I thought we did well taking everything into account. I mean, I think Hudds would have still beaten us anyway but ending the game with 13 players available didn't help. I thought they should have crushed us the way they were playing. We ought to be thankful of the scoreline haha. Congrats to Huddersfield.

Just read on 606 from some fans that we have gone back to how we play under Cullen ,

1st game of the season with a few injuries (no excuse for the result) but let's put things into perspective .... Smith will sort this out, I have faith in mr smith and am sure that over The next few weeks we will improve 10 fold,

Have faith wire fans we will come good

Im old enough to have been there, done that, bought the tshirt (well, about 4 replica kits) and came out the other end. Game 1 poor result, poor performance at times. Next week game 2...everything starts from scratch come 3pm

if you only have 1 sub avalible for over a full half of rugby your going to struggle whoever you are so losing by 10 isnt that bad when you take that into account. im deffo not worried just cause we lost today

Says it all.

I thought both teams were poor! Huddersfield were the better of what was a poor game and like Wigan in the friendly, the scoreline flattered us. I'm more worried about the 5 injuries, rather than getting beat by a Huddersfield side that are a lot better than what they showed today. We had a debate on strength in depth. Well it's time to prove it. Step up kids! Wigan & Saints kids proved they can do it last year, now it's time for ours to do the same!

I agree with this to an extent but you can't deny there were some concerning signs today. We did not play well.
I remember in the dark days of 2002 when we had that disastrous Easter when we lost to Salford and Widnes and then got beat at Wakey when we had injuries like this and had only 1 sub for most of the second half, that excuse was trotted out - yes it was a factor but we would have lost to Wakey that day anyway because we were garbage.

Lets say we had suffered no injuries today, how many do you reckon we would have beaten Hudds by on that performance?

We would have got beaten anyway.

I'm not panicking that we will be a bad team, we will be in the playoffs in some position and how we are doing with form and injuries then is going to determine how our season turns out, but there was one thing that did disappoint me, which is the symmetry between today and the last game of last season when Hudds beat us in the playoffs. Same opposition, same kind of flat performance. Hudds are a good side but not a great side, but if we want to be title contenders, Hudds are the type of toughish test that we have to be better than. It just feels like we have 'picked up where we left off' and not in a good way!

If this was the Cullen era, that bad result plus the injuries would knock us into a bad spell of form for about 6 weeks. If we bounce back with say 3 on the spin wins then it will be a very good sign on our resilience.

Any news on King?

Injuries aside...The 1st half concerned me greatly we weren't respecting the ball or possesion,trying to score off every play,wrong options being taken and poor passing the ball hitting the deck or passes thrown out that just weren't on (Hodgson on tackle 1 in our own quarter just one example)....

The second half was must better we built more pressure in the opposition half and had we had more interchanges we may well have sneaked an undeserved win....I'm sure Tony Smith will go back to basics in training this week and cut out the silly mistakes...

Anyway onto next week Hull KR at home..

Let's see where we are after round 27 not round 1. Very flat performance, mind.

I'd like Tony Smith to take them 'back' to the running machine rather than basics, how unfit ?

A very poor team effort yesterday.

maybe it's a bit unfair to make a judgement on fitness when we played for a big part of the game with 1 sub and then even wth no subs

Including the backs who normally play 80 mins ?

joel mon looked dead unfit when he went 80 metres down the field after 70 minutes

I suspect we started the game wanting to play an expansive warm weather game and, either by luck or judgement, it worked in the first few minutes. From then until half time we seemed unable to change tack despite it becoming more obvious by the minute that despite being indoors a wet weather game plan would have made more sense. Second half we managed to change tactics, however by then our injury list mean't a win was unlikely.

History should have told those making the decisions that the Millenium, with the roof closed, results in slippery conditions. He may not have got too much wrong in his time with us but I think the blame for this defeat, or the tactics at least, can be laid at Tony Smiths door.

Glad it's not just me who thinks that.

must be the relationship between 70 something names.


Mind you, you've just paired yourself with 'him' now.

hmmm

Well said. It didn't feel like a league game at all. Probably due to it being at the start. I think they need to bin it off to be honest.

Siege Mentality saved our performance in the second half. I think we would have been beaten by more had we have kept 17 players available.

Desperately concerning how off we were with our timing. Passes going nowhere, other passes hitting the wrong players/shoulders. Whilst I appreciate that you need time to find your rhythm, we are appear to be that far away from where we should be, it will take a fair while to catch up.

Surprised fitness keep getting brought up, we finished the game stronger than Hudds. More concerned with the lack of cohesion particularly in terms of timing and lines of running and the fact our pack looked really light in the collision. In particular, the form of some of the players (Atkins, Bridge and Myler especially) makes me wonder if they were mentally prepared to play!

Half the players looked like it was the first time they had seen each other.

After the first few handling mistakes confidence just evaporated.... it almost got the the point where players were stood still when taking passes.... hardly any running onto the ball... and when we did, the ball hit the floor.

You and I both.

We looked okay on Friday.