: Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:30 am  

A few things I noticed today:

1) We can't play any worse this season than we did in fhe first today, hopefully.

2) On the wings Johnny Wilshire had the worst game I've seen him have in a Salford shirt and Mark Henry didn't play to anything like same standard he did against Celtic.

3) The defence definitely needs to drift quicker at this level.

4) We need to get better organised in attack, not alot the halfbacks can do when everyone else is running bad lines. We moved it across the park to slow and had no dummy runners to fix their defence.

5) Cashmere looked to be standing flat at times today, noticed this against Celtic also. Stapo looked far more impressive in his second spell.

Hopefully these are just early season teething problems and the team will get better as they continue to gel and get used to the pace of superleague.

: Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:36 am  

My own take on yesterday FWIW.
Wakey are a decent side and are constantly underestimated. With a full team out we could have been forty down by half time. As it was, we put in a far better second half performance but one that was never going to win against a team with more gears to use if they needed to. Wakey are a better team than us and we need to aspire to playing consistently at such a level before we even mention the top sides. I think this was a good reintroduction to SL after last week. It's a game over 80 minutes not 40. We could (and frequently did) get away with it last year but we won't this year. Games will be all but concluded by half time if we play in such a disinterested manner. I was a bit saddened that the Forwards didn't boss the game a little more which is a concern. Positives? Littler, Myler, Alker. Phil seemed to keep going.
We need to rethink a bit because Cas will be exactly the same if we approach it in the same half interested manner.

: Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:48 am  

SteveRed wrote:

My own take on yesterday FWIW.
Wakey are a decent side and are constantly underestimated. With a full team out we could have been forty down by half time. As it was, we put in a far better second half performance but one that was never going to win against a team with more gears to use if they needed to. Wakey are a better team than us and we need to aspire to playing consistently at such a level before we even mention the top sides. I think this was a good reintroduction to SL after last week. It's a game over 80 minutes not 40. We could (and frequently did) get away with it last year but we won't this year. Games will be all but concluded by half time if we play in such a disinterested manner. I was a bit saddened that the Forwards didn't boss the game a little more which is a concern. Positives? Littler, Myler, Alker. Phil seemed to keep going.
We need to rethink a bit because Cas will be exactly the same if we approach it in the same half interested manner.

Spot on this. Playing half a game in no use. Basics were missing in the first 40 - compounded by a woeful kicking game. Second half showed what we can do - if we played like this in both halves we would have given them a game at least. I'm hoping that lessons will be learnt because I still think if we play like we did in the 1st half v Celtic & second half yesterday, we could beat Cas on Saturday. It was encouraging to hear McRae call it like it was about the 1st half... what was less encouraging was the woeful kicking, and the performance of Mark Henry on the wing, beaten one on one and round the outside. Don't like to single anyone out, but let's hope he responds in the right way because this performance was way below standard.

Saturday - we get the basics right, avoid pens & mistakes and kick well on the 5th, and we will have a real chance at it. Come on Solly!

: Mon Feb 23, 2009 11:37 am  

We cannot give away 12 (not sure exact figure) penalties in a half and expect anything less!

Wakefield didn't have to get out of there own half often in the first half!

Also didn't think swain had a great game, maybe bring turner in against cas?

wasn't going to go castleford but the second half looked like the salford against celtic and has brought a bit of hope back to me!!

lets all get down to cas, and get behind them. this potentially a good team! we just need to get adapted to super league.

come on the reds!

also, how many reds turned up yesterday? very hard to tell, thought we took about 1000 ish?

: Mon Feb 23, 2009 11:54 am  

Yesterday was the first time I’ve been to Wakefield without a drink since I was a bairn. Never again. It was intensely boring. The second-half ‘fightback’ was scant restbite. Spent more time looking at the scoreboard, which looks a lot like my alarm clock.

: Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:05 pm  

Chico wrote:

Spent more time looking at the scoreboard, which looks a lot like my alarm clock.

Same here, only as I couldn't wait for that bore-a-thon to end, gotta say I've witnessed some boring games watching Salford but that has to rank in the top 3. £46.00 of my hard earnt completely wasted. Castleford away? mmmmmmm maybe not!

: Mon Feb 23, 2009 1:17 pm  

Thought we looked some way off the pace on Sunday. The second half was better.

Parker was outstanding.
Cashmere made a couple of really important try saving tackles after backtracking.

The left wing looks vunerable to say the least. I don't know if that is because Smith defends there.

I don't see Robbie Paul adding much to the game at the moment, his passing is inaccurate and slow.

We need to get up to speed and quickly.

: Mon Feb 23, 2009 2:55 pm  

bubble the red wrote:

We cannot give away 12 (not sure exact figure) penalties in a half and expect anything less!

Wakefield didn't have to get out of there own half often in the first half!

Also didn't think swain had a great game, maybe bring turner in against cas?

wasn't going to go castleford but the second half looked like the salford against celtic and has brought a bit of hope back to me!!

lets all get down to cas, and get behind them. this potentially a good team! we just need to get adapted to super league.

come on the reds!

also, how many reds turned up yesterday? very hard to tell, thought we took about 1000 ish?

Bloody hell Swain was a world beater 2 weeks ago against celtic, now after a bad game you think he should be dropped? Give him a break! IMO we shouldn't change it too much, even though i couldn't make the game, this would only cause more problems. We need time to gel and swapping and changing players so soon wont help. All that should of been sorted in the friendlies we had.

: Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:30 pm  

I'm in agreement Jaymc9. We are all used to getting let down, but let's not get carried away.

There were some positives. Stapo was looking very dynamic in his second spell and seemed to cause problems. When Casmere took the ball at pace he too was a handful. Parker and Adamson worked really hard and Big Phil ran hard and always seemed capable of an offload.

We may have been out played and out smarted in the first half, but never felt the Pack was out of it's depth. Would possibly say we had better pack, a bonus that I cannot remember us ever having in the Super League era.

As long as the backs perform better over the next few weeks we should start to look like a good team.

: Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:38 pm  

[quote="Jaymc9"]Bloody hell Swain was a world beater 2 weeks ago against celtic, now after a bad game you think he should be dropped? Give him a break! IMO we shouldn't change it too much, even though i couldn't make the game, this would only cause more problems. We need time to gel and swapping and changing players so soon wont help. All that should of been sorted in the friendlies we had.[/quote]

actually didn't think he was that impressive at celtic either, IMO.

I think he is big enough and fast enough to go into the pack and let turner in at loose.

this week he was ok and agree we do need time for the team to gel.

I would still keep the same team against castleford as that second half (without given penalties away) we aere more of a match, and played some very good rugby!!