Re: Fax (H) : Mon Jun 27, 2016 10:11 am  

BiginJapan1970 wrote:

evenly matched packs but Halifax half backs and bradford half backs chalk and cheese

Agreed. I do not get the hate for the Bradford pack. I thought they won the collision quite often and got lots of quick play the balls, much quicker than us for most of the game. We probably just had that little bit of extra quality around the park compared to Bradford.

When people talk about the gulf between FT and PT it is more the gulf between SL and Championship which is evident but take yesterdays game with no disrespect to Bradford but it were just about the worst of the worst full time players against a lot of the very best part time players. A win for the FT time is in no way or form a given.

Re: Fax (H) : Mon Jun 27, 2016 10:43 am  

I thought their props made much more ground than ours and on defence we kept leaving huge gaps in our line which Fax exploited to the full. We didn't seem to be using a man for man marking or a sliding defence consequently we were all over the place.

Re: Fax (H) : Mon Jun 27, 2016 10:53 am  

Stockwell & Smales wrote:

I thought their props made much more ground than ours and on defence we kept leaving huge gaps in our line which Fax exploited to the full. We didn't seem to be using a man for man marking or a sliding defence consequently we were all over the place.

I can't really remember our props taking the ball up in the second half. It was scoot after scoot after scoot from the wingers. Our defesively line speed completely fell to pieces.

Kirean Moss, Ethan Ryan and Jay Pitts are only ones who can hold their head high after that.

Re: Fax (H) : Mon Jun 27, 2016 11:13 am  

Stockwell & Smales wrote:

I thought their props made much more ground than ours and on defence we kept leaving huge gaps in our line which Fax exploited to the full. We didn't seem to be using a man for man marking or a sliding defence consequently we were all over the place.

Yeah I thought the Bradford defence was very poor. We had a chance to take 2 in the first half and Bradford had been putting us under a lot of pressure but when we had the ball we were making half breaks so when we ran that penalty it was clear we were thinking we could bust through eventually.

Re: Fax (H) : Mon Jun 27, 2016 12:19 pm  

Greg Florimos Boots wrote:

Yeah I thought the Bradford defence was very poor. We had a chance to take 2 in the first half and Bradford had been putting us under a lot of pressure but when we had the ball we were making half breaks so when we ran that penalty it was clear we were thinking we could bust through eventually.

I'd be interested to know what your assessment of our pressure is, though. Mine is that while we can get in opponents' 20, we are pretty easy for a determined and organised defence to repel. We seem to be lost for any ideas of how to score.

Re: Fax (H) : Mon Jun 27, 2016 12:24 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

We screwed ourselves when some years back we barkingly decided that a team can do without a scrum half, and persisted with that insanity until in recent weeks - but years too late - the penny may finally have dropped.

You're being a bit harsh on Deacs there FA. Shame on you.

Re: Fax (H) : Mon Jun 27, 2016 2:47 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

I'd be interested to know what your assessment of our pressure is, though. Mine is that while we can get in opponents' 20, we are pretty easy for a determined and organised defence to repel. We seem to be lost for any ideas of how to score.

Pretty much that you had a ton of ball in dangerous areas, admittedly a lot of that came more on the back of the lop sided penalty count rather than clean breaks, but even so Bradford did seem to have a lot more of the ball. Halifax's scrambling defence was superb though as was Bradford's to be fair. I think it was just a case for the majority of the game Fax's first line of defence was more solid than Bradford's as we seemed to be able to find gaps a lot easier.

Re: Fax (H) : Mon Jun 27, 2016 3:25 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

I'd be interested to know what your assessment of our pressure is, though. Mine is that while we can get in opponents' 20, we are pretty easy for a determined and organised defence to repel. We seem to be lost for any ideas of how to score.

Couldn't agree more with the last sentence. Our last tackle options particularly are dire, and have been for ages. The lack of craft is staggering, but that's what you get with no halfbacks. I would think the Halifax 6 & 7 would want to play us every week. We just stood and admired them run the show.

Re: Fax (H) : Mon Jun 27, 2016 3:45 pm  

BeechwoodBull wrote:

Couldn't agree more with the last sentence. Our last tackle options particularly are dire, and have been for ages. The lack of craft is staggering, but that's what you get with no halfbacks. I would think the Halifax 6 & 7 would want to play us every week. We just stood and admired them run the show.

No, we would all like to play you every week.

Re: Fax (H) : Mon Jun 27, 2016 4:54 pm  

Greg Florimos Boots wrote:

When people talk about the gulf between FT and PT it is more the gulf between SL and Championship which is evident but take yesterdays game with no disrespect to Bradford but it were just about the worst of the worst full time players against a lot of the very best part time players. A win for the FT time is in no way or form a given.

The only rebuttal I can put up against your opinion of our squad is that Addy, Clark are going to HKR and Olbison, Gaskell (current championship player of year) and Ferguson are going to Huddersfield. So 2 SL teams think those 5 players are (bottom 4) SL quality. It is probably telling that 4 of them are injured at the moment.

Blythe is a quandary. He was a good centre at Wire 4 or 5 years ago, and started off as a good centre for us, but we played him for half a season as a 2nd rower, discovered he was no good at 2nd row, then put him back at centre and found that the stint at 2nd row seemed to have broken him at centre...

2 of our 17 had only been in the squad for 5minutes. But again, all their recent game time has been in SL.

As has been said many times, half back is our problem. No direction, no rudder, no creativity. Effort goes unrewarded so then the effort starts to slide, which annoys the fans.

Our recent signings do seem to be longer term. Middle 8's are no longer in our direct control, if it happens, we'll have a go, but this looks increasingly like building for the future.

Should I be concerned about Smiths final quote in the T&A today?

Smith added: “They are all big games now and until I’m no longer here I will treat every game the same.”

Why did he need to add the "no longer here bit"?!?