Alex Mc wrote:It was blatantly obvious last night that we are missing one, maybe even two big forwards. Vella tried his damndest but he is not that type of player. We need a forward that carries men with him just to eleviate some pressure from the likes of Lovegrove and Vella. If Clinton ever arrives, I think the combination of Watts, Vella, Clinton, Lovegrove - with Wheeldon as back up would be good, but until then, we look very lightweight indeed.
I like Jake playing through the middle but I think we need Ratu back so we can put him and Jake in the centres at the expense of Welham. His poor defence is just so costly to us. He left Colbon high and dry so many times last night. To be fair to Welham though, our fringe defence on both sides looks really shakey. We are defending so narrowly, and with people like Roberts, Richards, Gleeson and Carmont on the outsides, you're going to get exposed.
Cookie looks good in spells in his new role, but he got caught with the ball on the last tackle last night. Our last tackle plays close to the line were poor, as was our kicking game in our own half, where at times we only made 10 metres passed the half way line. However, that is symptomatic of not getting any forward movement from your pack.
I'd be tempted to start with Netherton and Newton in the next game, with Cook coming from the bench. I like Netherton but I dont see the point in having him on the bench. He's not got that kind of impact that you need from your replacements, so i'd start him a give him as many minutes as possible and rotate around him.
I think the Scott Murrell/Fisher combo is working pretty well, but we wont see the best of that until we start getting over the gain line with our forwards.
All in all last night was poor, however its early days, so lets not lose faith just yet and see what happens
Some good points as ever Alex Mc, I agree with most of that.
Although Vella does give it his all, he just didn't seem very effective last night, I don't think the shambles down the left side was all Welham's fault, Wigan were clearly targeting Dobson and for me, although as ever his exit plays were good, Colbon had his worst defensive game in a Rovers shirt. All three were absolutely all over the place for the first Roberts try, I'd a have fancied getting over myself.
Wasn't just Cooke who got caught on last tackle plays, iirc it happened at least four times! When you've got at least three players on the park at any one time in Dobson, Cooke and Murrell/Fisher with a decent kicking game (apart from last night) that's pretty unforgivable.
I agree with you about Netherton, had a decent solid game last night, the sort of mopping up around the fringes type of player that all sides need.
For balance, this is round two, this wasn't a game you'd look at to be a banker. In previous seasons we'd planned our season around hitting teams hard early season and trying to build up some points and then hang on, running out of steam eventually.
Hopefully we can get all our rustiness, lack of timing and injuries out of the way and build towards challenging towards the end of the season
At least you have Cockayne to fill in - FB I always think is a difficult position to cover.
