We had a back on the bench against Wakefield and scored 1 try what's your point plus Blair can drop in at centre on the plus side for you the NRL teams won't be sniffing round your players after today

My point is that you've tried to have a pop at Radford, but Rovers came unstuck against Leeds exactly the same way Hull did today. I imagine you didn't complain about Sheens for lacking a plan B.
Blair clearly can drop in at centre with about the same quality Washbrook can. He let Keinhorst waltz past him 3 times.
While I don't want any of our players to go to NRL (and it's obvious you're only just trying to have another dig), clubs don't decide to sign/not sign players on the basis of 1 game.

radford hasn't written it for him yet

I thought that was your default mode anyway?

Very funny

So you are blaming the weather and injuries for your defeat .. wow.

At least you made history today. The first team to lose a Super League game outside of Europe. I suppose that must be considered a positive benefit of Brexit.

All we need now is for DGM or Jakes best mate the peg (or whatever he calls himself these days) to come on and tell us it was inevitable that Wigan would win. Why ? It was obviously Wigan's Cup final and Hull are concentrating on the Challenge Cup and had one eye on that, so never took the game seriously.

If you read the first post I made (previous page) you would see where I quoted a comment that the best team won, and I agreed with it. Because, well, the best team did win.

The post of mine which you've just quoted, and somehow managed to turn it into me blaming weather and injuries for the loss, was in reply to Frankie's post about not having a plan B, nothing to do with the outcome of the game.

We made too many handling errors and couldn't capitalise on good field position when we had it. However, injuries did play a part in our struggles, and anybody who honestly believes that injuries don't have some impact on the match is completely clueless.

Every team gets injuries losing a winger shouldn't have the impact of say losing a half or hooker for instance your making out the game was over as soon as you lost your winger

It was over long before Fairamo went off

That can depend on circumstances. In today's case there was no quality replacement for the left hand side. Connor can just about handle himself on the wing, but then the real problem comes from having to play an aging forward in the centre's, the hardest position on the pitch to defend in (Maurice Blair will likely vouch for that). It's no coincidence as soon as we had to make those changes they cut us open on the left edge. Our defence hadn't manage to get to grips with things yet. They managed to sort themselves out later in the game, but we've still got a few poor decisions from Wigan's left side to thank for not getting completely hammered. The game wasn't over when Faraimo went off, it just got a lot tougher. Playing against Wigan is already tough enough when fully fit.
And for the record, our hooker was also injured pretty early in the game.

That'll do me now anyway. This is a thread for Rovers/Leeds not Hull/Wigan.

Much better from us. Going down to 12 men against Wakefield really cost us. Other than that time we have competed.
Atkin looks a player.
Highlight of nonsense in the Leeds game. Hefernan getting concusion from a high tackle and Leeds get a penalty for him being unable to play the ball. Hefernan out for the game. Hicks was awful again.
As for video refs they are ruining the game. They bring little else than the officials on the pitch get plenty wrong and ruin the momentum of games.

Leeds didn’t get a penalty. Other than that, I agree Hicks was dire.

Your right they got the scrum but should have gotten the penalty for not playing the ball correctly

Poor decision from hicks. Should have been a leeds penalty

It wasn't the injury to Faraimo necessarily that cost us there, it was the time it took us to fix it. Connor to Wing & Washy to Centre, then Wigan cut us open at will scoring their first two tries. Even when Hadley went to Centre it didn't quite fix it. 2nd half we managed to stop it.

We also had injuries to Houghton & Watts, with Mini & Connor playing injured & doubts for the St George game. Injuries were of course a factor vs a strong Wigan side, 5 in-game injuries to a team will always be a facor. However, we made too many mistakes and I don't think we were anyway near creative enough, we still had enough to win the game. That's sport though, win some, lose some.

The stats man! Where's the STATS?

I suppose the last thing you need is to be playing an NRL side next week could be a bit of a car crash

Could be another breakfast time treat? Set me up for the weekend quite nicely. I'd just read Radfords article in HDM saying how Hull were going to put on a show and he was correct. Will St George name a strong squad and even try to put them to the sword though? Hope so.

Probably will be. Rumours are that Ellis is having to put a shirt on, we've asked Newcastle Knights if Curtis Naughton can play for us, and Hakim Miloudi was seen at the airport. The only positive is that Tuimavave might be fit to play. Taylor, Watts, Houghton, Mini, Connor, Matongo & Faraimo all travelled and all out.

Ultimately the one that mattered was the Wigan game, this one is a friendly, so get those with knocks wrapped up in cotton wool to be fit for the Cas game a week later.

A flight back from Australia isn't going to help any injuries luckily Cas don't seem to be firing on all cylinders so could be the game you need

True. The club knew the risks associated with the tour, so it's not something we can moan about. Cas seem to have started slowly, so it could be a good game to return to as you say.

Is it 17-man match squads and limited interchanges? I wasn’t necessarily expecting a full blooded match-up, but I hope it’s not just a training run. I can barely be bothered watching our pre-season games.

I don't think they've confirmed it yet (as far as I know). Radford said in the HDM last week that he'll wait and speak to St George to see what number of subs they line up with and go with the same, as well as how seriously they'll approach the game. I imagine with the number of injuries in the touring squad that it'll be more towards the side of exhibition than a serious game, unfortunately.

Probably sensible, but a little disappointing. I think I'll probably skip it, if that is the case.

Maybe I just got used to watching Championship RL in 2017, but I thought the Wigan-Hull game was a decent enough contest. Especially allowing for the travel, that it was only round 2 of SL and that Hull were disrupted by in-game injuries.

Yeh, it certainly wasn't as poor as some people are making out. I think the Aussie fans would've enjoyed seeing how open SL rugby is, but also find the amount of messing around at the ruck and in the tackle frustrating. I think there were 35 handling errors in the game, part due to the conditions, part due to poor execution, perhaps for the reasons you mention.

Injuries are just one of those things, we've generally been pretty luckily the last couple of seasons, so we were perhaps due some bad luck. Apparently all but Watts & Houghton will be fit for the Cas game.