Re: London v Doncaster : Mon Feb 16, 2015 1:12 pm  

John Gilbert Reds wrote: Whats happened to Liam Foran? Was he given a run in any of the pre-season game? I'm sure the majority of Salford fans shared their thoughts on his signing when it was announced. A very odd one given the quality you had signed previously and since. PS - he really is that bad. I haven't seen him so you may get a better reply from someone who has. All that I know is that he did play last weekend when we were tonked by Dewsbury and that those who saw the game weren't impressed by him. http://www.londonbroncosrl.com/fixtures ... ms-010115/ There's been no mention of him being injured so he must have been dropped.

John Gilbert Reds wrote: Whats happened to Liam Foran? Was he given a run in any of the pre-season game? I'm sure the majority of Salford fans shared their thoughts on his signing when it was announced. A very odd one given the quality you had signed previously and since. PS - he really is that bad. I haven't seen him so you may get a better reply from someone who has. All that I know is that he did play last weekend when we were tonked by Dewsbury and that those who saw the game weren't impressed by him. http://www.londonbroncosrl.com/fixtures ... ms-010115/ There's been no mention of him being injured so he must have been dropped.

[brian2]

Re: London v Doncaster : Mon Feb 16, 2015 1:19 pm  

[quoteI haven't seen him so you may get a better reply from someone who has][/quote]

I was at the Catalan game, and felt he was poor. Added nothing in attack and a very poor kicking game. My understanding was he didnt play great at Dewsbury.

But he is a big unit and maybe worth a go. Thought Oscar played well, though missed a tackle for one of the Doncaster tries. Keyes seemed very quiet, though up against a very experienced opponent

Re: London v Doncaster : Mon Feb 16, 2015 3:20 pm  

The ref was just poor generally. I also think that, à la Ganson, he always favoured the dominant team, which in the second half was Donny.
Positives for me were:
1. Plenty more people marshalling the defensive line, at least in the first half anyway. One guy can't do this on his own, and leadership across the park is one of the things that has been lacking over the years
2. We put together some really good plays (in the first half)
3. Perhaps counter intuitive, but I think it might be a good thing they shipped points in the second half. If they'd won too easily it might let the complacency back in. Joey can now hammer home the fact that they can't afford to switch off at this level. Of course it's only a 'positive' if it gives them the kick up the a**e that they need and they learn from it.

Re: London v Doncaster : Mon Feb 16, 2015 3:54 pm  

Perry, totally agree about point 3. mentioned it on another thread.

[Jemmo]

Re: London v Doncaster : Mon Feb 16, 2015 5:37 pm  

Do you know if the tries/highlights will be posted anywhere?

[Jemmo]

Re: London v Doncaster : Mon Feb 16, 2015 5:53 pm  

Scratch that, found them

Re: London v Doncaster : Mon Feb 16, 2015 8:40 pm  

If you are gonna ref bash get it right, the touchy does not make the decision on the try only the ref can do that. The only way a touchy can deny a try is if he puts his flag up for foot or ball in touch, if he goes to back line all he is saying is he saw nothing and saw a good grounding ref then makes the call.
As for the incident you talked about with mathers, if anything matters should have been pinged he went back down as tho he had been shot in the legs trying to milk a penalty, ref did the right thing.
As for ripped or dropped ball, we are 60 70 mtrs awsy ref was 10 or 15.
Fact is lads went to sleep and thought game was won

Re: London v Doncaster : Mon Feb 16, 2015 9:57 pm  

2 points in the bag, lessons learnt (hopefully) and a decent turn out for the first game of the season. As an aside, the highlights being on the website is a nice touch, but somebody have a word about the background music as it is truly woeful.

Re: London v Doncaster : Tue Feb 17, 2015 7:43 am  

Lowest crowd of the week in the league I've just read.

Lots of positives to build on though

Re: London v Doncaster : Tue Feb 17, 2015 9:38 am  

poplar panther wrote:

when you play 2 kids at half back.

Agreed. Not just two kids but two stand-offs. We badly missed a first receiver who wanted the ball in his hands. And Barthau is 3 months away, I believe.

I thought OT was a bit soft in defence too. No surprises that all Doncaster's tries were down our left-hand side. I haven't seen any highlights from the Dewsbury game but expect that side of our defence was exposed up there too. Thomas and Farrar next to each other won't hold up against a better oppo.

Still, biggest issue for me was lack of rugby intelligence. We badly needed to change the rhythm of the game but we were a mix of stupid (loose carries) and whiny (decisions go against you, you get on with it). After a couple of turnovers, we needed to get to the end of a set and it made sense to me to kick early in the tackle count and get Doncaster to earn the yards rather than be given them - they were never going to score a try from a set starting in their own half.

1-5 and 8-13 looked very good. Off the bench, Dwyer was our best player IMO but needs more game time. Grima shouldn't have used Wicks and Everett if he didn't trust them - which he obviously didn't. If Dollapi is fit, he should have played as he is streets ahead of Everett at this stage.

976 was impressive. More home fans at this game (850+?) than the average last year.