That last 10 minutes of Headless Chicken mode was soul destroying. Missed the last 33 seconds once Cas regained possession. Don't suppose we managed a one-on-one ball steal and pulled it off did we?
Positives from tonight. Cas fans got wet through. Sky+ deleted and bed early.

You do know this time last year we had I think 2 wins, against Leigh and Salford.

Even though myself thinks the attack is not exactly firing, not that today was the conditions for playing champagne rugby, we've just had two away games against good teams, where we've averaged 22 points, not bad for a team that 'inside the 20 we never look like scoring'


Saying all that we've had now 3 games that we could have won and come out on the wrong side of. It shouldn't have been a confidence thing after 4 straight, it's we're not learning from our mistakes in general imo.

I've said it before, this so far reminds me of last season, with close competitive loses with we could of win. It wasn't until round 10 that we started to hit our straps and looked like a team, that knew how to win.

Dominated the second half but could only manage 1 try from a kick & chase.
Total lack of composure in the opposition 20 and just too much cheap turnover ball.

Pauli Pauli is killing us with penalties

On the plus side, defence was excellent. Although, Cas weren't going for the expansive type game that they have been playing.
Definitely a game we could have won.

I personally thought Milky and Wood tried their best to get us on the front foot, Wood was my MOM for Trinity. The line speed was terrible all game and again the closing of the kicker down......well

Too many penalties again. We're creating unnecessary hard work.

Probably on my own here but thought Pauli Pauli wasn't that bad, quota spot/import aside, I thought he looked reasonable. Fair enough he gave us a couple of penalties away but by my reckoning he played longer than anybody else in the front row?

Horo however appears to offer nothing so far.

Cas came to grind out a win, reckon they fancied it as a practise match for the grand final due to conditions and weather. Like us though. they'll have to find several extra gears to be anywhere near the final come the business end of the season.

Wood was the best player on the field when out there.

I agree and it's frustrating because you know Finn can do good crossfield kicks for the wingers to get on the end of. That's what should have been the focus of our pre-game, on how we're gonna put points on the ball against Cas. When you're in the opposition 20, you can even mix it up and put them up on the 4th tackle to try to catch players out of place. Even the grubber into space for the quicks to run onto, this weather was made for tricky kicks in attack.

Pauli Pauli still has a bit of time on his side regarding performance but Horo is just hampering the development of our own.
PP was and is a gamble but Horo is a seasoned pro with 120 NRL games and another 40 odd for Catalan, so no excuse for him not performing, one might even say, 'why are we signing a mercenary player when a young English player could do as well?'

I think it's the fact that a fair bit of expectation and hype came with him, not really helped by Fifita saying he's gonna cause more havoc than him this season. Plus people aren't that interested or to some extent what injury he's recovering from and how much pre-season he missed when their paying at the gates. Don't look at the longer picture imo

It was obvious we bought him as a chance that we could have one the best front rowers in the League if we could get him back into decent shape. For me, it's gonna take a few more games to see, especially since it dries up because that's an energy sapper for a huge man like him.

Anyway it's whether CC sees Baldwinson as more of the work hose and a safer bet but in the long term what is chucking PP down to the reserves gonna achieve. Maybe a game wouldn't hurt.

horo though, we've no excuse with the likes of Batch, Crowther & Annakin chomping at the bit.

As a neutral regarding Pauli Pauli, he ran at Gsle several times and I thought Gale coped very well with him given the obvious size difference . That's quite telling, he should've been running over him.

I don't think you could question the effort of our boys tonight, they gave their all and on another night would have won that game. I just think we could be a bit smarter and clinical in the opposition 20. Hopefully the pitches will dry out soon (will they ever?) as these sort of games don't suit us at all. Hope to see a few changes on Monday, a few need a rest and some deserve a chance now after 3 straight defeats.

Shouldn't they suit you though? The much mentioned size of your pack should suit a poor weather forward dominated game, especially against a team that likes to throw it about. If anything the weather should've given you a better chance, not hindered you.

If you've got a pack full of massive forwards and you say these conditions don't suit you then you're doing something wrong.

Why don't you just go on your own forum?

If that were our main/only strength, then perhaps that would be true. The big props (the rest of the pack isn't big) allow us to occupy and compete with the better/more expensive forward packs in the league. However, our real threat comes from out wide with Miller, Ashurst, Tupou and Johnstone. We play our most effective RL in the summer when Miller is orchestrating that attack. Look at last year's results for the evidence.

Because we didn't play tonight. It was fair enough questions.

To defend wakefield a little here, they've actually been the side throwing it about a bit this year, playing pretty exciting stuff, either TJ and BJB scoring plenty between them, whereas we've been pretty steady and had a few grinds already this season. They have forwards who like to promote the ball , last night it wasn't really a suitable option. Massive week ahead for Trin with hull away and leeds at home. Gotta win at least 1 to show their credentials.

Thanks for pointing it out, I realise that due to your commitments on rlfans it would be difficult finding time to get down to Bellevue, but I know our coach would welcome your input with open arms down on the training ground if you could possibly find the time and bob down for a couple of training sessions you'd make a lot of Wakey fans happy

No, a bigger pack tires quicker in wet conditions.

In fairness I agree with the poster you quoted. The wakey pack may be huge, but they're not the old fashioned lumps who trundle it up. They're fast, fit & have a quick ptb to put their backs away. It's the distribution to those backs that isn't quick enough to do the damage it could, but that's another story!

It’s good to hear a bit of comparative perspective from 2017
It would be interesting to see what our points difference is compared to last year too. Better I would think

We are going good imo, we just need to keep the faith we’ve beaten all the teams we should have so far and have run Wigan wire and cas v close

Pauli is getting better with each game imo
I think the move to him as an impact back row will really work but it will take time to perfect the plays involving him and for his fitness to improve which it definitely is

I would defo like to see more of Batch too, he’s still v young though and his time will come, Horo only on a years contract, to me he’s just filling in while batch does his time in the reserves

Webster was exceptional in defence last night
I’ve never seen another centre man mark and contain bill Topou so well

Looks like Batchelor will become the next Jowitt.

Well for my money its a no brainer. Horo hasn't produced so far so straight in with Batch, that's what competition is all about.
As for Pauli, it would be nice if he could be moulded into an Ali L type player, he has the size but whether he has the skills for out wide, time will tell.

Reading some of the comments on here is embarrassing. We went toe to toe with last year's Grand finalists and some people are putting us down for the bottom four. We lost against Wigan and Warrington by 10 points each away from home, though how many would put them down as wins at the start of season. People slagging Horo and Pauli Pauli off, for me Horo's biggest pitfall is he tries too hard and Pauli is just coming to fitness in weather and conditions he will have never experienced. Nobody has mentioned Finn dislocating his finger/fingers, cannot imagine how painful that must be especially for a ball playing halfback.