Well that was an interesting match.........
Firstly for those who hark for the days of a crowd close to the pitch and standing at the sides.
It does naff all for the atmosphere. It was as dead as any match at LP.
My impressions where the forwards were decent. Some nice touches from the backs, (although I did think Turner had a few dodgy turns).
But guess what we where missing?? I'll give you 2 numbers to guess with.
MOM
For me it was a toss up between the forwards, Manu was a devil for the opposition. TP killed them with what only he can do, when they had us down to 12. LMS (I am liking this new attitude) although he could probably have stayed on if he had not gone so full on at the ref, so points off for that.
I'd give it Manu.
The LMS yellow, we'll for mine he was in the right, his big error was trying to prove to the ref that he was in the right. Basically he was jumping from behind the line to get the man or the ball at the play the ball. He got pinged by the ref for it. Then as though to prove a point, stood with both feet behind the line and when he thought foot had touched ball, did a frog man type dive for the ball.
The ref pinged him again and he lost it. It was as though he was purposefully trying to catch the ref in a lye. Now I was not close enough to be a 100%, but I thought he had a good case, but losing it with the ref is only going to result in one thing which was yellow.
It was at this point too that it looked like we needed a captain.
A clever captain would have been having a word after the first few dodgy decisions. It took the yellow and a try before Wilkin realised and had the long word with the ref. For me it should have been sooner. Briers is in the refs ear after every call, not every try.
All in all we where in decent control of the whole game, it only got interesting when the ref decided to mix it up with Louis, after that he kinda had it in for us. If Louis had kept his cool and said something funny to the ref, rather than going Ape, he probably could have stayed on.
Swift was brave for his try, head down with knees and bodies in the corner.
Lomax too, after a clever little kick by Makinson.
We seem to be on good form with the knock on's, always looking to try and see what we can get on the free play.
Kicking game was ok. Wilkin found the floor every time I think. But he was kicking from strength most of the time as we spent lots of time in their half.
Lance was Meh! Although he did a cracking pass from 2 inches off the floor, which riled the Wakey fans as they thought he was tackled.
No one was backing up when the forwards had an offload, which to me shows how when you have fake 7 and 6's they are not ready to latch onto those things.
I'd give it a 7 out of 10. Everyone tried, but we seemed to loose some focus after 20 minutes. Although nice to have the comfort zone.