mikeefreedom wrote:
Bit harsh. He got penalised for the same offence twice and I'm not sure why? In both cases I thought he was just trying to for a quick play-the-ball. First one, the sin binning he had a big Batley forward lying on top of him, the second, similar and Maden's reaction was one of disbelief.
Generally agree about what Ste was trying to do and that some of the reactions have been a bit harsh. However, it's got to be asked - if you've done something once and not just been penalised but also been sinbinned for it - why do exactly the same thing again? If a ref's being harsh on us in 1 area we need to learn to concentrate on keeping our discipline in that area, if we see something he's being lenient on we should try it a bit more. We just don't seem to be thinking at the moment.
As for the defence - we were sloppy in other areas but mainly on our right. I couldn't see where it was breaking down for most of the tries Batley scored down that side, but we know from the end result each time that it wasn't right. On that wing we had Maden with Watson inside him. In previous seasons at Leigh Maden's defence would have been more than solid enough, although generally IMHO his form hasn't been 100% this season so far. I've also seen Watson tackle above his weight before as well, and the one thing Watson should have in his favour is the experience to see what's going wrong and know how to fix it. Neither of them are young naive lads - they can both do it. But something wasn't working, and whatever it was needed to be addressed. Personally I was disappointed that no less than 4 tries had been scored down that wing before Tony Stewart was brought on and we tried to sure things up a bit - IMHO if we'd reacted quicker in addressing that 1 issue, we could have won the game.
