Better than last week, but still poor.
There is a lot of things wrong at the Club, possibly a domino effect where one thing leads to another and so on.
For me we cannot play 'John Kear Rugby', we don't have the pack to play it, and I don't think the players are happy trying to play it.
JK's days of being a successful Coach are well behind him. It's 18 years since he last won a trophy. Make of that what you will.
Paulie xx
WALKER would appear not to be fully fit, and he has looked off the pace since his lengthy lay-off from the HIA a number of games ago. The squad is just not big enough and not good enough, I am afraid. The pack looks like Ken DODD's diddy men and is out-muscled every week, less mobile than virtually every other pack we play against and just cannot handle teams through the middle. The game has left this club behind, I am afraid in terms of recruitment and management.
I really cannot understand how a team where the starting 13 has amassed over 530 Super League/Challenge Cup appearances between them (541 if you include the subs) still cannot compete on a regular basis at this level. It is the same story every week at the moment - chances not taken, missed tackles, basic errors, penalties conceded and nothing ever seeming to go our way.....but this cannot be coincidence. We need to somehow get to a level of performance where we are able to walk off with games and leave teams chasing us - and we need new blood to get there. Very worrying times once more.
Listened on radio and first half was shambolic, we never turned up. Very strange selection, when brown came on we changed into a rugby team - he should start at 13, crying out for some creativity
next week swinton a must win and then Toulouse !
Our attacking shape with our starting and finishing 13 wasn't good. However, our attacking shape improved massively when the bench were playing. Even at 18-0 down in the first half I felt we were much improved in attack. It's hard to point out what changed but, I thought Hatton played a blinder and made a great break to put Lyons in for his try. Our attack faltered again when he came off. Also the penalty for the late hit by Grady that proved to be the difference that we couldn't overcome was never a penalty. The Barrow player ran into Grady and fell over. I think the officials didn't see it and guessed.