The Penguin wrote:
What a relief. After the Bradford game I really couldn't see where the next win was coming from; So what an improvement.
The addition of Briggs appeared to make a big difference because we seemed far more cohesive going forward and the decision making was far better - we were much less afflicted by 'headless chicken syndrome' within 20m of the tryline as has so often been the case in previous weeks. We didn't try and do anything that was too fancy, we cut down the silly errors, held on to the ball and completed our sets. We kept it simple. THERE IS A LESSON HERE.
Agree on the O'Callaghan plaudits - he was my MOTM too. Dorn back made a difference too. Feel pretty confident for next week as well, against HKR.
I think Briggs looks to be the key, for too long this season we've played with one halfback and a hooker pretending to be a halfback, it just doesn't work. We had two halfbacks and it made it so much easier as the pressure is spread across the halves. Also, it meant we could play with two hookers in Randall and Ellis (the latter being one of our better players this season). It's not possible to play an entire season at this level with only one regular halfback.
JO'C was an absolute revelation at centre, probably best performance I've ever seen from him, and our best performance at centre for at lease two seasons. It actually gave us a centre partnership which offered different things, Clubb's battering ram physicality and J'OC bringing clever, jinking, broken field running. Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised, whatever he's been, he's never shirked work. We definitely need to give J'OC a run at centre, hopefully with Riley or Pryce if they are still available to us outside him.
