These pre-season friendlies seldom fail to disappoint. We’ll inevitably look ‘clunky’, with missed opportunities and defensive lapses galore, and then increasingly disjointed as we make changes in the second half (although this year we look to be fielding a much smaller match day squad). Despite all the training we will look unfit.
I can recall a pre-season game against Wigan during the Smith era where it looked for all the world as though these were the two teams who would be propping up the table come the end of the year. A week or two later the same two teams kicked off the season with one of the best Super League games of all time, you just can’t tell. Hopefully we’ll come through this one unscathed but I’m already resigned to the fact that I’ll have wasted my money, and yet I go every year.
