Saint Simon wrote:
so essentially were we amazing in the second half of fev terrible?
I think Featherstone dropped off in the second half. They had a lot of fight in the first half, forced some errors (and we made some ourselves - like Roby kicking out on the full, Wello dropping ball, etc) and they spent a lot of time in our 20, which was a bit disconcerting. We only just managed to keep them to nil in the first half and not many of us were reassured by how things had gone by halftime. In the second, we looked more like a team and we scored some beauties. But I do think some of that was down to Featherstone clocking off very early on but apparently they have been doing this all season. I'm not saying we would have lost if Featherstone hadn't clocked off, or indeed if Featherstone had been able to play their four missing key playmakers (another factor in our favour), but I think we would have had a much tougher match and the scoreline would not have been quite so big or so one-sided necessarily if they had not clocked off and had four of their important playmakers missing.
I'm encouraged that Saints kept at it defensively for the full 80 and it was good to see Saints playing as a team in the second half and scoring some great tries. But I will be much more encouraged if they do the same against the Crusaders simply because they are a Superleague side, albeit a basement dweller. If we perform well against them on Friday then I will have hope that regardless of who represents us on the pitch we will have a good chance against our nearest competitors during June.
