I thought there were more than 1500 there, maybe 18-1,900. The North stand was over half full, and about 3-400 in the South.
Craven played well, before going off at half time, Dupree and Wilde were good and Ince scored a good try and also made a try saving tackle in the second half, to keep Widnes in front .
The North stand was very much UNDER half full.
I like the fact that Spedding and Tyrer (our starting centres) didn't play, neither did Lawton or Grady who you would think would be in the match day squad and we haven't yet got a look at either Nzongzou or Gregory who adds a different dimension.
Friendlies don't really say much about how your season will go but im far more positive about the outlook this year, even if we had injuries like last year.
Attendance was just under 1500, if anyone is interested.
Just a friendly, but the overall feeling I took away was that there was a great spirit in the team, a spirit we haven’t seen for a couple of seasons perhaps. Talking to each other, supporting each other and an evident team spirit between the all the players we saw was quite refreshing!
With no Lawton, Grady, Spedding or Tyrer we saw a lot of new signings and they kept their shape well as a team. We look to have a good mixture of youth and experience which should work well together. I’m not going to say who was good and bad as it was a friendly, but when Dupree first came on he missed a tackle and lost the ball - his head could easily have gone down, but a couple of words from teammates kept him on track and he grew into the game from there and looks useful. If we can keep that level of cameraderie in the team we will do well.
Overall I think it was a good run out as Batley had about as many first 13 shirt numbers on the field as we did. We looked disciplined, well drilled and in good physical shape. A little loose defending the play of the ball at times and conceding yards, and someone forgot his kicking boots, but all in all a positive test.