyable the bragging rights are it was just a friendly.

Only comment regarding both Cas and Wakey is that you don't look fit, not even close. We did. The rest is speculative because friendlies always are.

Wakey had five players missing, Raleigh, Wilkes & Mariano injured and Wildie and James both ill. Not sure about the fitness comment either, seeing as Cas finished the stronger in both halves. As you say no point in reading too much into yesterday, its in two weeks time it counts.

Re: Wakefield performance : Mon Jan 23, 2012 10:38 am  

I think yesterday showed what happens when you're light up front- with Emmitt and Nash our only recognised props (personally I imagine Nash would be relatively low on anyone's priority list) I was concerned we would struggle to compete against what is an impressive pack. You could see the amount of metres we made in the sets was very poor, completely dominated, made good yards with their bigger pack who were well marshalled by Aiton. Amor, Lauititi and Johnson kept them rolling giving John and Smith the platform to create.

I do think the amount of defending Cas had to do in the first half was what made us look unfit- Wakefield kicked well, we gave away silly penalties and made unforced errors, which meant they had a lot of good field position. If we give teams as much ball as Wakefield did, inevitably it will take it's toll, resulting in the tries they ran in in the second half.

I guess you can't read much into friendlies in terms of what to expect for the season ahead, as they're all about what you learn from them. To me, I think the main things I found was that we desperately need to get our pack in order- but with Jackson, Millington, Huby, Massey, Snitch and Walker all missing, I imagine (and hope!) that will improve. Otherwise we will find ourselves getting bullied out of games by big forwards such as Lautiti, who we really struggled to contain. Secondly, our discipline will need to get much better, the needless penalties given away (to me Arundel was guilty of several silly second efforts) need to be eradicated.
The other point to me was that our young loanee Mr Ryan Shaw is probably not ready for this level of competition...I felt sorry for the lad as obviously he was shot to pieces in terms of confidence, but he genuinely didn't seem to want to get involved or touch the ball, where he moved out of the way when the ball came his way. I really hope Nick Youngquest comes back soon, as we really could use his pace and workrate. Does anyone know why Jordan Thompson didn't play?

Also, I feel that the other thing I learned was that Wakefield have assembled a good team. I can't understand why people have placed them so low in the predictions, to me they've signed well, have quite a few options in each position, and have experience (something we don't have in abundance to be fair). I'd be very optimistic if I were a Wakefield fan, they were impressive yesterday. However, we beat Huddersfield last week, they got stuffed in France, then they stuff us this week...the only thing I expect from Cas and Wakey, as ever, is unpredictability!