Positional sense perhaps?

Y'know, I though he had that last night, more of it anyhow. He took his position off the people inside him, y'know. He must have had four centres inside him last night, so that didn't help, Westwood, Bridge, VA. Hard to be cohesive.

He got done with the Richards try first half, fine.

From then on, he was good. Put himself between man & ball on a couple of occasions, was in good positions to field kicks and defused threats well, one in the first half where Tomkins kicked cross field, he did well.

Blythe had a shocker last night, cant see him playing again this season, a loan spell wouldnt hurt him. Didnt really notice picks do anything particularly bad or good.

Rauhihi has been a liability for 12 months, he offloads occasionally but most of the time its just a wild throw backwards. What gets me is that he always goes into the tackle backwards, how are you supposed to break the line doing that? He should look at Moz, carvell or cooper - forwards who go forward and hold the ball, yes they will offload if the time is right but certainly not on every occassion.

I think Johnson is an honest bloke who gives his all, unfortunately I think his head is set on a move to Wigan next year.

Penny did ok last night, didnt get a huge amount of ball but did ok when he hid.

If he is in the team then the team have to play to his strengths and use his best attribute - speed.

All too often when he is in the team he is seen as just a liability or weakness because we dont seem capable of playing to his strengths. I was crying out for someone to put him away in clear ground last night but it never happened and never looked like happening.

For me, he was playing on the wing in which he's least effective for a start. He's always looked a more natural left than right, with his carry & step. But to see him in the side was good.

We didn't have the creative players in our side last night to try to create for him. I'd like to have seen him on the left when Louis made that break early doors. I was also gutted he didn't take that intercept at the second attempt.

I think there's enough to work with, we shouldn't wirte him off.

Off to Wigan according to the rumours and it showed last night.

Johnson and Rauhihi should be nowhere near the Wembley 17. Rau has gone back to his old ways of drive it in and throw it back no matter what!.

Blythe was shocking, missed loads of tackles

Unfortunately I think these players are NL standard. However we have enough talent coming through.

Picks was looking promising at the beginning of 2008. Very aggressive tackling and I thought that was the season he was going to impress but he went and knackered himself long term away at Wakey.

I do rate him but last night was a difficult time to be judging youngsters/players without a lot of SL game time.

Johnson meant to be off to Wakey according to rumour now.

Wigan aren't meant to be signing anyone.

blythe was a fixture in lowes team at the end of last year and the start of this, like we've all said, deservingly so, he's not took his chance though, he's one of a few players that doesn't seem to have improved since our tony turned up.

Darryl Griffin i heard

I thought McCarthy was excellent some really big hits.

Here, here. Aggressive, enthusiastic and brave. The lad has gone under the radar for a while but now he has gone full time expect to see a lot more from him.

Yep, although one thing I would say is that it was only his second game under Smith. You'd like to think that if Smith decides he is going to work with him over the pre-season with a view to getting him back in the first team, then he will learn how to use his skills.

As you say, positional sense may be his biggest weakness at the moment, yet surely somebody like Smith can coach this? Look how Briers' defence has improved for an example.

I hate to say this but Blythe was absolutely terrible.

The other player who seems to escape criticism is Mathers though; he constantly looks shaky under a kick and never beats the first man on kicks returns. Lacks pace.

He only missed one to be fair, and that was a good kick behind him. He takes everything else.

He certainly doens't lack pace.

He doesn't inspire confidence. And if he had good pace and/ or evasive skills he would be beating players which he never does. His best asset is his communication skills.

Compared to the best FBs at other clubs (Wellens, Webb, Hodgson) he is very ordinary.

He beat Ryan Hall chasing a ball against Leeds and he's fast.

Rau has been consistently one of our worst players, if he could recapture the form he had against Leeds in the playoffs a couple of years ago then he could be one of the best forwards in SL.

It's too early to judge on Blythe but yesterday he had one of his worst performances in a Wire shirt.

I disagree, I think he is a different player to them though.

One thing he does very well is be in position for the deep kicks. He then just runs straight back at the defence. Whilst this allows him to be tackled, it does make us as many metres as possible.

He averages 7.7m per carry
Wellens averages 6.3m
Webb averages 6.6m
Hodgson averages 6.5m

He does make less tackle busts, but he seems to go down to get a quick ptb, I'm not sure whether this has always been his style, or a change in style in response to his serious injury.

Mathers plays up in the line a lot like an extra half, whereas a lot of the others are traditional 1's.

Tackle Completion:

Mathers - 89.4%
Webb - 81%
Wellens - 88%
Hodgson - 77.4%


Errors:

Mathers - 10 (1 per game)
Webb - 11 (0.6 per game)
Wellens - 19 (0.9 per game)
Hodgson - 34 (1.7 per game)

So he makes more metres than the others, his tackle completion is better, and his error count is similar.

He's doing okay by me. Last night they scored a few tries where he had made the try saving tackle. On the next play nobody covered for him.

To be honest I was a bit underwhelmed at our signing of Mathers, not particularly bothered either way.

Watching him play for us I've not once been sorry we signed him. He's always been solid and for me is a much safer bet than Readon at FB. Plus he looks like he wants to be here and play for us and the stats above speak for themselves. I'm really glad we signed him.

And that is a good word for him (apart from the one glaring costly error he seems to come up with per match). I would want more attacking threat from FB.

Thought pickers had a solid game, and McCarthy didn't look out of place at all considering 1st game back from knee op and his debut.

That's quality stuff that Dave, seriously. I'm loving your analysis more & more. I'm with you on this, he knows what he wants to do, it's all simple stuff, positioning, run the ball back straight & hard. I was watching that Leeds game this morning from a fortnight ago, a few times he made half breaks, or threatened to break.

He's as good as anything in SL for me.

But not actually making a break. And that is the point. He needs to beat the first man on the kick return and he never does.

He needs to work on his basic speed and evasion skills.