Very concerned about this lad.

Quite apart from his performance I thought his body language was truly awful.

I agree. Was not his best game. is kick selection is the reason we lost the game. The kick he put up to Ah-Van should have been a kick to tuch and run the clock down when your up by 12.

HE seemed to be arguing with a lot of players also yesterday.

Addy showed yesterday why we should not throw money at him to stay.

Donaldson was the best tackler on the field.

I think out of anyone else in the squad, Elliott's departure would affect Luke the most. The two of them were best mates really.

Let's hope FC and the rest of the guys can raise his spirits, because there really aren't that many half backs around right now and we need to keep him.

Watching a different game to me. I thought Gale was excellent yesterday and created most of what Bradford did in attack. Admittedly he wasn't so good in defence, but you don't expect 40 tackles a game from your half, and when he has Hock running at him constantly, he was always going to struggle.

Can't be blaming the halfbacks for the god awful defence that allowed Widnes to win it.

Gale was million miles better than Addy.

He looked incapable of passing the ball at times. even when he had a 2 or 3 man overlap outside him he went himself. I wont loose any sleep over him moving to Wakey.

Gale had a fairly decent first half using the wind but was less convincing in the second. At times we looked rudderless and our last tackle options were very poor. He's responsible for a lot of that. His defence on the right side was awful too.

Big improvement needed.

We need two new half backs.Put Brown and say Hanbury in the Bulls side and they win.
Gale will never be good enough,he was ordinary at London imo.

Are there any OOC halfbacks that we can afford? We certainly need one as backup at the very least with Addy apparently leaving.

Gale never tore up trees for London but he was an improvement on what we had when he signed. What are the alternatives at the moment? Shame we've nobody up to stepping up from the U19s.

From what I've seen of LG he's better than Marc Herbert but not as good as Kyle Briggs. I didn't understand the rush to offer him a new deal when he still had a year remaining and we were so short of players.

Kyle Briggs was not given a chance. I would seriously look at Dominicc Brambani from Sheffield or Liam Finn.

Both would be a risk but but they would be good back up until they got used to the Full time training etc.

Danny Brough came from the 1st division and look at him now.

With the greatest of respect to Liam Finn, he will be 30 by the time 2014 season kicks off. I know some players are later developers but I think that is pushing it a little for a halfback, don't you?

Think hes pretty poor in all honesty, I was concerned last year when I watched him too.

Gale had an OK first half, in some ways, but if your halfbacks can't create enough scores to put Widnes to bed when you spend HALF AN HOUR camped in their half, then they its hard not conclude that they simply aren't up to the job.

You've changed your tune recently, you were quoting Mick Potter, Abraham Lincoln and Moses last time someone spoke ill of Gale.

For me, the kick to Ah Van summed up his season for me, we needed field position and needed to use our heads, just put a grubber through and try to force a drop out or keep them within their 10m line, the nothing kick was just deflating!

I think Gale could be okay, but he needs an experienced partner in the halfs that can boss him around a bit and call the important shots. Sammut is unable to do this as he doesn't know what he's about to do. Not many experienced halfs available without using a quota spot. A Gower type of player would be perfect for him, but this is not going to happen any time soon.

Would we have won the game off with Sammut playing???

To be honest, the kick wasn't all that bad, Purtell and Kear should have buried Ah Van, but yeah it probably should have been a grubber.

After watching him closely after his comeback (Purtell), I really don't think he is a . I'm okay with Kear as a winger but he needs that security inside him and Purtell seems uncomfortable playing there

I dont think Purts' heart is in it any more, no pun intended he just seems to be going through the motions and i can see his leaving at the end of season also.

I cant fault the lads effort, but he doesn't seem smart enough to play there. If anything hes better suited to wing and just running hard and tackling hard, but Kear has more skills and pace and agility, so Id prefer him there. I'd let Purtell go personally.

That is a great line. A real corker. However, on a more serious note, you know that things really are bad when there are more and more posts by FA that are bordering on the negative. He is, quite easily, the biggest optimist on this board and if He is beginning to get down in the dumps then I would say that there is something badly wrong.

Please also do not read this as an anti-FA post either. On the contrary it is more out of respect for FA that I have noticed this.

It is maybe worse than I first thought.

I have noticed the same, yesterday's result was a tough one to take.

No brains when in posession! not easily solved....

I started to get worried when he did not argue with me on another thread. I thought he maybe had a fever or something.

Still, I love FA I do. There is a place on the sofa in the NT for him anytime.

Make your mind up



I got slated for saying he is an overrated player and he's not good enough, I hoped he would improve but lets face it, he's a flop and just not good enough.

Absolutely and I made the same comment at the time. We'd just defended our line successfully and were no doubt blowing a little. We managed to get to the Widnes line and all that was needed was to stay down their and apply some pressure. We had I think a 12 point lead at that stage so why go for a risky kick to the corner? I'm sure Cummins must be pointing these things out to the player but the same daft mistakes keep occurring each week. I think we could desperately do with a leader who can manage situations like yesterday when we needed to close the game down.

My thoughts. Gale can show some nice touches, but then some equally poor ones, maybe getting too confident. First set of the second half he tried a fancy kick with the outside of the boot.

I think his game management is very poor, particularly when things are going against us. Your half back cant just do some nice stuff when we have momentum. Yesterday any half decent half back should have taken the game by the scruff of the neck can calmed things down. Slow everything down by simple kicks.

His defence is appalling too.

However there is a shortage of half backs out there. In our situation guess we have to make do. But i expect much improvement from him.