My thoughts on yesterday:-
Starting with the ref, I didnt think he was any worse than usual but a few things got me at crucial stages of the game. In the space of 5 first half minutes Fev conceded 4 penalties around the PTB but never got on a team warning, in my opinion he should have put them on a warning after 3 and that would have helped the game as the momentum had swung and you couldnt blame Fev for trying to slow us down. 2nd half I thought we were hard done by when we 'forced a drop out', in my eyes the Fev player grounded the ball behind the try line and then ended up back over it before been pushed back, next tackle we were done for offside. The only other decision I can think of was the Murrell one which I didnt think was a dirty tackle it was more a case that he couldnt get there in time and he did hit the kicker on his standing leg and deserved a yellow card for mine.
Fev looked crisper than us in attack at times especially early in the game but once we got a foot hold I think we dominated them in the forwards and they were struggling at times to make yards. That said they did enough to win the game once again.
On Fax I think if you watched the video but took the tries out and had to ask someone who won the game most people would say Fax probably won it by quite some distance but unfortunately sport does not work like that. We just bombed so many chances or took the wrong option too many times. Twice on the first tackle we lost the ball trying to force a pass that was not on, now we all want to see attacking rugby but there has to be some common sense behind it as well. If Moore catches that ball in the first half we would have gone in in front but again a missed opportunity and by the time we bombed the try in the second half I think most of us could see how it was going to end.
After the fairbank break all it would have taken was one killer ball instead the ball ended up in Tangata's hands after an awful pass when it needed a ball player with the ball to provide a quick pass and when that didnt happen it just slowed the whole thing down. I said last week if we were playing a better team we would have lost by bombing chances and it happened this week.
No need for the mass panic that seems to be happening though and there was plenty of pluses to take out of the game and even season so far. Saltonstall is one who looks the part and could do a great job while Greenwood recovers from his awful injury. Mannely was fantastic at hooker especially in the first half and is another who could potentially go on to be a really good player for us this season. The forwards I thought to a man got over their opposition numbers and our defence in the second half in the middle was very very good with some massive hits. I would be more worried about our lack of tries if we were not creating chances but that is not the case, take the Moore dropped ball, the fairbank fall, and Tyrer dropping the ball over the line and there is about 18 points there which would have more than won the game. When/if we can take our chances we will run up a big score against someone.
Dewsbury next week is massive though now and a real must win game against one of our main rivals. If we can beat the teams around us im pretty sure fev will slip up when they dont have all their loan players in and we can make ground up on them. The other thing is the club can not move forward on gates of 2k against one of our main rivals, we need more people down there getting behind the team.
