Random thoughts in no particular order

Fair result on balance of play

York always looked much more capable of making significant metres than we did

Again, we were our own worst enemies. Any of the many chances we bombed could have turned the tide of the match, you simply can't afford to fritter away possession like we do, both halves. Running in touch, forced dead in goal, bombing tryscoring passes, dumb penalties, sequence of cheap turnovers.

Need a lot of work on markers, York made miles from the PTB all day. in contrast, we found it very hard to make metres, and sometimes it seemed likle just a long sequence of short range hitups and a slow PTB. Even when we were chasing the game.

York's tactics blatantly included disrupting anything we ever got going, and for the large part, they got away with it. Giving away a penalty when that is what you aim to do is not a deterrent. One guy in fairness did get binned, but despite the number of infringements, no team warning. Weird.

Looked to me like dead set try from Chisholm's kick, flagrant professional foul, no sin bin. Inexplicable. we may not have on balance deserved it but I'm pretty sure if not for the illegal holding back, we would have skated under the posts, and very likely gone on to win the game. Don't like to see teams profit from professional foul play, but York did.

At the moment we look like a low-mid-table side at best. We need a lot of improvement if we are not to be in the relegation mix.

I agree with you FA. I think it all went wrong though when we had a cheerleader stretchered off. You can't compete in this league if your a cheerleader down.

Most of that id agree with.

My random thoughts.

Lacking composure in the 1st half partucularly. Bombed a couple of trys.

Kicking game was poor yet again. 2 many 7 tackle sets just like last friday.

Flannagan had a shocker from the second he set foot on the pitch

Massivly missing Green Peltier and Bustin. Kirk and Olsi offered very little. Cant knock Kirks effort but hes just an easy target. When every one is fit, he misses out for me. York lookd stronger down the middle than us. I may be being over critical but Crossley hasnt seemed at his best yet either.

Attack was terrible close to their line. We are so easy to defend against. 2 many settlers or turning it back in side to a forward. Our 3/4 line is top drawer for this level we should be killing teams out wide.
The few times we did get the ball wide we scored.

The passin today was terrible. So many balls on the deck or behind someone.

Outstanding comment



Agree, I think York just deserved the win although they were there for the taking. The Webster forward pass with the line begging at the start of the game set the tone. When we managed to put the ball through a few hands we looked dangerous. This didn't happen til the second half though. In terms of forwards we are desperately missing some punch in the middle. I hope that's provided when Bustin and Peltier return. Big wraps to Crossley who had to do the work of two props today and ran his blood to water. It's a long season and this is a hard league with no easy games at all. There is loads time to turn it round.

I wonder how long we’ll continue with the style of play that obviously isn’t working. Our style of play is boring, unimaginative, predictable and a problem when we don’t have our middle. We might have got away with walking over teams in league 1, we won’t in this division.

i have said we would be middle of the league this year to date i haven't seen anything to change my mind, I also think York's 3rd try in the corner was grounded by the bulls and the ref got it wrong for a change lol.

Too much ineffective one up drives that made very little ground. After the break we changed tack for a while and shifted the ball quickly along the line to our backs which worked but then fell back into the one up drives. Very poor reffing, Pickersgill deffo looked to have grounded the ball from where I was and will someone please spend some time with Chisholm on his tackling technique, it's terrible.

Couldn’t make the match so can only comment from the radio commentary. However it seemed like a large percentage of last tackle options resulted in a cross field kick, is this now our desperation go to tactic if we cannot score?

I think games like this are the difference between making the top 5 or missing out. Obviously there is still a long way to go but dropping points at home against a closely matched rival makes the job a whole lot tougher. York last year seemed very skilled at holding out for the points in those close matches, it’s an attribute I think have yet to master. When you look at the team sheet we have a few more experienced heads so I think we are definitely underperforming right now. Doesn’t get any easier with Toulouse up next at Odsal, masssive improvement required.

Couldn't disagree with anyone on this page. Highly frustrating, and the Ref was very poor. One has to ask the definition of Obstruction? Never seen such a blatant crossing offence that resulted in a try to York. They have learned to manipulate the ref. whilst we seemed only to upset him, , like last week in fact! Were York the Saints, whilst we were the sinners?

Didn't quite get our line up. 3 props, one is still very young and isn't dominating anyone, then two back-rowers on the bench who are both capable of playing 80 mins as are both the starters.

I said earlier in the week I wanted us to really attack York, but with Hallas at LF, it just seems to me we are setup to try and stay in the game, then kick to Ethan. We should be more confident, put Minchella at loose and use our back line. Didn't one of Yorks wingers go off injured not to come back on. Yet from listening to the radio we didn't use that talented back line. I really want to see Kear set us up to go attack the opposition, dictate the play, drag the opposition around the field, rather than the Conservative, stay in the game then try and sucker punch them with a kick to the corner tactics. Allowing York to dictate the pace plays into their hands.

