wertyuio wrote:
Thought we were competent rather than brilliant, but that may be due to the opposition defence preventing any real spark from our attack. Think we were a bit lightweight too...seemed to miss Sia for a large part of game and to have two subs unused until about fifteen and ten minutes to go is a luxury against any team. let alone one playing as well as they were.
If i thought that not playing in the final would allow us to be better prepared for the play offs, I might've taken some comfort, but its clear that Wigan are the clear favourites to take both comps, notwithstanding the timing of the final.
Wigan aren't THAT much better. They can be beaten. A full strength Wire would trouble them greatly and we are capable of as well. They also have incredible luck with injuries in big games, never seeming to be missing a key player and the opposition always losing a couple before the game, Morley and Briers for the Wire game for example and Pryce/Eastmond for the GF last year. We also struggled today as James Graham was finished at half time and shouldn't have come back on.
We were great today, they didn't make easy metres, they didn't score soft tries from kicks. The Tomkins try was a soft effort from a couple of players but we were on the back foot in that period so they would have scored somewhere.
Resigning Leon Pryce is an absolute necessity. He is brilliant and although far from top fitness today was very influential IMO, letting Lomax go hunting. It's amazing how solid we look with him on the field, compared to the headless chickens routines we go through without him.
After that a new fullback is top priority. I'd throw Hohaia there or promote someone from the academy. Wello's time is up, and although he rolled the clock back with a truly superb tackle on Charnley in the first half his effort in the second half was equally lame and his attacking frustrates me greatly. Because he lacks pace he runs onto the ball, always in the same place in the line which makes it utterly predictable and he's often stumbling and off balance and just dumps it onto the centre, who i feel heartly sorry for. Had we had a Hodgson or Tomkins or Eastmond at fullback today, we would have won.
