DaveO wrote:I was going to say pretty much the same thing. I thought the ref was very poor and some of the penalties were not fathomable. Particularly the one where one of their players without the ball set off and just ran into a couple of our players and he blew up. The 10m was often 5m particularly when the ball was turned over.
I'd agree about Smith coming on earlier as well. I lost my temper when TL kicked the ball out in the full. It was the last straw on what was a very poor performance from him.
Lam said after the match sometimes you need to win ugly and last season this is the kind of game we may have lost. I don't disagree but now I am looking to see what his selection will be for Friday v Salford. If at least one of Bullock and Clark don't figure with a short five day turnaround I think any notion of Lam rotating the squad can be put to bed. This is exactly when rotation is the right thing to do.
I don't think any of these observations are negative. As we are winning they are nice problems to be discussing on a forum which is what they are for.
Indeed Dave. The one you refer to above was completely bizzarre. I know we often criticise the linesmen for not doing enough but yesterday saw the complete opposite. I thought Hicks in particular was giving some very poor advice and, if I'm not mistaken, that one was one of them.
I agree that there's a difference between discussion and negativity. You need the latter to have the former in any meaningful sense. I just think that balance is too often overlooked. There are almost always two sides to every story and multiple ways to interpret the same set of observations. My problem (if that's the right word) is with posters who see everything through an unrelentingly negative lens. I've pointed out many times over the years how easy it is to take a balanced view if you make the effort.
At Salford Lam needs to include Bullock if only to show he wasn't 'dropped' against KR. Ideally he'll include him because he sees his worth, particularly going forward. It's chalk and cheese how much better our backs go behind a pack moving forward. We also need to get past these slow starts so an opening prop combination that can achieve this needs to be found and fast. A slow start against the likes of Saints and we may not have the luxury of winning it in the second half. The game last year at Langtree was over by then.