Currently 24-6 after 60 minutes.

FT: 36-6 Bulls win
Attendance: 4138
MOTM: Gaskell

Very low intensity match, never appeared to get out of second gear.

Not really a surprise given the conditions.

I've only just got the feeling back in me fingers

Don't seem to be playing with too much direction in last couple of games. We started well this week but then seemed to go away from a game plan. Fancy kicks with outside of boot, instead of kicking in corner and making them come out.

Missed Mullaney a lot when he went off early.

Jimmy needs to rotate his squad next couple of weeks. Looked sluggish at times today and we don't want to burn our best players out.

Scrappy win. Conditions certainly played a part but we need to be much better than last couple of weeks though for fax.

We looked sluggish because of the state of the pitch. All that rain over the last few days has turned it into a pudding. Today's driving wind and rain also made the game slower than it would be usually.
As a result watching that match was like pulling teeth at times. We did what we needed to do to get the two points, Workington are no mugs and they made us work for it.
Defensively we were never really troubled. It was good to see us defend entire sets on our own line, not much we could do about their one score - the bounce of the ball just favoured them in that instance.
Clough was immense yet again, and Tahraoui wasn't far behind him. Fleming made some good yards but looks unfit to me. Lauaki is on the verge of becoming a liability. Against full time opposition I fear he will be found out and could cost us.

Really low intensity game, slow play of the balls and if we're not careful this low intensity rugby will become the norm.

You couldn't see the fitness difference bearing in mind we're full time and they're not. I'm not sure our forwards won the battle and why isn't Luaki running the ball in hard, more than once he was passing it before he hit the opposition.

The conditions are no excuse for a lack of intensity and we need the points difference as Leigh appear to be managing to wallop teams every week.

Thought we were poor today TBH. A better opposition would have beaten us. Need to up our game for fax on Friday for sure. Hopefully mullaney and tahroui were just withdrawn as precautions rather than actual injuries.

We looked sluggish and seemed to lack a bit of direction at times, however a win is a win but we will need to up our game to trouble HKR, i have also heard a rumour Sidlow is going to HKR but i have to say the source is not that reliable

Gaskell to wire

a plug?

An awful game in terrible conditions, we got the job done. Interesting to see Addy coming on at SH for Siejka in the second half. I thought Tahroui was awesome today and was the man of the match. He had three players hanging off him at every tackle and dragged them for another 5m every time. He is far better than Lauaki who fancies himself as a half back.

It ended up becoming the game I half expected and dreaded - with Workington slowing it down, spoiling, time wasting and basically trying to avoid a repeat of last weeks scoreline.

Can't say I blame them! But with that, and windy conditions, we ended up getting dragged into a slow, scrappy sort of game where we never ever looked like losing, but never looked like doing much more than was necessary to get the two points

We'll need to be better against Halifax, and I'm sure we will be. Looking forward to it, should be a good crowd, better atmosphere than today and a bit of spice in the game...

It was exactly the sort of game that you would expect in freezing, muddy, wet and windy conditions and I think some people are being unduly critical. As said Worky are no mugs, and you have to admire how they stick to the task from start to finish. We defended extremely well, even in the face of successive penalties, covered very well and generally worked hard. I don't know what the point is of speculating what would happen "against a better team", they - whoever they were - would be as much a victim to those conditions as us, and whilst we didn't look particularly convincing in organisation and attack, I see no reason to expect that the defence would have folded against other sides, it was very well organised and there was a clear desire to protect the line. I'm happy enough taking everything into consideration.

Still not sure about Siejka. Tahraoui is looking a proper handful. Henry is slowly improving and running some good lines. O'Brien is a constant threat, and Gaskell is the class of the division and a class kicker both positionally and especially kicks for touch from penalties.

Speaking of which, has the rule that a team that finds touch with a kick from a 20-metre optional restart is awarded the loose head and feed at the scrum been abolished, or did the ref have a brainfart?

I think that it has to be a drop kick, it looked like Gaskell tapped it first then punted it so it becomes just a touchfinder head and feed to the opposition.

Correct decision, tapped by AOB and passed to Gaskell so therefore counts as a normal kick to touch

Yeah the ref got that right. You can either tap it, or kick to touch. We did both.

I thought the ball landed behind the Workington 20 making it a 40 20. Maybe I just dreamed that?

It laded between the 20 and 30 lines.

Is Sidlow injured?

Jimmy said on Bulls TV he picked up a slight knock at the end of last weeks game so they just took the decision to give him a rest this week.

Didn't sound too serious and I'd expect he'll play on Friday

I stand corrected

Said the man in the orthopedic shoes... I couldn't help myself.

Understandable..

Bdumm Tschh!

Must have been really close, as the resulting scrum was almost bang on the 20. Regardless, next time they try that tactic, I bet they won't be tapping the ball. A lesson learned.