I wish injury on lots of people, all the time.
Usually at work though....

Is that a deliberate contradiction or just your usual sarcasm?

I'd be a damn sight more worried if it was after we had faced two of the worst teams! And we scored a lot more against Leeds than most teams are likely to do this season.

Any other reason??

Where did I say that?

Well you said that as long as they are playing out of position AND trying then you would not wish an injury on anyone. Therefore, it is fair to assume that if someone IS playing in position and/or not trying then it is open season?

Or shall we be a bit more honest and admit you only wished injury on McGuire cos he was a Leeds player?

Can we stay on topic please rather than raking over old coals?

Edit :Just read Bullseye's comment. Fine by me.

Yesterday as my body began to shut down from boredom and hypothermia I hit upon the idea of giving stadium tours to the terminally ill. The uncertainty of death can be upsetting so where better to prepare for the grave than Odsal on game day. Like the grave, it is cold, wet and silent.

The only bright spot was seeing Adey's lovely face again.

Think we may see a few changes to the 17 after yesterday. I thought that both Kopczak and Sibbit were totally ineffective and their places must be under threat. Koppy seems to have left his pre season form in the pre season. Barring one decent ball steal yesterday he made very few yards and didn;t get stuck in at all, in the end he was hardly noticable. He needs to up his workrate.

Sibbit seems to have struggled in the first two games with getting off quick enough at the PTB. He needs to get up to speed. Otherwise I can see him losing out once Donaldson is fit again.

I would certainly bring in Addy for one of them next week.

Agree with all of that. I thought Scruton & Hargreaves did ok yesterday without being fantastic (although one particular drive from Bryn was superb and they just couldn't put him down). Koppy though seems to be back to the poor form, and I'd be tempted to throw someone with something more to prove in next week (like Crossley). Sibbit was another who looked good in pre-season but hasn't shown anything yet when it matters.

The only thing in the back of my mind is that am I being too harsh on them, as the team in itself isn't performing great, so can we expect individuals to be any different. But how long do you give them? If picking on form, as Potter said he would, I think we may see one or both left out next week, if there's someone else fit who can replace them.

If we're still playing Sykes in the halves though and Kearney is having to do way too much all by himself, then sadly I can't see it mattering who we play off the bench.

I think if we're struggling in the halves we need to create some impact of the bench to give them some space. I'd have Scruton on the bench for that very reason. I also think putting Addy in the side at loose forward or at stand off would take some pressure off Kearney.

I'm not convinced we should make Sykes play at stand off again. We know what to expect. Long term it won't do him or us any good. As for Southernwood in pre season he din't break any pots against poor opposition. I wouldn't put him in a struggling side.

Despite missing first-choice half-backs Kyle Briggs and Marc Herbert, both sidelined by injury, Potter refused to seek excuses, and that just how it should be, but for the fans, the disruption caused by the loss of our new scrum half shortly before MM, and then having no first choice halfbacks, in a brand new squad, against the champions, should not be underestimated.
Herbert is a promising young Aussie half and as BB said is our first choice #7 - if we can get him on the bloody field.


Absolutely. Briggs is out for at least a month, though, and so the disruption will continue.

Again great attitude, we must and will just get on with it. But there's nothing wrong with stating simple facts in mitigation.

I love this guy. He is just brutally honest. We did make a lot of errors, and it was largely down to playing under the cosh, against the champions, and trying to come from behind.

And whilst I am not going to moan about our disallowed "tries", people who bemoan our score should be aware that we did actually find ways to get through Wigan's defence, but nearly every time we did, an infringement was found. Suffice to say that there was not much in those decisions, and the score would have been much less cruel (though still a loss) had we got on the board the points which we deserved.



The final scoreline was a bit cruel, but it wasn't a wipeout, it's just that Wigan were able to put the points on the board whenever opportunities arose, and we couldn't. Our score in no way reflects the good ground we made, or the time we spent inside their 20.

Our score also does reflect what was and is a cruel and ultra-hard-working Wigan defence, you only have to contrast the wide open spaces on the Bulls flanks to the position when we were attacking, where it didn't seem to matter where on the filed we were, there were always 3 or 4 men there to make the tackle. You don't get a defence tlike that, or organisation like that, by accident and if I ha dbeen watching anyone else than the Bulls, I would say it was a pleasure to watch.

And on that note, as an England/GB fan, it is great to see the continued exploits of the superb Sam Tomkins, surely one of the best players the English game has produced for a very long time.

It was serious, but on re-reading it's got all the hallmarks of Terrace Singer. On the one hand you conceded 40+ at home to a team that had only scored 16 against the worst Saints side I've seen in a while & 30+ to a decaying Leeds side. On the other hand I expect both to be there at the end of the season. None of which would have changed with first choice HBs.

It's nice when he brings it out occasionally.

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.