should put us in to 3rd, best we can hope for this season

we shouldn't have got anything from that, what a let-off.

we need to do alot of work, i cant see us competing at the end of the season after the last few games.

at 24 nil that was a walk in the park, only Widnes Vikings could potentially balls that one up.

There's going to be a lot of close games coming up at this rate...

I've put my back out again, stamping my foot like a toddler in a tantrum. I need to go and lie down again.

haha

you can rest again until Friday night now

what about bradford mate?

He does have a point, that was some scary sh[ii[/it listening to that but the table shows 3 points to Widnes and tomorrow is another day. After the Batley game, we've got 3 pretty tough games in Barrow (h), Whitehaven (a) and Leigh (a) - we've got one more chance to put things right before the serious sh[ii[/it starts.

Will be lucky to come away with 1 win from those 3

agreed, its gonna be a tough and close season this year. I don't think any match will be a walk in the park, every team is capable of pulling off a win.

Toa is a huge loss in the centre and hopefully he will be back for the Batley game, Banister should also be in the mix (why didnt he make the bench tonight?) along with Fletcher and Paterson.


We need our strike players back and fast, otherwise there is nothing down for us this year.

And we seem more than capable of throwing winnable games away....

I thought you lot would kick our ass, but proud of our boys, it definitely was a game of two halves.
Nice to see your skin head Nazi with his doc marts and his group of brain deads mates shouting profanities at the end of the game outside the ground, shame that our education system has failed on educating some people, and to think that you have Millsy in your team...Shame on them.

Just remembered that we've got Sheffield away before those 3 games aswell, which won't exactly be easy will it?

Credit where credit is due, Widnes inched themselves into a nice deserved lead on the back of a couple of well taken training ground tries and the failings in Doncaster’s sliding defence.

As I said ! Credit to Doncaster who where never really far off the mark in the arm wrestle and in the second-half stepped up to the contest, the style both teams played became predictable and it was Doncaster’s better kicking game that brought them rewards and back into the game.

Must say if the last kick of the game had been collected by the winger he would have had a clear 50 metre race to the try line.

Any such fan is as unwelcome in Widnes as he surely was in Doncaster.

Not a good time for Widnes fans all round but congratulations to your team for running us so close. Lot's to think about right now.

Think we will be okay in the long run in the long run tbh, but need to pull the finger out. Not sure if Cullen's the answer, too.

It certainly was value for money, good game, good luck for the rest of the season.

At the moment id say he's bottom of the list of culprits for the current state of affairs. He will slowly work his way up if he carries on with playing with 2 FB's & 4 wingers like last night, mind.

Ultimately the squad is so imbalanced. Absolutely no need for 4 full time wingers all of relatively similar ability. Ste Mc took some flack and im still amazed that TOC manages to dodge any because he was just as large a part of the recruitment as Steve Mc.

We seemed to pick up players because we had the cash available or to stop others getting them. Ste Bannister was probably another we could have done without and im sure we went throwing ££'s at Webster because the rest of the division did.

Quite amused to read the comments of people slagging the team off that didn't go to the game.

The game in my opinion was a large step forward, and the perfect example to the players of how we can play this season. The first half was the best we've played so far and finally had dummy runners, unpredictable play, and a good kicking game., winning the half 20-0.

The second half we went back to how we've played so far this season and lost the second half 18-4.

Now I would assume that Cullen will let the players watch the game to see the difference and to get them to play for 80 minutes rather than 40. I must say Thackeray and Webster can work very well together when they want to and when there is a good deep attacking line.

Other pluses was Thompson's best game so far, and I thought Simm had a solid game as well.

Really?

So in your next paragraph you state:





Quite a contradiction in terms don't you think? I freely admit to not seeing either game over the Easter period however I've seen more than enough of this team this season to come to relatively informed conclusion that we are badly under performing and not able to play for 80 minutes.

Losing a half time 20 nil lead to lose the 2nd half 18-4 against one of the Championships basement clubs speaks volumes, whether I was there to witness it or not. I witnessed the previous week's performance at Halifax first hand and it doesn't take much to work out that more of the same of that performance was served up for large parts of this weekend's fixtures.

In any case, there is a clear distinction between 'slagging off' a team and being critical. We've been promised exciting and entertaining rugby this season by the club, we've signed some of the best players and a scrum half who ripped us to shreds not so long back and yet again we've been badly let down. This is the worst start to any of our previous seasons in the lower leagues, even though the club has claimed to have had such a fantastic pre-season.

I don't see things getting any better any time soon. Playing good rugby for 40 minutes won't even get us into the top 6, let alone any finals this season.

Yes I do find it amusing, how can you be 'critical' as you put it without seeing what you're being critical of!

And not a contradiction in the slightest, my point being that the players will learn a valuable lesson after last nights game of what they are capable of if they play for longer periods. For every game so far this season, we have played like we did in the second half last night and the results have been poor. For the first half last night, we scored some fantastic tries and played very well, this proves to the players that they have got the ability this season to do something.

My amusement being that there is no constructive criticism coming from anyone, just saying it's rubbish etc.

And regarding Webster, he did very well last night, and considering he sat out of the majority of last year and was told his career was over I think he's doing ok.

I think that's good to hear... I've tried to avoid being too critical but the game against Leigh on Friday was a very low point.

I do stand by my statement though that if we can turn possession into points then we will do very well this year. A little more guile and we would have been out of sight of Leigh and probably would have won in both matches against Fax. Unfortunately though we have looked short of ideas and this has proven costly in those three games and just as importantly in entertaining the fans that turned up to those games.

Onward and upward... I'll look forward to seeing the improvement that was witnessed last night on Friday night as hopefully 'the plan' comes together a bit more..

Like I've said, I've seen enough of this sort of performance this season to make an informed judgement on our overall performance so far.



Yes it is a contradiction because in one sentence you claim to have seen a big improvement, yet in the next you state we reverted back to the way we've played this season. These full time professional players should not need to learn the most basic valuable lesson that a game last for 80 minutes!! Anyone who has ever picked up a rugby ball should know that!



Yes and we also saw 80 minutes of fantastic rugby against Toulouse putting 70 points past them and nilling them in the process. They should have been fully aware of their ability by now and be putting in at least consistently good performances whether we win or not.



I've rarely been critical of the side so far this season but enough is enough, just because I happen to miss 2 games out of a whole season it does not make my opinion of our current and recent form any the less valid and I also see very little of people coming here simply claiming that we are 'rubbish'.

To be fair Busty.. if we played well for 40 minutes and were more creative if even for a half then that is an improvement.

As for the commenting thing... The team are only as good as their last game and I do think it is difficult to comment if you haven't seen the game whether live or on TV. Even radio is difficult as the local radio stations are so biased to their local team.

I saw Leigh and missed last night so I don't know where we are up to but from the sounds of things there were positives again to be taken from last night. If we are beginning to employ set pieces and dummy runners then we are on the right track.