Yeh Butler has been great this season and we really miss him when he's out. Bit of an unsung hero.
Thought the first 20mins were great yesterday but as soon as Barrow put some pressure on us we looked very shaky. Defensively we looked a bit disconnected with players coming up in ones and twos. Barrow got a lot of offloads away due to players coming up in ones. Their attempts to slow down the ruck paid off too with our lads being put on their backs too often. We also seem unable to use Scurr well at the moment - that needs work as he's our main go forward prop.
There was also some indecision dealing with kicks and a fair few total brain farts (Holmes at the back twice, Lilley passing into touch, Myers catching the ball within the 10, Doro losing his marbles). EOC has a lot of work to do. We could've easily blown it if we'd lost our discipline after the Doro sending off. Thankfully we kept our heads despite the late sin binning which was harsh IMO.
Thought Gaskell's kicking was a level above and when we targeted their left and Okunbor we had a lot of positives. He also knows how to draw and pass unlike a few of ours. With the pitch being so narrow running straight rather than toward touch is more important than ever. We ended up in touch more times than we should down to players not running straight enough. Thought Ott looked more at home as interchange hooker and he had two very good scoots late on that relieved the pressure. Appo worked hard from the off, Myers looked far more at home in the centre and Rogers seems to be getting some form back.