3 times we've played York and I don't think we've deserved to win any.

I've said it before but we look poorly coached. I know we're going to struggle to win collisions until we can get Green, Bustin and Peltier back in the side but even today when we had possession inside York's 20 we either made a mistake, ran the ball out of touch or put in a wasteful kick.
There's just no structure to our attack whatsoever. The one time we got some quick ball to our centre and we scored from it!
Think I counted maybe only one or two offloads the entire game, hardly anybody can draw a man, we have no dummy runners or set plays to force defenders into making decisions. We're just far too easy to defend against.

And as if our poor play wasn't bad enough, John Kear is now leaving us all scratching our heads with his team selections as well. Today was Workington at home from last season all over again. As soon as I saw those bench options I knew we would lose.

In some ways I'm not too fussed, I find myself quite apathetic towards this entire season because we've absolutely no hope of competing with Toronto for promotion and (hopefully) will win enough games to not finish in the bottom two. So when you look at it that way, there's very little to play for, especially with the distribution of central funding becoming more normalised.

Meh.

I couldn’t make the game today but managed to catch the second half on the radio.

I was very disappointed with the result and I felt this is the type of game at home that we need to win if we want to push for the play offs.

I have to say though, I think there’s quite a lot of negativity to say we are a newly promoted side. I still get the feeling that some fans feel like we’re a special case, we should never have been in L1 and as such we’re looking at our side differently to how we’d look at a neutral side who’ve just been promoted.

We’re 4 games in and we’ve still got a lot of good players to come into the side (Peltier, Bustin & Keyes).

I don’t think we will be in the relegation mix and I still hope we can push for the play offs.

Maybe it’s the other way round and I’m being too positive!

I felt it was an entertaining game between 2 fairly evenly matched sides, 1 of which unfortunately took their chances better.

We had Ryan in the corner in the first minute or 2, Webster’s horrible pass to Hitchcox when it looked a certain try, Flanagan held up over the line, Hitchcox right at the end in the corner.

If just 2 of those go our way we win the game and the outlook is completely different. Score all of them and it looks a comfortable victory. Unfortunately we got none of them.

Also York’s try given when our player grounded it first.

It wasn’t a terrible performance and once again these 2 rivals served up a good spectacle.

Some of the comments i’ve seen on some of the social media platforms are over the top. We lost by 10 points to the team that finished ahead of us last season in L1. There is no disgrace in that. It is early days and unfortunately at the moment we are contending with a few key injuries to players that would be in the team. We will get better and more clinical over the season I’m sure.

I think there are some unrealistic expectations in the fan base about what we can achieve this year.

Looking at the results and the table so far it is going to be a ridiculously close season and unfortunately we are going to have to suck up some defeats where we felt we could perhaps have won.

I watched the Leigh v Toronto game this eve and that was a pretty close affair. On that showing Toronto will not have it all their own way this year and Leigh will be yet another tough team that we will have to work extremely hard against to try and defeat.

Yes I've got to agree with all comments so far. As much as the ref was aweful, our play was diabolical at times especially during the 1st half.

As has been said previous we've got probably the best back line in the league on paper - so y not use them

Few of our men (no names) want rockets up their asses. Hopefully better performance next week after a sterm word or 10 from JK or it's gunna b a long hard season

In York 20, 4 points behind, can someone please explain why Kirk has 2 drives (Inc last tackle). Complete lack of ideas?

Agree with the majority of previous comments. See little evidence of the benefit of 22 full time training squad ….little cohesion or planned moves in evidence. When we do move it wide we seem capable but too much ploughing down the middle and little yardage gained. JK does need to consider a change of team - forced (suspensions) or not as this group clearly not working at the moment and there are 'others in the wings waiting for a place'. Good to see Matty Storton get a run out, deserves more minutes. Surprised the attendance was nearly 2000 less than the Fev game?

I'd be looking at the idiot who decided to pass to a prop in such a position. Can't really have a go at Kirk in such a situation, he's not in the side for his creativity!

The lack of ideas is down to the coaching, or lack of it.

Where to begin? Well I agree with almost all of the comments so far but we must still remember that we were runners up in L1. Yesterday we were missing 4 props and so were always going to struggle to make ground. I thought it was a bit closer than the score suggested. York were the better team, I don’t think the ref was all that bad to be honest.

