Wires71 wrote:The point is that we signalled we had sacrificed the 2 points, before the game had even started, to protect players for the following week. That is not respecting the league. The fact we got so close losing by one point is a testament to the young players who gave a great account of themselves. As it turned out it was a complete and utter backfire as not only have we missed out on a shot at the LLS, we stank Wembley out the following week anyway.

I feel if we had played our best side we would have stood a better chance of winning the game.

Smiffy27 wrote:It is a big assumption that our "best team" might have done better. If you are playing a game but thinking of keeping out of trouble you cannot give your best. Wigan big guns had one eye on Wembley too ... our young guns were good but they could play without fear of missing Wembley.
I get your point. I too was very disappointed with our performance in the final but I do not think it was anything to do with being rested.

Moe syslak wrote:Our away form is better than our home form. Winning the LLS wouldn't have made me confident of winning the big one. Finishing 3rd and hopefully getting through to play 2nd away will do me nicely.

Douglas Black wrote:
We haven't conceded a try for 267 minutes. Almost 4 and a half hours of rugby.

Wires71 wrote:The improvement in defence has coincided with the introduction of Bateman. I don't know if it's causal but he does a lot of tackling.