It might not seem like it, but it's probably a good thing for Warrington to lose one this early. You have a very strong side, you're going to be right up there and are still my bet to win the LLS. But the longer the unbeaten run goes, the more pressure piles up. You get 10 games in and people start talking unbeaten seasons etc, the Duck would be forecasting that you'd win every remaining game by 124. Now unless Saints lose to London or Huddersfield, you'll be at least second for most of March and will be able to go under the radar a little and let Saints get the favourites tag which is always a burden in SL.

I thought the game showed Blake Austin in all his glory. That's how his career has gone. Sublime when on form, technically deficient when not. To be world class you need to be consistent and he's failed at that so far., despite his undoubted talent. Chris Hill also went from the sublime to the ridiculous, with his amazing Tommy Martyn-esque pass followed by an embarassing drop to end the game when he was pretending to be a ball playing forward.

I really agree with what you say here Saddened. The only thing I'd slightly disagree on is Austin. He made two try scoring passes which weren't held and he tried to fashion some creativity on the back of a pack who could've/should've been more assertive. i think/hope we'll come out the blocks v Cas. I hope Price has given them a blast. On paper we have a top side. It just needs everyone to be singing from the same hymn sheet at the same time.

Mr Pastry - that’s a bit of a blast from the past. Distant past

Thought Austin, although not great, was one of our better performers and is always a danger. Don't mind our marquee being a bit rocks and diamonds - better than rocks and car parks.

There was a slim margin...if we'd take Hill's penalties count cost, minus his try, I think we'd have won the game without 100% effort.

Lots of bigging up about that sweet Hill pass, but he was the biggest culprit for me.

Thought Hill was pathetic at times. Austin was very good.

Agreed. If someone asked me to visualise Warrington being penalised, I usually in my head, see Chris Hill getting up off the floor, gobbing off for it, he’s got a real stupid side to his game and on Saturday we saw both extremes. He costs us an awful lot of metres and arguably, points.

If he played for anyone else, he’d be in my top 10 list of unlikeable gentlemen of the game, sadly.

On an unrelated note, for a team that prides itself on defence, our ultimate undoing has to be letting them take such a big lead early on. The pundits mentioned their points per game average and it was much lower than ours. Only ourselves to blame really between that and stupid handling errors.

Chris Hill gave away 2 penalties......The same as Dec Patton

I was disappointed with Austin and Goodwin (who is normally so solid). Austin tried to do too much. The handling was awful with the passing being much too optimistic. It was a poor show. Mind you we nearly won.

Edwards, Casty and Gigot are a disgrace to the game as they keep diving & pretending to be injured. They should be penalised.

What happened to Lama Tasi?

Quantity is irrelevant to an extent, where and when the penalty is conceded in hills case is too often the most damaging part of the pen. Which is why his are often stand out penalties.

He's just not very good.

Did Lama Tasi get injured?

Dec's final penalty - the ball steal wasn't good timing.

The Hill pass was superb though, credit where it's due. It's just he's a bit thick.

I wondered that, I dont recall him coming back on after his initial stint.

I agree with most of the analysis on the thread, the woeful passing and dropped ball were worse than amateur.

However, THE MOST disappointing thing as far as I'm concerned, is that it couldn't have been a surprise for anyone how the game was to be played including the antics. Ultimately we should have been prepared for it and met fire with fire for the opening twenty minutes it's what they did to Saints in the semi and us in the Final it's not a new Catalan brand of RL that was unleashed for the first time....una sorpresa? no realment com s'esperava!!

BTW I don't have the 'luxury' of Sky Sports so tuned into Mix for what I thought might be an enjoyable Saturday RL fix. How wrong was I, my my that Jon Wells fella, it can't be right him sticking his unbiased oar in every time there's a bit of slow mo to review? Painful

We played crap, we blew easy chances, in France and lost by a single point. Disappointing but hardly the end of the world.

we were rubbish

PRICE OUT... BRING BACK SMITH

I've just watched the highlights back and the penalty by Patten appears to be inteference at the play of the ball (not getting out of Mcillurum's way). The penalty was incurred about 8 yards in the Cats half, but the penalty was taken about 6 yards in our half? Am I missing something, as I thought it should be taken at the point of interfernce, not 10 yards closer?


Rule from RL rule book :
Interfering with heel
The tackler who is on the opponent’s side of the player should remove himself as quickly as possible so as not to interfere with the heel. If he does interfere he should be penalised.