Brainfart by Holmes, throwing ball at opposing player - sent off, then a potential spear tackle from us gift Widnes 6 points, right in front of the posts.
The "fines" for penalties is really helping our discipline - not !

On the positive side, Roby, Appo, and Matongo all looking lively, and Lilley putting in good runs

Postpone that taxi for Dunning for a couple of weeks...

Blackmore MOM for me

Two very average teams out there. Fatty Walker's errors cost Widnes. Our indiscipline and errors nearly cost us.

Thought Lilley, England, Roby, Appo and Rogers were decent. Still lots to work on.

The main thing for me was that the 2022 Bulls would have folded today. Much better attitude and desire

Agreed. I can't remember the last time we won in the last minute. Last year in particular, if we were losing with 15 to go you knew that was it.

As Bullseye said, lots to work on though.

Lilley looked his best when going from dummy half. He looked sharp.
England was great. Appo looked strong.
Holmes very good.
Rogers and Roby impressive again

Defensivley very strong

Matongo in a bad way which is just frigging typical

Always great to nick a game lile that!

Your first point for me is a weird one in todays day and age. With the play the ball as it is (with the six again) the hookers job is not necessarily to break the line. But jump out well enough to ensure the prop/runner makes 15-20m. Roby (James) one of the best english hookers never broke the line really against Penrith. He won the game by making the right pass when he needed to.

Agree on your point being the most professional around. When he was on the bench he was giving Lawton (who was about to come on) some stick. Lawton scored next set pretty much. Problem with Flanagan is he should only give it IF him AND THE TEAM can back it up.


Still thought it was a poor performance. Dunning should still go. How England starts I don’t know. But a win is a win.

Poor performance??
2 teams that both got stuck in, gave it to each other and a game could have gone either way. Wed have rolled over last year and lost by 20. Showed some balls and stuck in till the last min. Pride, effort and knackers that all you can ask for.

England was great. Had a real game.

MOM for me was England

A good game. Real blood and thunder with two teams going toe to toe. Easily could have gone either way but I would say we marginally deserved it based on scoring 3 trys to their 2.

Again though way too much dropped ball (from both sides actually) so not a quality affair but a gutsy performance and pleasing to see us keep going and pinch it.

Appo and Matongo look promising and give us some size but we need to learn quickly that we are not going to go over anyone this year. We look better when moving the ball. Hopefully that means we are in for some entertainment come the dry warm months.

A much needed win. Now two free hit outs to come before attentions turns to Sheffield

You must have been watching a different game to me. England was incredible during that second half and made some good metres when our forwards were out on their feet. Appo gave us a bit of impact from the bench then quietened down as the game went on. A good first hit out for the PNG forward. Patton came up with some moments of class and cut a hole in the Widnes defence to send Holmes through to win the game.

A better performance than the York game but still miles off the pace in some areas. We got caught out twice on the last tackle where we didn't appear to know we were on the final play. Discipline again was poor in places and must improve if we are to even compete with sides like Toulouse and Fev.

I thought it was low in quality from both sides but couldn’t fault the commitment to grind out the result. We are still very predictable in attack and I lost count of the amount of times we just tried to barge ourselves over the line,

But some decent try saving defence and a result that came from pure hard work which should take a bit of pressure off heading into some fixtures that we have very little chance of winning.

Mixed bag on here. Some saying great performance. Some saying low quality. For me, with that team, we should be playing miles better than what we are. I’m happy to concede that it’s still early doors and there’s room for improvement. But for me it was poor. Yes, I’m happy the lads ground out a win. But we shouldn’t have been in a position to have to win in the last two mins.

You can have really good effort and still be poor and that’s what I thought of the game in general.

Reason why I said England was poor was the two dropped balls near their line in the first half. A few times he hit the defender and dropped off, resulting in two good chances for Widnes. Plus a poor defensive read for Grady’s try (regardless of going down to 12 with Holmes sin-binning). No excuse for that. I’ll watch the highlights when they come out but I’m sure it was England.

For me Wallace and Butler should be the starting SR’s anyway.

Lilley MOM for me closely followed by England.
I thought our defensive line speed was awful. It may be the style Dunning wants to play, setting and holding the line, but it doesn't work in midfield. Thought referee was shocking for both sides and failed to police offside at PTB. Thompson played well but at times really struggled to get back in the line. Much better display from Patton.
Onwards and upwards.

Having had a bit more time to reflect the main plus was the two points and the "never say die" attitude. It was a real mixed bag in other areas. Think each player needs to be more consistent during the 80mins. We need to sharpen up considerably in a lot of areas. Some incidents keep cropping up such as not taking the kick off, ill discipline (Holmes), zero line speed and unforced handling errors.

Couple of incidents baffled me such as when we chose to take a slow tap rather than kick for touch when awarded a penalty. Why? We had the wind. Also handing the ball over on the last tackle was a Kear-esque tactic. Not sure why this is happening. Need better from halfbacks and hooker.

Matongo may be out for a while depending on how bad the shoulder dislocation is which is a blow. Thompson will be back after his concussion break hopefully. Flanagan Snr needs to wind his neck in with the antics on the touchline too. He'll get in bother.

Real shame about Matongo yesterday, I thought he was going well till he got injured. Anyone know when Scurrs ban is up.I thought England had a good game and I thought Thaler had a shocker with the offsides, if Widnes had been onside for our last try we might not have scored it

Didn’t Matongo arrive with a shoulder injury and hence and the contract reflected the gamble we took on him? Hopefully the injury isn’t as bad as feared but perhaps a case of a punt that hasn’t paid off?

Quote ="Bully_Boxer"Didn’t Matongo arrive with a shoulder injury and hence and the contract reflected the gamble we took on him? Hopefully the injury isn’t as bad as feared but perhaps a case of a punt that hasn’t paid off?'" Could be - https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/sport/20620 ... st-season/ Would be rotten luck for him, especially as he did his knee in 2021: https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/r ... ry-5250504

Quote ="Bully_Boxer"Didn’t Matongo arrive with a shoulder injury and hence and the contract reflected the gamble we took on him? Hopefully the injury isn’t as bad as feared but perhaps a case of a punt that hasn’t paid off?'" Could be - https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/sport/20620 ... st-season/ Would be rotten luck for him, especially as he did his knee in 2021: https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/r ... ry-5250504

I [ithink[/i he has 2 or 3 games remaining.