Rogues Gallery wrote:I thought Byrne was really good last night, he would have been excellent apart from that one dropped ball. He reminds me of a young Ryan Sutton in the respect of he always seems to have one error per game, but he is a big body and we tend to forget he has only just turned twenty-two years of age so is a "baby" in prop age.

NickyKiss wrote:He’s battling for consistency Byrne but when he gets it right he’s a good player. I look at props around the league at the ages of 27-30 and there aren’t many that would’ve been playing as regular as Byrne was at 20/21 and not many playing as well as he can do when he is at his best. The thing we really need to do is keep guys like Byrne and Partington until they reach their peaks and let us have the benefit of that and not another team. I read somebody saying Byrne was too small the other day. I’m not sure which lad they were looking at. He’s a great size for a young prop and will put natural size on throughout the years.

Rogues Gallery wrote:When the teams were lined in front of us up for the one minutes applause for Barbara I said to my son that Byrne looked about 1 to 1 1/2 stone heavier than Clarke.

NickyKiss wrote:He’s battling for consistency Byrne but when he gets it right he’s a good player. I look at props around the league at the ages of 27-30 and there aren’t many that would’ve been playing as regular as Byrne was at 20/21 and not many playing as well as he can do when he is at his best. The thing we really need to do is keep guys like Byrne and Partington until they reach their peaks and let us have the benefit of that and not another team. I read somebody saying Byrne was too small the other day. I’m not sure which lad they were looking at. He’s a great size for a young prop and will put natural size on throughout the years.

sergeant pepper wrote:I've been saying the same for a while now. Byrne, at worst, will be a good SL prop when he's older & I hope he does another 10+ years with us.

I look around the league and see guys like Mossop, Dudson, Satae, Millington etc who are all good SL props, but it's fair to say they only really hit their straps at 27 +. That's 6 years away for Byrne. Heck, even Walmsley signed for Saints at 21 - Byrne has already done 50 + SL games at that age. Now I'm not saying he's in Walmsley's class, but it's not OTT to use stuff like that to show how young he is.

At the same time however, we can't have too many young forwards in the squad. It's not helping their development & it's not helping the side either. It might sound harsh, but I'd reluctantly be happy to see Partington move on. That's not because he's a bad player, but because we've got Byrne, Havard, KPP, Smithies & others too. That's enough youth imo. If we could add Partington's salary to the extra £75k and get a prop in for the 'here and now', then it benefits the guys mentioned above + the team too.

Singing Warrior wrote:The "here and now" is next season and have we not signed two NRL forwards for then or am I only dreaming it.

Itchy Arsenal wrote:It would be a boring old world SP if we all liked the same things.
I’d take the Madge rugby of say versus Wire in the CC of 2011 every week of the year.

We play every game for a 12-6 result. That type of score in RL is the exception not the general. I said it earlier in the season if you play every 80 minutes of every game as an arm wrestle you going to lose as many as you win. We play for a 12-6 because we incapable of scoring more tries. I just think that it’s a sad and pretty depressing way to approach a game. Playing to nil your opponent for me is the prerequisite for every game but it doesn’t mean that you don’t look to post a shed full of tries.

Currently we play a slow methodical no risk rugby with nothing to get you off your seat. I quite “happily” queued for 15 minutes for a pint last night pretty confident I wouldn’t miss anything. I didn’t. That is not the frame of mind I should have watching my team.

Last night and most games the play with the FB in the line is a kick over the top. It’s never utilised. In Marshall we have arguably the fastest winger in the competition so you’d think that we would use that asset with regularity. We never do. How many tries in 3 years has Marshall scored by running more than 10 yards? Very few and the one occasion where he kicked an ran the full length of the pitch to score in added on time he was “worried” what the coach would have said if the kick hadn’t come off. Even our backs play with a “stats” mentality. A high completion rate is great if you win but like all other stats pretty meaningless on their own.

An improvement last night for sure but it still won’t win trophies or just as importantly more fans.

100% Warrior wrote:Was it really that depleted? I’m not sure but nevertheless you have a point. Irrespective of whether we were full strength, half strength or whatever that’s a great result.

As I said on another thread; play off rugby is a different ball game. It’s conservative type tough rugby with strong defences and generally low scores. I agree with Sgt pepper in that I’d rather win 12-0 (or in this case 12-8) than 50-44.

Great result, and much unexpected from me anyway. Happy to say I was wrong about this result and here’s hoping I, and a few others, are proved wrong once again in the coming weeks.

Just for clarity - Lam still should go.

NickyKiss wrote:He’ll be a unit in a few years. It’s the same with Havard. He’s got a great physique to build on. What we can’t do is throw our eggs in the development basket to the degree we are and then lose them. There’s been so much talk of Havard going to the NRL that you fear he’ll go the same way as Sutton. It gets to the point where you fear us developing young props becomes pointless, as you’re not going to get your rewards when they hit 25/26/27+. If love to think we can get Havard tied up for another 4 or 5 years ASAP.