Well I had my doubts about Chester. I was very wrong.
He has recruited good rugby players and built a team in one off season. We have pace all over. All can play unstructured rugby.
Campese appears a great human being who is inspiring his team and he appears inspired by the club.
Chester is managing it all very well.
Given the re building at the other clubs with only Leeds looking settled we could do what Cas did last year given a good run with injuries.
Apart from the already noticed players Blair looks class.
Donaldson Allgood and McCarthy haven't taken a backward step.
Well done so far Mr Chester.

Very happy. I was excited seeing this team being assembled and frankly wasn't too worried about shipping points in the early games. We were bound to.
There's some real steel in our defence and a willingness for the guys to share the load.
It's unfortunate that injuries / suspensions seem to be making our pack lack depth, but everyone gets injuries.

Not seen much of Voltaire recently. I'm wondering how much wedge he had on us to be relegated with our "worst team since '89"

We are very watchable, Stan, even when we don't play well like today.

We have heart, passion, leadership and a brilliant team spirit. These qualities are the sort of basics all good teams need to capitalise fully on their skill sets.

We need to execute better. We could and should have scored a lot more tries in the last 4 games. Poor final ball or play choices. Like our current defensive steel and intensity.

I think we will only get better, injuries and suspensions permitting. Reasons to be cheerful, one two three.

For me the Dury's out on the reasons to be cheerful.




I'll get my coat.

Not seen since the Wakefield game. Don't think the matron has let him out since.

As we now face 4 in a row away from home, lets see how we look come early May.

As daft as it sounds, I'd take 2 points from Cas, Cats & Wigan away. It's a tough run of games.

Das ist gut, c'est fantastique

I'll hold my hand up too. I was a Chester knocker. The guy has worked wonders with this new team, thru the togetherness and proffesionalism from them. So much has changed since the dross of the Sandercock years.

ALL the imports have been outstanding, my only fault was the blip at Wakefield. But they were playing well and wernt as busted as they are now.

I think this team is capable of doing anything in this league. Who knows, maybe a trip to Wembley like Cas last year could be on the cards. It's long overdue.

Let's hope and prey we can keep a fairly fit first team, as I think this could be a special year.

All in all, after 9 rounds. More of the same please.

if you can keep campese and kelly fit then and firing then you will be a good outside bet for a top 4 place, campese's kicking was excellent again today, but without those 2 you could struggle, everything came from them today.

TBF, I think most teams would struggle without both halves

Agreed. See St Helens for details.

Ain't that the truth. Catalans and saints for starters. The way Campese plays is smart tho, very rarely runs it unless an opportunity opens up. More speed of mind than fast running half back. Keeps him out of harm's way. Must admit my heart was in my mouth when Kelly was out cold in the second half.

I think he was just struggling to breathe after the hit in the balls

felt for him

Looking forward to seeing today's game on hkrtv.

I keep expecting our pack to get mashed, but they work really hard. And players seem to have slotted in pretty seamlessly, when there have been injuries or suspensions. Lunt has looked very good since he arrived, and with Tilse adding a bit of bulk and hopefully Cox pushing for a place soon - well I'd like to see what TC and AK could do behind a pack on a roll.

We could have had 6 additional points with the way we played against Leeds, Warrington and the last 10 minutes against Widnes.

We'd only be sat at the top of the Super Dooper League two clear of Leeds.

That said, we're 3 from 4 in games decided by less than a converted try, so I don't think we can claim to be too unlucky.
Mind you, Saints did need two dubious late tries and Hudds got back to within one score as the hooter went today, I believe, so maybe we were more comfortable than the scorelines suggested.

5 from the last 7 is pretty good going, no two ways about that.

Seems a much better balanced league so far this year. Maybe it'll start to take a more familiar shape, in the next few weeks. But picking winners is tricky at the moment.

I did not see the game but reading on hear i would say if we can win when we play bad that is the sign of a good team long may it last please

Not that I wouild want them injured but Blair is another option in the halfs & a very good one at that. I also think our two hookers can take some of the work load, What we have this year is multiple options kicking & play making, last year we only had Burns & he was not consistant & went missing at times.

The transition from a few rounds in to now has been massive. I don't think anyone really saw our huge improvement in defence coming and our game management to see out recent games has been magnificent.
We haven't looked as slick as some early games, or even tried to be. But if recent wins mean sacrificing some of that attacking intent in favour of better control then I'm all for it.

I still think we have to be grounded in our approach and outlook ... but can you imagine the likes of Dixon & Kelly having the chance to play on the back of a bit of go forward if/when we can get the pack fit and playing? Add to that, the weather warming up and ground hardening ... some real running options against tiring opposition. That's without even mentioning the brains dept of Campo and Lunt.

Chris Chester ... knives were out after Wakey game, but has done a great job so far/since then. Same too applies to Willie Poching ... who again, after Wakefield we were thinking .... improve our defence .... hmmm?

I listened to Jon Wells talking about gelling a new team last week and he stated that attack is a lot easier to gel that defence. That he said takes a lot more time on the training ground and a lot more understanding as its harder to drill.

As no expert I always assumed the other way around but it does seem to be coming to fruition with us. I like most despaired after the Wakey debacle, the defence looked like it had gone backwards and even 1st half v cats looked abysmal. Shows what I know, now this might all be a flash in the pan but at last(prob for 2 or 3 seasons) I'm looking forwards to watching us play.

Rovers are currently 3 points better off than from the equivalent fixtures last season.

That will remain the case even if we lose all of the next 3 SL games so from that perspective anything we get will be an improvement.

Very tough run of games but we seem to be competitive every week right now so anything is possible.

In comparison to last year, we are a better team with better players and the overall gap between some of the SL teams has definitely narrowed.
That said, to use a well worn record this year, there is no easy fixture in SL anymore which is a good thing, so we should take nothing for granted.

We had an easy fixture last Thursday/

I did say some of the teams and that ain't one of them.