so we didn't have such a good first half but the real question I feel is how much longer can the RFL allow Ronnie Lawton to take charge of any games

Dont think Ronnie Lawton had any thing to do with the result as he gave strange discissions to both sides.

We was beaten by a side who wanted to win a lot more than us. We had no urgency today apart from a few including bainsy, craig moss and gav duffy. We didnt have a clue on the kicking game and Workington played to thier strengths.

Now about the Worky fans. At the start of the game it was a godd atmosphere with a lot of worky fans singing and some of the Cougar fans singing back. How ever it changed when they decided to start swaring. IT happened when we went up to their place. But what can you expect when the Workington team come over after the game and start swaring at the top of thier voices.

Any way enough from me lets hope we get to the final n beat em

The real question i think we should be asking is..... Will the season ticket holders get some sort of fan loyalty discount for the rochdale game??? i.e ticket holders get in for a fiver or eight as long as they bring there ticket.

As for the game one definatly to forget no positives at all really iam absolutly gutted we didnt win as iam sure we all are but we did'nt look intrested at times in the first half the second half not as bad but left it too late.

Was all set for a Laughton bash, but think we have to look closer to home to why we lost. 9 points behind going into the last 10-15 mins, we should have been throwing everything at Workington, but there was a lack of commitment & that has to be questionned. The kicks in the 2nd half were woeful. With the sun in their eyes they should have been high.

Why was it left until the final few minutes before they thought about bringing Wray back on.

A gesture to the fans for next week would be nice by reducing the admission.

As a general overview - we didn't turn-up!

We only had one half-back with pace - Ryan Smith. When we moved the ball with pace then we scored BUT, it's like when Woody still used to think that he was a good stand-off (too late in his career) then he lost us more games than he won from that position.

I'm still waiting for Dave Halley to show his 'Super League' credentials. How much longer and how many more tries is he going to concede before we have a winger who shows that he actually wants to play for us? WE must surely have someone better than him on his current and past form. Letting opponents score tries when out of position and skipping into tackles surely isn't what he's paid to do!

JD wasn't up to his usual form - good in parts but he should be playing at loose forward and, if Coleman is as good as JD believes, then he should play at stand-off. You've just got to look at the Warrington and Cataln games this weekend to realise that PACE WINS GAMES. That's how we scored two tries; BUT blundrering down the middle gets us nowhere, especuially when we run straight into thier tackles.

Some 'off-games' all round but Craig Moss, Gavin Duffy and Ryan Smith, in my opinion, can hold their head's up high, as can Jamaine, Buster and one or two others.

We're really up against it now and we surely can't stick with the same team that started today's game! Or can we?

Laughton up to his usual pathetic standard, as was one of the 'assistants'. Better not upset 'Guess Who' though - is he a relation of Ronnie?

I have to fully agree with all you have wrote.



Laughton was ok, his young linesman was very,very poor.

And you do love me really dont you

agree with most of everything above. bad decision on the try, but maybe downward pressure wasn't as obvious as it should have been? dodgy decisions from the ref went both ways.

Workington slowed down a lot of the PTBs giving their defence time to sort themselves out, but the Cougars were too static in attack.

would like to see Hutch back on the left wing. and would also like Law not to have touched the bloody ball today giving away our first set immediately and gifting Workington a set from which they scored.

Duffy wasn't too bad today, but for all his jinking i still don't think he'd get past my mum

We should have learnt by now that the negative "Stick it up your Jumper, and trundle forward" style of play will not win you games against the better teams. This has been shown aginst Rochdale, Oldham, Whitehaven twice and probaly a few more that I can't remember. By doing this we make it easy for the defenders and it means we have to dominate for long periods of time to enable our feeble attack to finally cross the line. Also all it takes is one mistake, or bit of adventure from the opposition and all our domination is cancelled out.
If we play like this again next week we will lose as Rochdale have much more flair and pace than us, so just defending and hoping the ten or so points we are cabable of scoring will be enough will mean we fall way short.

I think Duffy had a very good game compared to some who looked uninterested , code switch has your mum signed for anyone for next season if shes that good she may be worth a loan signing at least


We must hit the ground running next week and take no prisoners
I need a beer

Anyone know why our try was disallowed in the second half? That would have put us in a good position at the time.

