You're right about the halfbacks, they've all got some faults in their game, if they didn't they'd probably be at a SL club.  

I noticed Holmes went in at stand off to begin with when he came on but that didn't last long.  I prefer him at FB too where he can come into the line and use his pace.  As a halfback he's more difficult to run off as he often runs first and looks to pass later.    Keyes is our best IMO but he was pretty anonymous yesterday.  


With Holmes being back fit where does this leave Hooley?  He's better defensively and a better passer of the ball than Holmes but we need Holmes on the field for us as he has pace unlike the rest of the team (apart from Blake).

I agree some players are looking tired and I agree that Peposhi needs a shot, he impressed me in pre season.  He's a bit raw but needs game time otherwise what's the point?

I'd hope Mason is fit so he can also get some gametime.  Waine and Ott too.  Waine is a real rocks and diamonds type of player.  His offloading ability is what we need to create some openings but we don't need the errors or penalties.  


What's Sam Ackroyd up to?  Is he on loan?  

Halifax set to play next 5 home games at odsal it's on love rugby 

Thanks, opened a thread of its own for that.

Disappointing to lose, obviously. 
York really do seem to be our modern day St. Helens don't they.


Step back a minute though. 
We are 2nd on the ladder at the half way point. We still have time to improve too before the business end. 


York seem to be in their purple patch now and could fade away towards the back end of the season. Reminds me a little of our 2000 season when we won the cup and faded away.


Agree with the other posts around mental toughness and tactical variety. The coaching staff and players really need to get stuck into those elements. The changes in personnel shouldn't really affect these either.

"All teams win games they don't expect to win and lose games they don't expect to lose" - P G Fox.

So I suppose being in 2nd is still decent.   However, if we'd won that eminently winnable game at home to Barrow we'd be level on points with Toulouse.


We're doing enough to win most games albeit not very stylishly and when we've come up against our main rivals for the top 2 (York and Toulouse) we've come off second best which is disappointing as it doesn't represent any improvement on last year so far.    


There's definite room for improvement especially in terms of the way we attack and our kicking game.  Whether the players have the quality to do that and the coaches can get it out of them remains to be seen.  I'd like to see more variation in our play with some more support runners as we're far too predictable.  


I think the defence in the main has been ok barring some recent hiccups on the left and around the ruck.