Just a quick mention on 2 unsung hero's, thought they were both absoloute superb tonight along with Danny Houghton. Around 65 minutes when we had them pinned in there 20 they both made 3 consecutive tackles together. Also thought Radders looked better with ball in hand tonight.

Well played FC on digging out a gutsy result in a game we would certainly have lost in the past 2 seasons

hgad a tenner on radford for first try at 33's lol

Dowes was awesome here.

Great effort from Dowes especially tonight.

Agree....tbf I thought Sam & Hame did well also.....Manu was his usual awesome self.

Had Radders as man of the match for most of the game. Dowes and Houghton also outstanding.

Good news on Danny's consistency as we're gonna need Houghton at permanent hooker to free up Berro now Long's gone

I thought Lauaki was poor for the most part tonight. A couple of decent runs backed up with atrocious passing and poor judgement.

Thought he was very good 2nd half when used as a prop.

Dowes was solid .
Afraid i personally thought radford look poor in attack , he's no Fitzgibbon , and his offloads where rubbish and not needed.
I thought we needed to play alot smarter and stop forcing the pass!

I agree. Much better in the 2nd half IMO.

On the thread topic, completely go with the Dowes appreciation. Don't see the Radford praise though, thought he made some poor decisions with the ball and a couple of silly handling errors. Typified by his idiotic effort on the 2nd tackle ten yards out as we looked to secure the game and he decided to try an offload that wasn't on and just ended up throwing the ball pretty much directly forward over his head as he hit the deck. That is not the sort of thing you want or should expect from one of the most experienced players in the squad, it's schoolboy stuff. I won't knock his effort (especially defensively), but his execution wasn't great for me.

radford is a knock on penalty machine

Dowes was arguably our best forward tonight. Also Lauaki put in a good stint after his initial penalty/feck-up flurry. Lovely ball out to Turner. I do think Lauaki is an overly targeted by referees.

Doesn't help himself cleaning people out after the ball has gone though. Agree he looked better 2nd half.

You're probably right.

Thing is, we needed him to play a lot of solid minutes in the second half, which is sort of the opposite of his game, and I thought he did pretty well.

Lauaki needs to improve for me . Not cutting it at the moment.

He did, I agree. Which was most surprising given his poor start. I hope he puts a few good performances together back to back, and I think he needs to TBH as there seem to be plenty willing to get on his back quite quickly in the stands. His size and aggression could be real assets for us if he can just harness them on a consistent basis.

Needs more minutes IMO.

Idiotic about sums it up. Quite what he thinks he's going to gain by trying an almost impossible offload, early in the tackle count when we're leading by 2 with 10 minutes left is beyond me. Unfortunately, he's done it before (and cost us games) and I don't have much doubt that he'll do it again. That aside, he was as ineffectual as usual with the ball, constantly turning into the tackle, making poor ground and taking an eternity to get it played.

Needs to make better choices for me. Too often takes the wrong option in attack, or makes an error and then follows it up with a penalty trying to make good.

Radders worked overtime tonight.Why dont people see it.Dowes great in defence and 2nd half Luaki was awsome used as prop,made plenty of metres and got us on front foot.
We now need the backs to finish off all the hard work the forwards put in.

Like manu, we need to start playing to his strengths, not giving him (them) the ball in poor positions and expecting them to work miracles

I'm not questioing his effort, it's the errors that are the problem

He put in one stupid pass as did Tickle and Radford, while Cusack lost the ball.

Apart from that Lauaki was good tonight got through a mountain of work. In particular helped to save us from defeat when they broke away down their left near the end and Berro/Whiting tackled their winger Hame chased back 60m and got between the ball carrier and support preventing the pass. If he wasn't there it was a pass and a walk in for them.

I mentioned a few weeks ago Dowes has improved game on game for me and last night was his best of the season, in fact probably a couple of seasons.

It's not just about the amount of work, it's also the quality of it.