I agree with Harrigan. Had Sammut grounded, shirley valentine been able to hold on to the ball and Purtell been able to get the ball down the whole tone on this board would be completely different.

The worrying thing was the way Catalans scored at will almost straight down the middle some real problems there but they've a week to work on it. I can remember a bloke pretending to tear up his season ticket book in front of Noble half way through the season in 2005 so i'm not going to cry like a baby after 1 match.

Get a grip and get behind the team. The atmosphere today was pathetic. Menzies (an ex player who turned his back on the club) got a bigger cheer when his name was read out by Steve Bailey than the team when they came out. We really need to buck our ideas up and create an intimidating atmosphere at Odsal!

Well on the Super League Fulltime show tonight Bill Arthur couldnt state enough how understrength Catalan were due to injuries and not once mentioning ours !!!

Also basically all potter said was we lost because they beat us and were betterin the middle of the pack

What was obvious from the highlights was the tragically weak defence from Diskin and Langley among others.

Potter came across as utterly bemused and a bit clueless to be honest. To say that 'the other side were better' was hardly an in-depth analysis, albeit true as all of us could see from the stands!

Be nice to see Elima and Whitehead back in the squad ASAP just for their defensive efforts - when is Manuokafoa due back ?

I thought Whitehead was very poor defensively last year but I agree about Elima. He is one of the better back rowers in the comp and the sooner Sibbit is out of the team, the better.

Now you see last year Sibbit started off absolute gash and was a penalty machine, as the year went on to be fair he did get better week after week,

And he isnt afraid to get stuck in like most players in the squad

Sibbit is an honest trier, but sadly out of his depth when it comes to the rigours of Super League.

That appears the case for most of the squad at the moment doesnt it ??

And if we hadn't have missed any tackles we'd have nilled them..

Potter thought we got beat up the middle - hardly surprising. Scruton is not big enough to be a prop (a couple of big hits two seasons ago doesn't compensate for his nervousness now after a couple of injuries) and he offers nothing in go forward, Hargreaves is no different, spends half his time stepping and running laterally. Koppy brilliant, come on loads and I'm hoping for the same from Burgess, but leWe're consistently poor at tackling around the ruck and didn't move up to meet the offense once today. Harrigan thinks our goal line defense was good, but that's not what you see from the highlights, you see poor tackling - using arms only and not bending the back - that's why Cats were able to break tackles and offload at will, our technique was appalling.

Other players - well Donaldson isn't big enough to play in the pack either and isn't elusive enough to compensate for his lack of size, his tackling is also suspect. Beaver was beating up Sibbit for fun and leaving him flat footed everytime he got one on one. Chev Walker - anonymous and slow. Elliot Kear and Crookes have pace, but when I watch Elliot today, I'm reminded of Halley or Ainscough, both fast, can be elusive but are unlikely to break a tackle and offer little in terms of return from defense. Gale and Sammut, well Gale hardly ran everything, got beat with Langley to the tackle to give up a try and apart from a couple of set patterns where he consistently passed high he didn't look any better than Briggs etc. Sammut is an individual, with lots of energy and invention, but his defense is pretty awful, as we saw when the Cats walked through him on the line for a try.

Whitehead, Elima and Manu will bolster the pack, but I fear for this team - what Hull and now Cats have done to us is no accident and I have no idea what Potter has being doing in terms of our defense.

Apologies if that sounds pretty negative, I can see us getting better but feel that the quality of our squad isn't good enough and we've got players like Walker, Sibbit, Langley, Hargreaves and Scruton who won't get any better and are probably not good enough to get us in to the top 8.

The point I'm trying to make is that we created the chances but didn't convert them clever !

Sounds a familiar story... that's the worry I have.

Chill out. October is a long way off.

I thought Donno was good today getting back to his best, shouldn't be an interchange should start against castleford IMO

I'm generally a pretty optimistic fan but I'm pretty sure our season won't be reaching October! I'd settle for sneaking 8th place and crashing out in the first round after the last few seasons.

yeahhh if someone told me that was going to happen i would bite their hand off

You will see

I actually left today's game not too disheartened at all really. Yes we were well beaten, but what did you expect? We were missing our two first choice second rowers, lost another early in the game, and also had Manase missing. That would make it tough against any team, but Catalans have one of the biggest - if not the biggest - pack of forwards in the entire league.
Paea, Ferriol and Fakir are all absolutely huge, and we struggled to win the collision every time. And when that happens, the Cats were getting quick ptbs which gave Henderson and Dureau all the space they needed to work their magic.
Conversely, we were losing the collision almost every time when we had the ball, allowing for a much slower ptb and also a lack of offloading opportunities.

We looked a bit shellshocked in the first 40 minutes, but Mick obviously sorted them out at half time and the second 40 was far more competitive. If it weren't for some strange decisions by Child we'd probably have won the half.

It's easy to go overboard after a first 40 minutes of the season like we've just witnessed but we need to remember Scruton, Langley, Diskin, L'estrange are all coming back from bad injury plagued seasons. Gale and Sammutt, Purtell, Kear have barely played together before, and we're mssing 5 or 6 guys you would've expected to play. So I don't think the situation is as hopelesss as some make out.

Nevertheless, considering both have had full pre-seasons Bryn Hargreaves and Ian Sibbit were pathetic. Despite little or no platform all of the backs made more impact when going into contact than these two.

Our pack is worryingly light.

Not a great revelation I know, but we're going to lose a lot in the collision this season

You conveniently forgot to mention that the Catalans were missing Leon Pryce plus their two first choice wingers plus Pelissier...

That is correct but the game was won early on in the forwards.

We really need to see more from Scruton and Hargreaves IMO, and Donaldson is just too small.

Hopefully Joseph gets a go at Cas along with Whitehead.

yeah,they a big bunch up front at Catalans - Fakir,Paea & Ferriol take some stopping !

how did Menzies play ?

It shows the RFL's bias when they permitted Wakey's brand new starting 13 to gel from round 1.

we missed mnm Elima and Whitehead much more than cats missed their wingers. I was surprised that Joseph wasnt given a go instead of Donaldson Hargreaves LF Langley 2nd row, to provide a bit more grunt to a light pack. So no change to my opinion, first half of season will be mixed, 2nd half much better. As Hood says, half way through the season is the time to judge Potter, not one half against a very stable team.