Our main problems are to do with our attacking play. It’s always more difficult if you’re losing up front but today we actually looked more threatening with ball in hand in our own half than we did when we were in theirs. We seem to lack any kind of attacking structure when we’re on the opposition line. The set of plays when we ended up giving the ball to Kirk twice sums us up. The halfbacks seem unable to organise anything unless it is a kick to Ethan Ryan. I think this lack of idea contributes to the brain farts we make in attack too like running directly into touch (Flanagan) and running over the dead ball line (Kraniqi). It’s frustrating because when we spread the ball we looked really good, especially on Webster’s side. The try to Pickersgill was excellent. Why can’t we be creative like that when we’re on the opposition line? When York were attacking us they had lots of runners and looked really organised. With us it’s the opposite. We hardly ever offload in the tackle, so much so that when it happens it takes players by surprise and nearly leads to us giving the ball away. This has got to be down to the way the team is coached. Is this a weakness in Kear’s coaching?


Defensively I think we started the season ok but as we go on I think coaches are starting to target our weakness around the ruck. Our lack of big lads meant York were on the front foot and too often we didn’t get numbers in the tackle and they were running at a defence that was back pedalling.

The lack of props means we’re not getting much impact off the bench either. I did think Storton added something when he came on but there wasn’t much from anyone else.

We really need Peltier and Bustin back. Keyes too since I think our halfbacks are playing too inconsistently. Both had mixed games. One minute you had a great kick the next they were kicking dead. That’s criminal with the 7 tackle set. Both need to get more idea in attack than just booting it to Ethan Ryan. What about forcing a goal line drop out?

Apparently Bustin is approaching fitness again, same for Wilson too. They can’t come back quick enough.

Thought we failed to win the game in the first 20 mins rather than lost it in the last 20.frustrating but it was an entertaining game.need keyes back to get the back rowers firing.some good attacking lines are being run but the halves choose to ignore them.

We’re definitely missing Keyes in attack. While he’s out I’d be tempted to play Minchella at loose forward so he can get his hands on the ball more.

Frustrating game to be honest. York probably deserved the points, for no other reason than any team which caves in, twice, through the middle doesn't deserve to win anything. The score flattered them somewhat though.

I don't think York were particularly impressive either and I can't see either of these sides troubling the top three or four, certainly not on yesterday's form. We do still have some 'big hitters' to come back though so all is not lost but we do need to achieve some forward dominance or we won't get anywhere. Getting Pelts and Bustin back may create the space to let Minnie return to his running form of last year. I also think that Jordan Lilley needs to be able to cut back on some of the tackling he's being forced into (ie someone else, preferably some big forwards, ought to be taking up the slack) as it's clearly affecting his running and distribution game when he's forced into being a tackling machine.

On a final note, I hope the young lass who was taken to hospital is OK. She was getting all the necessary care form the medical staff but still went off in an ambulance, hopefully it was just for checks and to be safe.

I'd throw both in for Toulouse. As others have said, we are desperately needing some players to provide some impact and do something. We have too many grafters in there. All willing workers who will tackle and take the BALL up all day long but nothing is happening. Hallas isn't going to create a try or bust a tackle so is wasted at 13 on a dry pitch against York. You want him there when it's going to be a slog on a small pitch.

Get Minchella at 13 to give Lilley and Chisholm more space. Bustin to come off the bench for a 10 min spell either side of HT. I'd throw Wilson in there too.

At this point I'd be looking to play Milnes instead of Lilley, and once Keyes is back seeing how Milnes and Keyes go together.
It seems as though Lilley's decent game against Featherstone was a one time thing - he's been poor since then.

For me we are too all or nothing at the minute. It's drive, drive...kick or 'Woah!! Weve bust a tackle we HAVE to score no matter what' We seem to lack the will to build pressure or maintain composure.

And though Webster was a stand out for me that 'pass'..... My daughter could have thrown it better so it seems our short burst excitability infects old heads joining us.

Ditto to other comments... Bustin, Peltier, Wilson and Green can't wait until they are available as we are really struggling with Kear's predictable tactics.

Spoke to Mikey Wood after the game and he looked sick as a dog to be missing out. Don't know what he's done wrong tbh... he's been played out of position since start of the year yet still done a reasonable job and defensively makes us better in the middle.

Whereas we have a fat knacker in Krasniqi who offers absolutely zero to this team (I mean how thick is the guy to run himself dead in goal?) and Hallas who I admire for his heart and passion but again is a 5/10 time player at best.

Storton did well when he cam on but again similar to Wood was being played out of position and as a prop. I can see the problem, others can see it but yet Kear seems oblivious. His interview in the Southbank after the game had me thinking if I was watching the same game as him!!!

Chisholm needs to start earning his wage as he's carried on from where he left off last year. Lilley is struggling on his own and is getting no help from either his forwards or half back partner. Keyes is back in training I think and hoping to be back next week so fingers crossed he can come in and shake up things at least there.

I know its only four games in but this 5 drives and a kick only works if the forwards can actually win the arm wrestle... and on the showing so far they are no where near!!!