First the good things. I though Clare and Caro did a superb job of taking a lot of high kicks under pressure. It forced Batley to change tactics. I thought Pitts ran some great lines and worked very hard. His first half try was very well worked. I was pleased to see Mitch Clark carry the ball so strongly – he’s a big handful and a real plus off the bench. It was good to see Paul Clough back. We scored enough points get in a winning position despite having thrown possession and field position away constantly. Finally I thought our defence was pretty good for long periods too.
Less good things. Our game management was atrocious – particularly as the game went on. Our kicking game was very poor. We failed to build any pressure. Gaskell’s kicking from the hand is poor and Addy was anonymous. We should have been pegging Batley in their own quarter in the second half but we let them make cheap yards through poor kicks and ill-discipline.
Clark spoiled a good game with two needless penalties but he wasn’t alone. The one at the death looked fairly innocuous to me but Clough did seem to have the Batley player around the throat. A few times we either gave cheap yards away or made an error then compounded it with a penalty. The penalty at the end looked good to me despite fans in the stand complaining it was wide.
When we had the ball we didn’t look slick enough and we let the pressure off countless times with errors and forward passes. The obstruction we gave away in the first half was bad. We were trying to play it fast but it seemed to be too forced and it wasn’t fluid enough to pay off. In the second half I think we lost composure. When Clark made the break he needed to slow down in order to execute an accurate pass to Gaskell. Instead he threw it forward. That missed chance cost us 2pts.
When Batley came back into it we should have gone for 1 point. You could see Lowes signalling for it at the side of the pitch near the bottom corner – he came down from the stand to try to get his point over. Did either of our playmakers take any notice? No. We lack leadership in the middle. Gaskell isn’t really that kind of player and Addy isn’t a natural half or consistent enough. He was sadly lacking. Batley’s halfbacks aren’t world beaters but they put in quality kicks at the end of each set which came off twice when they started kicking to the middle rather than the wings. What was Matty Blythe doing under that kick? Where was Mathers. Why did we let so many bounce?
Overall a point lost for us but Batley deserved the draw. They played it simple and effective. They were better drilled – which was an indictment of our players who have all week to practice. On the occasions we clicked we did look decent but it was in the main far too scrappy from us. Batley also scored the best try when Ulugia sold a huge dummy to Caro and then passed inside.
It’s not the end of the world but for me it highlighted our lack of a decent playmaking halfback. We will need to address this for the middle 8s or we might as well not bother.
