Catalan

I’ve not seen the other games yet but surely a couple of contenders for try of the week there.

Spot on. Mossop has stood out already for me this season and we need to get Josh Wood tied down to a long term deal too.

Missed the game yesterday as on a society golf day (the least said about that the better!😂). Great win (as they all are when you're fighting to avoid the bottom 4) and some of the tries were top quality (tho I think one definitely involved a borderline forward pass!). Agreed on the tackling as well... Lama puts in some monster hits but the odd one is gonna get him put onto the naughty step and he can still have the same impact legally if he sorts himself out. As for Josh Wood, I couldn't see what people saw in him until around 12 months ago as he just got manhandled but boy has the kid bulked up and improved massively. He's a tough kid and has that great combination of grit and a little bit of class and our hooking options look really bright if Brining gets himself fit. Especially as Wood can slot in at 7 if required.

I think with this team we're going to see peaks and troughs especially when there are a few injuries and suspensions. We've got a pretty decent first 17 but all it takes is injuries to 2 or 3 key players and we'll feel it a lot more than most other teams because of our small squad and lack of strength in depth.

I honestly think Watto is doing as good a job as is possible as well. We need to persevere with him as it looks like morale is good and the squad we have got genuinely play for him and the shirt. We can't expect miracles with the resources he's got at his disposal and he needs our 100% backing as do the players.

Backing up on Monday at Leeds will be tough but if we can pull out a decent performance that will do me, win, lose or draw. We need to target beating Wire with home advantage, as they are still bang average IMO.

I disagree on Tompkins. He works hard and keeps going but is far too slow picking the ball up and his passing is poor. So often the first reciever gets the ball too high or behind them. Wood’s passing is much better and Brinning is much faster.

It seems to me that Watson’s tactics this year are to let the forwards and our bigger backs plough into the opposition for an hour until they tire and then start passing the ball around. This will work pretty well against many teams as long as we keep it tight defensively for that first hour. Where it hasn’t worked there have been reasons....

Wigan spotted the defence was compressed on our right edge and used overlaps to allow their pace to flourish
Wakefield we didn’t kick any goals
Saints I wasnt there so cant really say
Cas got away from us early in after our errors. After that we matched them but was too late
Widnes was the worst executed game management I have ever seen. The tactics were dull but (probably) right. We’d spotted that they couldn't catch and it was working. We had the game won but stuff like not been able to find touch with one kick when down to 12 men, giving stupid penalties away, not scoring more than one try when we were camped on their line for 1st 20 killed us in the end

Yesterday like the games against the Hulls it worke pd a treat. We should have won by more really and I wonder if the wobble at the end of the first and start of the second is partly down to the tactics. Because we keep it tight early even when we’re so dominant I wonder if the players get a bit frustrated. We don’t score many early tries to allow the release of tension so I wonder if some players try and get that rush from big hits instead or lose focus and run off side too quickly. Might be nonsense but there’s something happening in most games between about 30 and 50-60 minutes where we’re not as focussed or as strong as the rest of the game, even the games we’ve won.

There’s no doubt that going forward we are like a different team when Flash is playing. I think him missing the back end of last year was our biggest problem and reason for our lack of form. We are missing GOB going forward. Especially near the opposition try line. That first 20 against Widnes was crying out for some of Gaz’s passing and assists and we’re going to have to find that from someone else. Evalds can’t do it yet. He might be able to develop it. He has shown flashes of it and his short kicks into touch yesterday were promising too but too often he keeps hold of the ball or his passing isn’t good enough near the line. The telegraphed interception was a classic of that yesterday. It was all set up for a classic try and I think GOB would have seen the threat and made a different decision.

That said Niall does give us a much bigger running threat. And I think that is part of the reason we are scoring more trie# from distance. The ball back on the inside works way better with Evalds than with GOB. we tried it loads of times with a Gaz and I don’t think it worked once. It has worked 3 or 4 times already since Evalds went to FB.

Anyhow I’m hoping we learned after last year that being brilliant at this stage of the season is less important than from June onwards and we’re saving our best for then. Yesterday was a good step in the right direction though

I don't know where we will finish but Catalan will be below us.Yes the coach may not be good enough but would we be better with a different coach.And by the way I an not saying Watson should be sacked.