26-22 win after being 26-00 up....

Worrying??!

Nah, we have a full time squad. Benefits obvious today (even if only following the match on website and twitter).

Still finding our way. I expect a few weeks till we find our feet. Just need to stay in touch till we click. Bradford lost.

Anyone know the attendance today??

Forgot to add -

I still think the squad lacks a little depth

976

The important thing is that we won and the gate was much better than I expected.

Yep a good 300 more than many were predicting and a win under the belt!

Yes a win indeed by the skin of our teeth. The ref though...utterly *****... in the second half and certainly tried his hardest to win it for Doncaster and almost succeeded. Still we have the 2 points no matter how close and a pretty good game of footie too even if slower than SL. I reckon we have a squad that is up to the task this year.

Ref may well have 'assisted' Donnie but if we hadn't made so many errors and failed to complete our sets in the 2nd half....
And let's not forget the ref chalked off a Donnie try ( correctly IMO) for what looked like a double movement.
We were warned that refereeing standards would be poor in this division - it shouldn't have mattered as we were 26 points to the good. Should have been further ahead but more 3? missed kicks. Too many basic errors, must cut them out!

Sublime to ridiculous. First 50 mins we could do no wrong and Donny would never score if they played til Xmas. We put the cue on the rack and then forgot where it was ! That what happens when you play 2 kids at half back.

So can someone explain what they thought the ref did wrong?

We were are own worst enemy, can't blame the ref for that.
Basically we got ourselves in a position 20 points to nil and thought it was all wrapped up and sat back.

Don't think the ref was that bad. He was a bit naïve with some of Doncaster's tactics, particularly in the second half when they got a lot of mileage out of reefing balls in the tackle and winning dubious knock on decisions. Better referees are smart enough to recognise that when a ball shoots out of a stationery ruck at an odd angle it probably wasn't a collision dislodging a loose carry, especially when stripping the ball is clearly a central tactic for the defending side. But it's the sort of thing we're going to have to get used to.

We were by far the better side, but we switched off too easily in the second half. We were also quite naïve ourselves, we got "old manned" by a side that are more used to playing at this level. This isn't SL, what Championship sides lose in technical ability they replace with yard dog nous and that is what we need to be aware of. Too many of our players are not yet used to teams that will grind rather than trying to play. In the first half Doncaster's one out football approach got them nowhere, but in the second half when we switched off it gave them all the space they needed. In the first half Paul Cooke was totally anonymous, in the second half when we stopped the pressure he suddenly had space to put on a few basic but effective plays.

Need to keep our structure and when we do have a tough patch, which will happen in every game, we need to go back to one out football ourselves, until we weather it and then we can start playing again. It's about being a little bit more savvy, don't try to score our way out of trouble when a bit of hard work is needed.

Well said that man. Big gamble having two halves with no experience. But it may pay off in the long run. Foran can't be that bad can he?

Must have been watching a different game to me re the reefing of the ball, in fact I think we got pinged a couple of times for that exact thing so he certainly was not getting conned .
Thing with dubious knock on calls, he is bloke 5mtrs away generally we are at least 50
Think the officials got it pretty right today.
You are right about Paul cook he ran the show in the second half that and the big fella on dual registration!! Seems a bit of an odd rule this dual regards thing, think am only jealous coz we ain't got any.
from our lot, thought ray nasser stood out, some good solid defence in first half Oscar Thomas in particular, wes n looked pretty solid.
let's see how we go as sheffield

How did the redhead Harrison go?

I think this is right. we switched off, got some dubious referee decisions and lost the plot. we need to be smarter, not sure about the kids comments, thought Oscar played well - but we did need an older head to calm things down. Richie Mathers seemed wound up about something and that didnt help. First 40/50 minutes was nigh on perfect, clinical finishing, no mistakes and strong defence - sheffield will be interesting

I thought he was excellent, apart from Nasso in the first half he was stand out.

