That's either a most appropriate euphemism, or a cause for (my) serious concern...

Face, you fool, not wallet...

You keep the latter safe for when the mighty Tigers roar into town in March & I am guesting on the airwaves with Mad Mick. I will need plenty of lubrication.

I thought Koppy and Sibbitt were a little improved from their performances of last week when both were poor and the absence of another experienced forward would suggest Potter will stick with them.



One huge area of concern is the period at the end of both halves in both games. Not only have we failed to score late in the half we have conceded a huge proportion of all opposition tries in the 10 mins to half time and the final 15 mins of the game. A lack of half backs will exacerbate this problem as we do not use the ball as we should such as kicking to the full back thereby inviting more pressure etc. Nevertheless, it is a worry that we have fatigued quite so badly in both matches.

If we can cut out the errors and get a better completion rate that would be a start. Wigan scored each time we made an error in our own half in the first 40mins.



According to the SL website we are joint top for errors made with a whopping 35 in the first two games. On the other side of the coin we have missed fewest tackles of any side in SL!



Clearly if we up the completion rate we'll be harder to beat. We may struggle to create things without our halves but we can at least make it harder for the opposition by not giving them easy ball.

Top for errors.



Pretty well top for team changes from last year.









You would hope that as the guys get more used to playing with each other (maybe need to rephrase that...) the error count will plummet?

Many of the errors come from players who are old enough to know better! A few came from our makshift halves not being able to pass very well and combinations not being very slick which is understandable.



At least we got to see what we should be aspiring to yesterday. Wigan's attacking play throughout was excellent. Every forward drive had dummy runners and each backline play was executed very well with every player timing their run and the pass perfectly. Hopefully we will emulate some of this with Briggs and Herbert back in the side. The current tactic of forward plunges up the middle or "give it to Kearney" aren't going to fool anyone.

With regards to my views I think a lot has been said, we were playing without any recognised halves in Kearney and Sykes (didn't expect to see him this season, let alone 2nd game) so lacked penetration in attack and with the tiring wrestlemania tackling I'm not surprised they tired like they did



Tomkins was great with ball in hand and his pace opened up our defence time and time again. I just wish he would stop trying to get a penalty every time he is tackled. Great player, horrible attitude at times



Wigan were ruthlessly efficient and put us to the sword today, I'm not sure they will be bettered this season but we shall see. I don't think Bentham helped with his unwillingness to address the PTB. Its very frustrating to watch.



Thought the pack worked hard and took the ball forward but they are always going to struggle against a good defence when the half backs aren't posing questions - hopefully we will get Herbert and Briggs back soon. Also remember we are playing without a creative looseforward so its even more of a challenge. Good work from Lynch and Hargreaves, massive hits from Scrutes. The subs took the ball forward well, Olbison seems to go forward well from standing starts .



Basically we have played the 2 top teams in the comp. Almost beat one and have been on the wrong end of a lesson from the other. I think a fairer ref would have narrowed the margin but we would still have lost. There should be no disheart as I think we've a good basis to move up the table from

to be honest i thought lynch had a poor game.

he had the oppertunity to crash over under the sticks and failed to

and he didnt seem to be running the ball with any umph and in a tackle he usually does a good leg drive and gains a few more meters....yesterday he went into contact and went down

sykes had a terrible game no doubt and was playing as a centre instead of as a 6 ....running the ball in when he should have been giving a good ball out

oh welll theres always next week and it was game 2 of the season.......

Had a day to think about the match so here are my thoughts.



Firstly it was awesome to see so many people at the stadium. Odsal was buzzing again before kick off. The pre match was good for a cold February afternoon and it felt great looking across at the stand and the end terrace and seeing it so full.



Then came the match. A big disappointment from the point of view that we were totally outclassed by a well drilled Wigan team who again look like they'll be world beaters.



I didn't think we'd win and when we found out we'd have no Briggs or Herbert I wrote it off. I'm not reading anything into the result.



A lot of the boys seemed to be trying hard and we certainly had quite a lot of the ball and territory. Unfortunately we had no creative spark whatsoever and that inhibited our ability to attack immensely.



I'm looking at it from the angle of how would other super league teams have done against the champions without their loose forward and half backs? Imagine Leeds coming up against them without Burrow, Maguire and Sinfield and playing their full back Webb and a centre (Senior or Delaney) at half back with a prop (Burgess or Leuluai) at loose forward.



I don't think they would fare particularly well.



The boys made some silly errors (dropping high kicks that led to immediate tries being the worst) which they need to cut out but we didn't really see any of that the previous week.



If we go into Saturday's game with Herbert and either Kearney or Addy in the halves and put in as much effort as we did in the first 60 mins against Leeds or the first 20 mins of each half against Wigan then I think we'll do ok. It has to be for the full 80 mins of course.......and we have to have some luck for once!

Bit hard to find an issue at all with any of that, IMO.

Well, we lost against them at the GF without ours.