: Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:06 pm  

Alex Mc wrote:

IMO we are seriously lacking a hooker. Fitzhenry isn't the answer for me. Our play the balls were so slow it was untrue which gave the Leeds defence time to get right on top of us.

Also our passing from dummy half leaves alot to be desired, either fired at the head or loopy slow rubbish. Fisher is good, and would rotate well with real quality hooker, but he cant do 80.This area imo is where we are weakest.

Fitzhenry has nothing to do with how quick the players are getting up off their feet and playing the ball. He impressed me in his first spell.

Our passing all over the park was pretty poor last night. With 5 mins to go we shifted the ball right to left, Galea through a pass to Webster(who seems to be getting a bit of stick), who had to check his run and then catch the ball with one hand behind his head. If he got a quality ball for him to run onto I think he would have easily scored.

: Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:06 pm  

Leeds have looked awful to press and have been beatable.Last night the ref failed to take control of the Leeds players dictating the game to him (Sinfield,Diskin and Senior as per usual) up until he sin binned the young lad . Rovers seem to be lacking a decent pack leader and I know you have injuries but you lacked that go foward down the middle,on the positive you looked strong in the backs with plenty of pace.Could be a long season.......

Re: Match thoughts : Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:15 pm  

Rupert Pupkin wrote:

Got to say though I was very un-impressed with Rovers as a team last night, Leeds were there for the beating!

Our passing along the attacking line was abysmal at times, the ball should be passed so that the receiver is running onto the ball(this is kids stuff), not thrown behind his back or into touch(on a few occasions). It was really poor to watch at times, we didnt seem to have many creative options in our opponents 20m/30m.

We coughed the ball up on the 1st/2nd/3rd to many times in very good field position, our ball retention based on the last two weeks is no where near good enough! Plus some very poor options from the base of the scrums.

Once again our go-forward was poor IMO, the POTB was far to slow and gave the Leeds pack all the time in the world to get organised, no wonder we found it so hard to break them down.
To be fair we have come up against probably the two best packs of forwards in SL, sshame we have come off second best on both occasions.

One more small point, I know alot of people who used to criticize the choice of letting Webster kick into touch from a penalty(never made more than 20m). We made huge strides in going forward when this job was handed to Cooke, now we have given the job to Dobson who is doing ok but I dont think we are taking advantage of these penalties as we could be. If Cooke is on the pitch, let him take them!

So in a topic titled 'Match thoughts', the only comments you could muster on our second game of the season are ALL negatives?

Granted I was disappointed with some of the players' performances aswel, but just because we've beaten Leeds in the past doesn't mean to say we'll do it every year. They WERE there for the taking last night i agree but do you think Leeds would be pleased with their performance last night either?

to say the game could have been anyones until the 74th minute against the world club champions isn't bad going in my opinion. and as for Alex Mc saying fisher can't do 80 is joke! he's an 80 minute hooker, he's one of the fittest players at the club! why do we need to rotate hookers? cos saints and leeds do it?

I think we all need to take a look at the bigger picture here. We're gunna be in the chasing pack between 5th and 9th. It's just down to taking our chances when we get them. We had ample oppertunites to score last night. We just didnt take them. We WILL in the future. Simples!

Re: Match thoughts : Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:15 pm  

Come 'ere 7 wrote:

So in a topic titled 'Match thoughts', the only comments you could muster on our second game of the season are ALL negatives?

Granted I was disappointed with some of the players' performances aswel, but just because we've beaten Leeds in the past doesn't mean to say we'll do it every year. They WERE there for the taking last night i agree but do you think Leeds would be pleased with their performance last night either?

to say the game could have been anyones until the 74th minute against the world club champions isn't bad going in my opinion. and as for Alex Mc saying fisher can't do 80 is joke! he's an 80 minute hooker, he's one of the fittest players at the club! why do we need to rotate hookers? cos saints and leeds do it?

I think we all need to take a look at the bigger picture here. We're gunna be in the chasing pack between 5th and 9th. It's just down to taking our chances when we get them. We had ample oppertunites to score last night. We just didnt take them. We WILL in the future. Simples!

Hey up Justin !

: Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:17 pm  

Rupert has also said his view has changed now he has seen the game on the telly,from a different perspective. A game does look totally different on the box to when we sit in the stands we all know this !

: Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:23 pm  

THE BOARD wrote:

Rupert has also said his view has changed now he has seen the game on the telly,from a different perspective. A game does look totally different on the box to when we sit in the stands we all know this !

Not changed my mind about the way we played though, thought we defended very well as a team again but attacked badly as a team.

: Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:27 pm  

Rupert Pupkin wrote:

Not changed my mind about the way we played though, thought we defended very well as a team again but attacked badly as a team.

I wish I had sky+'d it as this chelsea game is boring me.
I cant remember it all but just remember going to bed last night thinking were in for a hammering at Easter !

: Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:28 pm  

Yeah fair play for picking out some positives after watching it again, i didn't see your other two posts whilst i was typing mine up.

: Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:30 pm  

Rupert Pupkin wrote:

Not changed my mind about the way we played though, thought we defended very well as a team again but attacked badly as a team.

I though overall Rovers were average at best. Very few players can come off the park pleased with what they had done. Leeds were very poor at times yet still breached Rovers line on three occasions yet Rovers created very little.

TBH i'm pretty disappointed with these first two results and i see it as three points dropped by Rovers. Both Bradford and Leeds were very beatable on the day/night and Rovers blew it on both occasions.

Re: Match thoughts : Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:31 pm  

Come 'ere 7 wrote:

Granted I was disappointed with some of the players' performances aswel, but just because we've beaten Leeds in the past doesn't mean to say we'll do it every year. They WERE there for the taking last night i agree but do you think Leeds would be pleased with their performance last night either?

to say the game could have been anyones until the 74th minute against the world club champions isn't bad going in my opinion.

It's just down to taking our chances when we get them. We had ample oppertunites to score last night. We just didnt take them. We WILL in the future. Simples!

My opinions on last nights game have nothing to do with any previous victories over them. Plus I dont think Leeds will worry to much about performance last night as they took the 2 points on offer.

I dont think the argument of them being the World Club Champions makes any difference, they had key players out injured, not in the best form and with a massive game to look forward to next week.

Well lets hope we do start taking our opportunities because we lost out last night on a major one.