My point regarding westerman was, he is very hard working, but 150k for an hard working player with 1 England cap and never hit the heights he should have by now is great business for hull. Now I like his efforts, I really do, but what wire will find is for all his efforts in defence he will then match that by either shooting the line and missing and putting the rest of the d in trouble or by doing something he did for hull many times, he goes to sleep behind the ruck, Leeds exploited that last year when they hammered us at home, 1st try 2nd half his back was turned slowely getting back and before he knew it they where gone. He did it a couple of times last night, but leeds had no direction and went sideways before going forward. Leeds last year would of took advantage of that with sinfield directions. He needs to hit the lines he ran when setting up rankin try in France, but he doesn't do it very often, but then he backed that up by shooting the line and missing setting up less cats try. Now we know not everyone is perfect but, he's very regular at taking 2 steps forward and 1 step back.

Smith seems to have picked up a few players in which defence is their strongest attribute.

Dodds, Hughes, Westerman, Gidley, Bailey.

Maybe he never wanted the ball playing loose, we have had Harrison as our 13 for a few seasons, another defensive player.

Going off last night it was purely our defense that won that game, we have a team of grafters with big engines.

Maybe Tony Smith is the right coach to take his game to the next level. Hope for his sake he does, as I think he has all the attributes to be a top player, just obviously hope he has a nightmare against us

not calling Westy but we looked a lot better balanced without him simple, Leon looks terrific and a real threat, its about shaping a team and the FC coaching staff are trying to find round pegs for round holes Westy seems like he will be better off at wire and where better without him at the moment anyway good luck to him all the same looks like a good deal for both parties

Just caught the 'highlights' of the Wigan v Catalans game. It looked awful. The JJB pitch is a disgrace.

I know it's only round 1 but I don't think the dobbins beating Cas would be a bad thing in the long run

Wash your mouth out

Yeh it would of been, cas are more likely to be around us in table, any points dropped by them will be good for us

I know it's early but nice to se us top

rovers won't be in the top 8 so good that they've taken a point off one of our rivals but cas had their 2 best forwards missing so don't think you can read too much into it for them. Thought wakey might have beaten

Fairs fair jake Rugby and injurys go hand in hand and both teams had there share of them !!! Agree about them not making the 8 tho

As good as it is to see Rovers suffer, the draw today suits us given the respective merits of the two teams. Very early days though, of course.

Good result for us today if we want to be in the top 6.

yea gutted at the end, but the bigger picture says good result for us

To be honest didn't think much to cas at all we looked clueless most the time and still snatched a draw

Jesus, Castleford must of been poor not to beat that lot!

Interesting game at Wakey, Sentimata Sa man of the match, Howarth scored a try and Jones-Bishop dropped the ball 3 times!!!

SA started like that for us, then went downhill fast,

Early days and missing Lynch, Massey, Mariano and Shenton for much of it though, in poor conditions. They're a team we'd need to reel in to have a chance of making the top 6. Decent result for Rovers though, certainly.

Anyone know the attendances for the round 1 games ? Can't seem to find them

Leeds 16,168
Wigan 13,346
Hull FC 12,265
Hull KR 11,011
Saints 10,408
Wakefield 5,240

Decent attendance at Rovers considering their form?

It was, augmented by an impressive away support.

2000+ freebies

Yeah if you remember KR had a record attendance for opening game last year but it soon fell off sharply. Probs some freebies involved there as well.