Well done Worky



They wanted it more

They played to their strengths

They slowed our play the ball - ref didn't ping them once for blatant "not square"

They were good value for their win but the two dis-allowed tries would have put us in front.

We did not seem up for it - some of our players have had promotion and relegation - Do they really want it?

We made too many mistakes and gave them far too much easy field position.

We look much better when we play an expansive game at pace

We need to play a smarter game when we play Rochdale next week but, if we come through we will be the stronger for it.

I hope we get chance to put this right at Warrington.

Crap game on a pile of crapness today, our forwards were weak, our passing game slow and poor, our kicking game abysmal, our displine was lacking and we made too many mistakes which lead to tries for the opposition.

I was very disappointed with the Workington fans who started off in lovely spirit and we had good banter but deteriorated towards the end only to be finished off by the team using the "F***ing" words in their celebratery song. Sad day for rugby fans when it starts looking like a footbal crowd.

The Workington fans outnumbered us today in power and voice, looking at the profile of the Workington fans, the majority were 18 - 45 males, something we lack at Keighley Cougar Park where the majority are 60+, and dont want the drum banging thankyou very much. Think Cougars have to attract a younger fanbase so this club may continue into the future.

Goosey

VIDEO youtu.be/mySiuSgLIYA

VIDEO youtu.be/mySiuSgLIYA

Agree with you. Travelled a long way to watch that today and came away VERY disappointed indeed. The lads just didn't seem to be 'with it'; it looked as if the desire to win just wasn't there. Very sluggish and laboured. You're dead right about how to win games - I watched Wire on Friday night and they were awesome again; fast, passing moves and always looking to keep the ball alive. Yes, there was far too much blunder down the middle today which just played into Workington's hands. A couple of times on the last tackle as we were attacking near their line we just ran into the tacklers and turned it over incredibly cheaply; we didn't even make them work for the possession.
This is a quote from JD in last Thursday's Keighley News, talking about the recent away game at Workington: "It was our discipline and ball control that let us down on that occasion and we gave Darren Holt - their half-back - plenty of time on the ball and he went on to kick us to death that day. We have to limit Holt's kicking opportunities to a minimum." He could give that exact same quote about today's game so the lads don't seem to have learnt much from the last meeting. Holt's kicking today severely exposed our kicking game for what it is - non-existant. We simply don't have one.
Gutted

We do have one and a very good one at that. But once again Coleman wasn't playing. I would love to know why.

Yes, I really do love you Guess Who, I just wish that you didn’t play ‘Devil’s Advocate so often!
I, like many other Cougar fans, must be asking whether the players actually want promotion after today’s debacle! I was once castigated by Phil Larder after we’d travelled to Carlisle only to be defeated, after the players were given the best of treatment and came up with nothing short of a similar display to that at Lawkholme this afternoon.
JD is literally working his socks off to get bigger crowds but it’s a crying shame when he gets so little support from his players. That said, If JD believes that Halley is the ‘best thing since sliced bread’ then I’ve got to say he’s wrong!
However, JD is no-longer a stand-off or scrum half. He’s a loose-forward and he needs to realise that there are, or should be, far quicker players than himself around the base of the scrum. He’s got the ideas and ability but he needs to concentrate on that and not being ‘all things to all men’.
Changes are needed before next Sunday:
1. ATTITUDE - we need to play from the start of the game, not the start of the second half
2. SQUAD – Halley IS NOT a first-team player as he has proved. He’s had enough chances to prove himself and has failed, letting-in more points than he has scored. The time has come to drop him and give others a chance.
So, for next week, dare I suggest:
Cougars:
1. Moss
2. Duffy,
3. Baines,
4. Normington,
5. Hutchinson,
6. Coleman,
7. Smith,
8. Shickell,
9. Feather,
10. Benjafield
11. Cartledge,
12. Jones,
13. Demetriou,
Interchange: Wray, Law, Rawlins, Purseglove.

Other suggestions welcomed!

H

The team listed looks a good winning combination on paper and its a team I agree with, however, JD has his reasons for choosing the team he sees fit to play and we as fans should respect his decisions, I do think the boys will do the business next weekend against rochdale and put town in their rightful place at the HJ - second to the cougars

In JD I trust - keep the faith

Here's my synopsis albeit a drunken one.

1. We struggled to handle their big pack in the first quarter. Once we realised that they were less mobile and therefore weak defensively around the ruck we exploited it.

