Was good enough tonight.

Like I said not for me he didn't, sure we will see a different player though when the conditions improve.

I thought Orford showed up well tonight, lively with the ball, good pair of hands and quick even on the wet pitch.

Got Platt and Reardon to come back as well. I think Bradford might do well this year. How did their pack go?

Same here.
Kearney was the go to man in the 1st half but Orford took control in the 2nd and Bradford will score many tries from his short kicking game.
Got clattered by Ben Cockayne for good measure.

Well anyhow, I was impressed by Watts tonight. Some good strong defence and took the ball in well, some good signs from the young lad.

Lynch, Langley, Scruton & Hall were all quality. L'Estrange was very lively again, real shame about Koppy though.


I was very impressed with how Kearney and Orford linked up, Orford is fast, his passing is pin-point and his in-game kicking is quality.

Looking forward to this season now, and am even more optimistic.

Sykes, and he must have been working on his goal kicking because he didn't miss one!

Your wern't being serious where you?

what would it take to impress you?
he had a hand in every try his passing was pinpoint an his short kicking game was frightening

Win the Albert Goldthorpe medal. Until then he's not proved anything.

Thought it was a decent run out for both teams, we still look like we have to work on our discipline, we seemed to march Bradford down the pitch far too much. Ben Cockayne looks like he will never learn in that respect, he seems to put in a fantastic hit and then backs it up with throw to the floor afer the tackle.
I thought Lovegrove looked like our best prop last night and was impressed with Fox and Colbon's workrate. Dobbo looked out on his feet by the end of the game.

Bradford looked good in parts and considering it was Orfords 1st game he looks like he'll be up to speed very quickly.

Best SH in the comp by a distance.

No mention of Orford being a O.A.P. i see.

Think you'll find Reardon played last night.



Both packs were pretty evenly matched, but Rovers were boshed at half back.

he got carried off didn't he, looked pretty bad.

Is anybody able to allay my fears?

I haven't made it to any of the games and thanks to a monumental over sight I'll be in London next week, but from what I've heard on the radio and read we seem to be going in a bit under cooked.

Losing to a Bradford team that haven't really played together is not a good sign.

We also seem to be giving away a huge amount of penalties, one of the best aspects of our game over the last three seasons has been reasonably good discipline, we need to get this back.

Hopefully I'm interpreting things incorrectly?

I know he was playing but not the full game? I meant when (or if) he's available for a full game. You'd have to be pleased to match Bradford's pack though in poor conditions.

Got injured in the second half.

Rovers pack was solid enough and i'd be reasonable happy with the way they played, particularly when you consider they were without Ben Galea for 78 minutes

I've only seen/heard the same as you, so I don't know. I don't think it'll be possible to make a meaningful initial assessment as to how the team looks on grass, as opposed to paper, until the end of Feb.

Maybe we peaked too early last year? Fine balance, because if you leave it too late confidence can go and even when it returns you can end up as the form team outside the play-offs.

Rovers do seem to be giving away a lot of penalties - has this been adapting to new interpretations, indiscipline or random reffing flux?
Are we playing fast or slow ruck rules this year?

Not sure, one of the Hull based contingent of the pmh gang that went last night said that Silverwood never got control of the ruck and hence loads of penalties for lying on and interference were given.

For me, one of our major weaknesses is not adapting during games, if you're conceding loads of penalties for trying to slow the ptb down, then whether that was in the game plan for this game or not you have to stop. Otherwise you'll get penalised for the entire game and in all likelihood someone will end up in the bin.

Edit; Christ, that green's bright, sorry about that, I'll go back to red in future!

I'll have a go, i

Is was only a friendly and to be honest I thought we looked ok in patches last night. If you look at where we were at this point last year we struggled to beat a very poor Salford side in a pre season friendly andthen went on to have an exceptional year.

The discipline thing is a worry, Silverwood didn't help much but we do give the refs the opportunities to penalise us by silly lay ons and moments of rashness, maybe early season rustiness but it is an area we need to sort because pens tend to lead to tries...

We do look a bit light up front, Vella put a stint in although he did look like a player who hasn't played for a while (and he looked like he'd slimmed down a bit) Lovegrove and Watts did well and Wheeldon was pretty solid although he does need to cut out the laying on which he's prone to do.
We definitely need another big prop in though and the sooner the better, whether thats Clinton or someone else I don't know.

The other thing to note was we invited a lot of pressure last nightthat I don't think we would normally do, The dobson short drop out that led to the last try was osmething I doubt we would ever do in a real match.

One other thing, why do we still let Dobbo kick for touch when Cookie has about 20m better range, whether it was a used for a reason in the 2nd last night or not I'm not sure but 1st half when cookie was doing them we had much better field position.

Someone on your 'secret' forum has suggested that the laying on and constantly being penalised was actually in Morgans game plan for all your friendlies. This is in order to see how far you can push each individual ref and then use it to your advantage during the season proper.

If anyone's interested it looks like Kopzcak's leg isnt broken, undergoing further tests today.

Glad to hear it.