Our 19. Some good and bad news re injuries. Are we looking a bit stretched?? www.londonbroncosrl.com/news/hen ... r-halifax/

Our 19. Some good and bad news re injuries. Are we looking a bit stretched?? www.londonbroncosrl.com/news/hen ... r-halifax/

A few names in there that I did not expect to see.

Me to

I would guess

Walker
Williams
Purtell
Helliwell
Kear
Barthau
Sammutt
Garside
Pitts
Harrison
Ioane
Pointer
Roquia

Sid
Offerdhal
Evans
Davis/Dixon

Why Matt Davis is named in the squad when he is on duel reg with the Skolars is a bit of a weird one.
I expect us to line up as follows, which is still pretty strong in my opinion. The squad is far stronger than last season.

1. Walker
2. Kear
3. Purtell
4. Hellewell
5. Williams
6. Sammut
7. Barthau
8. Offerdahl
9. Pointer
10.Evans
11.Harrison
12.Garside
13.Pitts

14.Roqica
15.Ioane
16.Adebiyi
18.Dixon

Hooker is a concern. I'm assuming the Frenchman will go in there

Pointer had a really good game at Skolars last weekend, they tell me.

As many of you know I'm a season ticket holder at both Broncos and Oxford. On Sunday I opted to watch Oxford for the first time this season and Sid Adebiyi did a good job for them. As did Callum Bustin, thought Sid was better though a glance at the scoresheet would suggest the other way around.

Agree with bosty, despite being on the end of a beating (in front of that excellent crowd) Ben Pointer had a really good game for skolars against the Canadian Wolfpack, hope he gets a run out this week and has a decent game

4-6 after 30

8-6 Fax at H/T

Another 1st half struggle up North.
We'll do well to win this.

Seems its set for set. penalty Fax taking 2 points

Seems like were playing with a bar of soap!

16-6

Game over!

More errors

Ill disciplined, error prone performance and which resulted in our 1st away defeat this season.
Lost count of the amount of times I heard "Knock on from Sammut"
But I suppose we all knew what we were getting with him, Brilliant one game, poor the next!

Badly miss our 2 hookers!

Ooops that's not a good scoreline
Playing on grass seems to be a problem for us

Rubbish

Not a good result, not overly surprised they turned us over though after the display at Dewsbury.
Back to basics, bit like a couple of years back, throw ball catch ball. Repeat 6 times. Start again!

No idea what happened.

At Oldham we were rubbish, in fact worse than. Today we werent that bad, ok, a few handling errors.

Halifax were dross, one dimensional awfulness, and we were dragged down to and below their level.

At least I have just arrived home to a plated up Sunday dinner !!

Poor result but a place in the 8s isn't decided in March

Sloppy might be the best way of describing today.
- Penalties at the ptb usually on the last tackle
- Allowing them to dominate at the ptb when we were in possession
- optimistic offloads
- passing to the ground behind a player more than 3 times
- sloppy passing out wide with one interception try
- dropping the ball yet fax didn't!
- allowing the high ball to bounce
- bit panicky on occasions
- letting the opposition half dictate to the ref

That said defence wasn't that bad, and some passages of play were very good. The ref made what appeared from the stands odd decisions both ways. Not sure he was in control on occasions and he bottled the high tackle.

This passing the ball behind the player happened a lot at dewsbury, I blamed the conditions maybe it was nothing to do with that. Penalties are much more likely at the 4th or 5th tackle players should know that, discipline needs sorting. Overall our control of the ruck is poor in attack and defence, in defence is down to tackle technique in attack it's about technique but it's also an urgency to regain yr feet. If you are on yr back and do the flopping fish refs are not interested, if you make an effort to place a foot on the ground it shows an effort to regain yr feet, result quick ptb or penalty.
Dropped ball, down to pushing the play rather than completing sets respecting possession and playing the % game.

Swinton, Oldham and Fax performances are just not good enough. It strikes me if we are not on a fast track where we can go wide early we cant play. Get the forwards rumbling up the middle and toughen up, its the championship for gods sake

The penalties we give away is holding us back. The faster the game is with the fewest stoppages the better it will be for us with our young professional team.

Time to tell the team to stop playing the ref. It may be a dark art to get up from the tackle at the last allowable moment or to stand as not square as possible to block the play of the ball, but we need to turn this on its head. Get up fast as possible and stand dead square in the tackle, the ref will soon notice the difference between the teams and the penalty count will start turning in our favour. Most of the teams we play won't be able to handle a fast play of the ball for 80 minutes! Yes they may break the line a few times but are they going to make more yards than a kick and another set of six half a dozen times a game?

Let's play the style that suits us not the opposition.