I think many amateur players current and past would at times been able to defend against KR so predictable, drive drop off back in side, FC slowed the play of the ball down and allowed KR no momentum going forward where Fc were up playing the ball quicker leaving Houghton at times from dummy half to rip us bits. FC fully deserved the win Gentle put together a game plan and Fc stuck to it. KR had opportunities but Latus spill certainly summed up our night. Am not as i said going to call any officials , bad decisions either way we got beat get over it and look forward. Stood in the East Stand and listening to fans around me shouting at certain players on the pitch for me summed up the passion for a Derby by the fans, certain players who are on the way to other clubs should at least show the same passion while they still wearing a KR shirt. Bring in the youth Salter already proved hiself in the 1st team yet we still play latus on the wing and Horne in the centres, says something when your scrum half makes a break and we only have Latus in support, Hogdson looked un fit along with a few more players. Like other posters have said Sandercock inherited most of this squad fair point, but so did Gentle at FC !!!!!!! Lets see in 2013 if Sandercock still uses that excuse then as this time the squad will be his making.

Hmmm...glad that was locked

.

I felt that our forwards generally held their own last night and have all season. Our downfall is a lack of any threat 1-5 or even 6. Green hasn't been the player he was last season and looks unfit. Nothing needs saying re, Latus. Hodgson has improved from his early form and has some quality but obviously lacks real pace Our biggest shortfall has been in the centres. Welham has been average at best and Webster who is ok defensively has offered nothing in attack all year and looks like a player five years his senior. Graham Horne is never any more than cover, especially at centre.

Ironically Richard Horne looked head and shoulders better than McDonald last night. The vids of McDonald pre season on Youtube showed a player with good feet making breaks...I can't recall one all season. He joins the line well in attack and that's it.

On paper there was little difference in ability between the two teams on show last night so it has to be put down to coaching. One team was drilled to have quick line speed in defence, to play the ball quickly and offload in the tackle. The other...none of them things.

Although I could see effort from our boys some posters are correct...under Morgan we regularly out-enthused FC. This season that has completely reversed. I fear Sandy tries to treat it and prep for just another game. We all know that along with doing the basics well as above, blood and guts generally wins the match.

Now it suddenly seems a tricky game next week but I think we will scrape home. I agree with the comments calling for Green, Beaumont et al. Bench the players that are leaving and start giving game time to the youngsters who will be playing next season. I'm not even bothered whether we finish 8th or 9th at this stage...what's the difference other than one place and one extra game?

Prize money and attendance money from the play offs.

Lee Richardson on RH stated last night that these are two poor teams with a lot going on at both clubs this is fair enough but if they are still getting they're wages they should still be doing the job simple as.

They did a job.

They just didn't do it as well as you'd like.

I don't know how much the prize money would be for eighth and one away game? Do they share the the gate receipts in the play-offs?...I doubt it.

No fc came out and did the job Sheldon rovers cudnt be bothered as usual

I think they do, although someone will be better informed.

RL is still a business and you every penny you can get, a win or 2 might get a few more through the gates or a better sponsorship.

It all adds up.

You can't polish a turd, you've (like us) didn't have a wealth of talent on the park.

It does add up but when u know the team arnt bothered why shud we pay in excess of 100 quid a family to watch the tripe they are serving up at the minute.

Without it the team you support will get worse.

People get to carried away by it all, not every side can be top.

Gentle said exactly the same thing in his pre-match interview, didn't rub off on our players? Maybe Gentle is aware how much it means to the fans though?

I know that but even looking like ur bothered wud be a start and I don't want to be top just want consistency and that isn't happening

I would have thought saying it was a "fans thing" would tend to suggest Sandercock does too.

Your lack of passion last night and his obvious inability to motivate them in all 3 derbies this year would tend to suggest he doesn't.

No problem with motivation for the magic weekend derby. Sandercock has said about sending the fans home happy after that game, he said pre this game, its a fan thing therefore it seems clear he knows what it means to the supporters, which I believe was your original point.

Where to start? Jesus, I'll begin at the end.

