Agreed. The props we have seem to be more suited to a war of attrition, gradually grinding down the opposition. That might work if we were virtually error free and had a high set completion ratio but usually we don't.

We have no impact from the bench, no-one who is going to shake things up with a bullocking run or smash someone into next week and Fridays game at Hull shows the importance of having that quality in the team.

Individually i thought we had some decent performers although as a team the timings all looked a little off. Defensively we looked far more sound but it has to be said that the Catalans threw very little variety at us. Our much criticised pack stood firm against their Catalans counterparts and undoubtadly won the battle, though i wouldnt have classed them as "dominant."
It is clear to see that confidence is an issue at the moment and i think that is why Morgan was so upbeat after the game in his interviews, he is trying to instill it back into his squad. One good win and it will come flooding back. We have the players. Lets hope it is this friday.

Unfortunately that type of payer demands top dollar and in Clinton Rovers have their 'O'Meley' type player both in terms of what he brings to the team and the chunk he takes from the cap. That said i don't think Rovers are getting the best out of Joel and could use him better. Rather than starting with him i'd use him as an impact player off the bench purely becasue of his size. I would sacrifice the extra yard per carry he makes early in the game for damage he could do in a couple of 15/20 minute spells from the bench.

With the current batch of props I would start with two from Vella, Watts or Wheeldon at who have the best techniques in terms of body position, finding the floor and quick PTB. They are also have the best tackling techniques of all the props and are tighter at marker and at A defender. They would therefore provide Rovers with a solid foundation early in the game. Clinton and Lovegrove would provide Rovers with genuine impact from the bench as both are capable of punching holes in defences and would be more likely to achive this in the second quarter of each half than the first.

To sum it up, we need a nasty git in there.

With hindsight, morgan shouldn't have turned down fitzgibbon, o'meley and moa when they came knowcking (according to zod anyway)

sI've een the incident on youtube where clinton gets knocked out. Notwithstanding that fact (which was a complete accident due to a head clash), what has happened to him as a player? Looked like he could run through a brick wall when he took that ball in. Seen none of it at rovers

I didnt want to be the one to bring that up for the risk of been called a troll!!

What and have players breaking tackles willy nilly, running at pace and scoring tries.

No thank you very much

Plus the fact that it would be off-topic..

To be fair to Joel he does run it in at pace and certainly doesn't do the highland jig 3 paces before the line surrender like a lot do. The main problem with our packs line speed is that we play a flat line and the forwards never seem to get the ball and are allowed to run at pace (except from the kick off etc). Add to that he got some stinkers of passes yesterday and had to check his run to catch the ball and losing the momentum.