Look, our friend in the tasmin said it a couple of months ago. We must be beating our opposition and then after that beat them into submission, ruthlessness! Where is that? We need to be beating teams like this by 30, we need to stake our mark in the ground. Leigh and bradford have now looked at that and are now thinking its between them. We need to take a look at our defeats last year and dish out some payback. I am not in anyway happy about this, regardless of whether we were 50-0 up or not, drill those s into submission and more and more!!!!

I'm sorry but let's get this right, he was awful. Awful in the first half, worse in the second - but it didn't matter so much in the first half as we were battering them. For example he'd have chalked off our second try had the Touchie not stuck to his guns. The messing around at the ruck was particularly badly policed - not saying worse for either side btw - but Donnie certainly pushed this to the limit in the second half, especially as our composure went. To be honest I thought the ref got caught up with the excitement of a Donnie comeback in the second haf and just stopped giving a series too obvious calls (the second effort on Mathers when he was already up and playing the ball, not being given for example. He just made the get up and play it motion and the next tackle it was reefed out and a knock on given!).

There's no question we lost our way badly, really badly but a couple of relieving penalities would surely have quelled the Doncater spirit I'm sure and they should have come our way, no excuses. We are however going to have to get wise to the tricks of some of the part-time sides to slow things up, and perhaps most worrying was that we certainly didn't look fitter than them in the last 20 minutes. We need to finish games off better in this league and accept that the standard of refereeing, while p*** poor in SL, is many times worse in this league - we'll need to be better at Rugby basically and yesterday should be a spur to us getting wise sooner rather than later.

Whats happened to Liam Foran? Was he given a run in any of the pre-season game? I'm sure the majority of Salford fans shared their thoughts on his signing when it was announced. A very odd one given the quality you had signed previously and since.

PS - he really is that bad.

Quote ="John Gilbert Reds"Whats happened to Liam Foran? Was he given a run in any of the pre-season game? I'm sure the majority of Salford fans shared their thoughts on his signing when it was announced. A very odd one given the quality you had signed previously and since. PS - he really is that bad.'" I haven't seen him so you may get a better reply from someone who has. All that I know is that he did play last weekend when we were tonked by Dewsbury and that those who saw the game weren't impressed by him. www.londonbroncosrl.com/fixtures ... ms-010115/ There's been no mention of him being injured so he must have been dropped.

Quote ="John Gilbert Reds"Whats happened to Liam Foran? Was he given a run in any of the pre-season game? I'm sure the majority of Salford fans shared their thoughts on his signing when it was announced. A very odd one given the quality you had signed previously and since. PS - he really is that bad.'" I haven't seen him so you may get a better reply from someone who has. All that I know is that he did play last weekend when we were tonked by Dewsbury and that those who saw the game weren't impressed by him. www.londonbroncosrl.com/fixtures ... ms-010115/ There's been no mention of him being injured so he must have been dropped.

I was at the Catalan game, and felt he was poor. Added nothing in attack and a very poor kicking game. My understanding was he didnt play great at Dewsbury.

But he is a big unit and maybe worth a go. Thought Oscar played well, though missed a tackle for one of the Doncaster tries. Keyes seemed very quiet, though up against a very experienced opponent

The ref was just poor generally. I also think that, à la Ganson, he always favoured the dominant team, which in the second half was Donny.
Positives for me were:
1. Plenty more people marshalling the defensive line, at least in the first half anyway. One guy can't do this on his own, and leadership across the park is one of the things that has been lacking over the years
2. We put together some really good plays (in the first half)
3. Perhaps counter intuitive, but I think it might be a good thing they shipped points in the second half. If they'd won too easily it might let the complacency back in. Joey can now hammer home the fact that they can't afford to switch off at this level. Of course it's only a 'positive' if it gives them the kick up the a**e that they need and they learn from it.

Perry, totally agree about point 3. mentioned it on another thread.

Do you know if the tries/highlights will be posted anywhere?