2. We played too much 1 up rugby in the first half, mainly due to our lack of field position, because of errors and giving penalties away.

3. Our fans were cr*p we we're comprehensively outsung on our own park, there were no where near enough of us putting the effort in. What happened to the awesome effort at the Swinton game. As a group of fans we must do better.

4. We had our bogey ref and yes the officials were very poor, in fact a friend of mine who's a Giant's fan said from a neutral perspective that they were a joke. Although this wasn't the main reason we lost.

5. We left ourselves too much to do in the 2nd half.

6. We only seemed to have 1 set move involving the full back joining the line.

7. We took the wrong options at times, why on the last tackle would you give the ball to your lightest Prop Forward and expect him to barge over the line against a huge Cumbrian pack?

8. They seemed to want it more, this is certainly not good enough.

9. Our kicking game was poor although it has to be said it was better than when we played them at their place when it conceded 22 points.

10. We didn't capitalise when we had possession in their 20 area enough.

Sadly for family reasons this was the last game I can attend this season. I wish the club, players and fans all the best. We certainly need to improve quite a bit in order to gain promotion.

The "bad decision" on the try was actually a good decision. If you look at Mickey's video of it you can see that it wasn't disallowed for not touching it down properly but because your No. 8 blocked a tackler from getting across to tackle the try scorer. Correct decision.

The second try disallowed was for offside, being in front of the kicker, and that decision was made by the TJ dead in line with the incident. Again correct decision.

The referee did make some strange decisions and none more so than the tackle on Workington's Holt (24) where a player put his hand between Holt's legs and lifted him and pushed him head first in to the ground. The ball came loose and the ref allowed play to carry on as Holt lay injured on the ground (much to the delight of a female Cougar fan that can be heard on the video).

It was a good hard game today and the best team won so try and be a little bit more magnanimous you could still get to the final!!!!!

Fair comment hugh mann cougars were beten by a side who wanted it more. With regarda to ur little dig at a female cougar fan then i dont think workington fans have anything to say on that matter. It was an absolute disgrace to rugby how your fans was swaring all game when kids were yards away and then to top it off your players come over and do it too.

We need to give it a rest regarding JD at 6, simple fact is there is no one else who can do what he does. He set both our tries up created another for moss when he was held up and also trhe try that got chalked off for off side. I am sure JD would love to be able to play 13 but fact is when he isn't there, we don't create anything. We had other players who were poor yesterday and the worst was shic. he looked dis-interested and very lethargic and was often slow to move up. Buster and Killer need to stick to the game plan how many times on the last tackle are JD and ryan in place to kick and they pass it to a prop with 3 players on him. You could see JD was fuming and saying give me the ball. JD needs to get his hands on the ball as much as poosilble because when he does we look like creating something. When we did play to the game plan we scored to easy tries and remember they scored all thier tries from kicks and struggled to break our defence without kicks. I am sticking with JD and i believe we will be a much different team against rochdale.

With regard the first try - This is an area where poor decisions are often made. The Workington player is initially fooled by the dummy run and attempts a tackle on the Keighley forward. In those circumstances tries are normally awarded. The Keighley player does not "hold" the Workington player, which is the signal given by the ref.

Second "no try" - I can't really say and the linesman could well be correct, but it looked good from my position right in front of the scorer. This is another area where poor decisions can made because attacking players are moving so fast the linesman can't tell. Even at SL level, replays often show this clearly.

Without better/other angles the video is inconclusive.

With regard to the tackle on Holt - my initial reaction (and of those around me) was penalty to Worky. However it was no where near as bad as you are making out and worky perform the same tackle on a Keighley player a couple of plays later. I'd be more concerned regards Chris Clough and Your fullback coming in third man with fists and elbows and your fullback using knees on prone players. It's one thing to be fired up but your fullback was frothing at the mouth.

Plenty of posts have said the best side on the day won (and they did), but considering this is a Keighley forum, we are more interested in our "lack of performance" and inconsistency than that of Worky.

Team for me has to be

James H
Moss
Normington
Purseglove
Duffy
Coleman
Smith
Shick
Buster
Rawlins
Cartledge
Baines
JD

Subs
Benji
Law
Wray
Jones

Shame Halley hasn't done much since coming from Bulls, but going on JD comments Halley should be dropped cause he was s**t on sunday, can see why bulls now kept platt and raynor instead of him.