I really thought we had found our feet and were beginning to play at the pace of the game. The previous three matches in 6 days show that we can do it.
This emposed short break seems to have stripped us of all we have learned - we didn't even give Fev a game. They simply ran along the line to find the weak spots then ran through an open door - flailing your arms about like a windmill and trying to grab someones collar as they run past does not count as tackling in my book. Our line speed was way too slow so they had acres of space to set up their plays and gain momentum. Dashing out of the line to put in a hit is OK if you are accurate, if not you leave a huge gap.
When I got back home I watched the game on telly - at the 30 min mark the commentator said " Keighley have already made 96 tackles"!!! They had runners and options we had rabbits in car headlights. Silly mistakes and penalties robbed us of what little pressure we could sustain. It was interesting that when we produced runners and options we actually made some progress (as also noted by Brian Carney).
We all knew this was going to be a tough year, we've just got to dust ourselves down and get on with it. Featherstone showed what a good team they are, we need to make sure we can make the most of games against the lower order teams.
I'm not going to name players, thats counter productive, they know who they are, but they need to iron out those bad habits quickly. So far we have been helped by softer grounds but the hard grounds will expose our weaknesses ten fold if we don't learn (again) quickly.
Credit to Fev, they played what was in front of them with great skill and gave their fans real value for money. As for Daryl Powell smirking, I think it was just a coach pleased with his teams performance, in his position I'd be smirking too.
