NickyKiss wrote:
I thought Byrne was superb on Sunday and it’s probably just reward for him to start the game. I get what you’re saying but if felt the issues in the early rounds were more down to having kids starting alongside ten minute Tony and then kids coming off the bench. I’d probably ease Flower and Burgess back in, so it would be Bullock or Byrne for that last starting spot. I thought Bullock made a couple of errors on Sunday, with a knock on which lead to a penalty and him sleeping for their try. He’s a cracking player Bullock and we need him in the side but I’d like to see them give Byrne that reward of starting.
I think the slow starts are still an issue despite the good win on Sunday. Clubb being out, if that's the case, could help with this but I do think it's noticeable how much better we are when the likes of Burgess, Bullock and Clark come on. I guess you could argue that, as a tactic, it's working fine but I wouldn't necessarily relish going into Good Friday with that as a game plan. I feel we need to offer a bit more go forward in the early stages of games and I'm not sure a Byrne/Partington combination is the best one to achieve this. Partington's 'dancing feet' try at the weekend still points to him being more than just a battering ram. I also thought he passed at the line a la Lockers a bit more too which was good to see.
I'm not saying it wouldn't work for the Hull KR game but I'm not so sure we wouldn't be better utilising the, on paper, easier games to prepare for the sterner tests to come.