In the car on the way home listening to the post-match interviews. The one that summed the entire night (season?) for me was listening to Richard Horne. He basically said that after getting a beasting at Catalans, Hull had spent all week training to get a 3rd man into the tackle and thus control the ruck. I think its fair to say that they took this onto the pitch with them. Defensive training appears to be an alien concept at Rovers this season.

Hull's defence was light years ahead of ours, and has been in all 3 games this year. In fact, as a contest, last night was even more one sided than Good Friday, without the scoreboard reflecting it. Hull bombed at least 3 more scores before half time.

On the back of such a solid defence, it was just a matter of time before we caved in. We were making 30-40 metres in a set, while Hull were going full length without any help from Silverwood (what was the penalty count? It felt like 2 to 1 in our favour). At 20-18, It felt like we were about to mug them again. The final 2 tries at least made the scoreboard reflect the game a little more. I'm not going to bang on about how poor some of our players looked, they were coached & picked by Mr Motivator and he's getting my backing until he's either failed or succeeded with his own team. Hull looked up for it, motivated, organized and quite frankly, much better than us. I shudder to think how much worse it could have been without their list of absentees (for 1 reason or another).

Gluton for punishment, I'm popping for my Widnes tickets at lunch. Keep the faith (yeah, right!).

I can see us only winning 3 more games this season. Will that be enough to get into the top 8? Doubtful, but then Shuddersfield are worse than us at the moment, so who knows?

(I'm trying to ignore Bradford at the moment, because on the field, they deserve their play-off place).

Losing, I can deal with. Losing without showing passion for 40 minutes is disheartening.

Missing two of our strike players in Hall and Welham last night had an impact. Sounds like Mika is injured (and maybe suspended anyway) and McDonell out for the rest of the season and gone.

We are still relying too much on Dobbo and Green. I can count on a single hand the number of times we offloaded in the tackle, and some of them went wrong. In my opinion, that is one of the main skill areas we're lacking in. But the lack of passion is the real killer at the moment.

Ah well, roll on next week and Widnes, at least that should get us back on track a little

2 of our worst defenders would hardly have made a difference in a side that missed more than 40 tackles.

There's not much to say that hasn't already been said TBH. Shocking performance, line speed none existent, no urgency to get up & PtB, completely bossed around by a patched up FC side. Not sure what the game plan was, but just trundling it up the middle was never going to work.
Thought Houghton was outstanding last night.

The magic weekend was a player response in the last 10 minutes, nothing to do with Sandercock, more to do with Ganson.
My original point was Gentle said the same thing, which he did. Rover49 claiming that was the reason for your lack of passion, didn't happen to ours. Maybe the reason is Gentle knows what it truly means to the fans, plausible.

Disappointing but no complaints.

We looked flat, similar to Good Friday. On the other hand, the one derby that fell during our one run of good form we won, so lack of passion maybe feels like an excuse. When we were in form we weren't a bad team, before and since we have been. Not unbearably or painfully so, just a bit lacklustre.
IMO, and I'm very far from being a coach, you do have to approach these games differently - it's true you don't want to get caught up in the hype, and it's just 2 points like any other, but if you want them you have to work a bit harder. On a brighter note, we've won both our post-derby games so far this year which rarely used to happen, so hopefully we'll turn up on at Widnes perform better.
Hull did some of the things well that they were doing in the early season and were good value for their win.

One discretion too many PAUL M, he needed to go, he was regularly bringing the club into disrepute and didn't seem able to help himself.

He is better than Latus, I don't want to bag the kid too much (he says, but is clearly just about to!) but he's just not good enough, no shame in that. He tries, he gives it a shot but if that's all you've got you at least need to be steady and reliable, which unfortunately he isn't. Every game he makes a couple of critical errors.

Dobson was not bad going forward once he decided to take the line on but was terrrible in defence. He might as well have given The Human Tatto a bunch of flowers and asked for his autograph in the first half.

Mainly Hull didn't allow Rovers to play and were clinical when the chances came, we had four clear line breaks and converted one.

Welham and Hall are suspect in defence but back up very well.

Houghton would be a joy to watch if he didn't kill us every game! Fabulous come back performance from him.

I said when Watts left that I hope he gets his head right, I just didn't want him to do it against us!

But far from convincing enough to have the desired effect.

missed watching the match last night on tv, how did laithwaite go