Well, I reckon if you were a neutral is was probably a shocking game to watch. In the first half I thought we looked like a bunch of players who had never met before. I was really surprised and disappointed by the lack of cohesion we showed in attack. Second half we found a little bit more quality but it was hardly a stellar performance. Rovers were just poor from start to finish. If they don't reach the CC final their season is done imo. They look like us in many previous years, started well, imploding at the back end of the season.
All that said I'm thrilled to play that badly and still get a result. It's a cliche, but good teams know how to win ugly, and that was certainly ugly. Looking at the respective fixtures of ourselves, Leeds, Salford and Rovers over the next month, you have to say we are in a decent position to make a playoff push. Although playing against teams who are fighting for survival brings its own challenges of course.
There were some positives from the game (aside from the result). I thought Cam Scott was again excellent. His improvement under Smith has been enormous. The same with McIntosh. He's making much fewer errors, which I think is probably a confidence thing on the back of a good run of form. But the thing about him I'm most pleased with is how much stronger he looks in collision. He used to get dominated and pushed back almost every carry. Now he actually looks like a bit of a handful for defences. I'm not sure if Smith has worked on his body position, his footwork at the line, or if he's simply been working hard in the gym (he does look physically bigger) but something has obviously changed and he looks a miles better player for it.
Houghton continued his good form with another very solid performance, and he showed his versatility when we had to reshuffle after Hoy's injury. Credit to Clifford on this front too who I thought looked really assured at full back. The guy is clearly just a very good all round rugby league player and if he is leaving at the end of the year he's a huge loss.
A mention for Dwyer too. I've been really critical of him, and it's been fully deserved, but I thought he had a lot of success yesterday sniping around the ruck and I thought we looked more dangerous when he was on. He also managed to keep his dumb decisions and wild passed to a minimum.
Downsides. Tuimavave is having an awful season and Smith needs to have a real think about what to do with him. On form, when Sutcliffe is fit, it has to be him and Scott as the centres. So do you move Carlos into the back row, or drop him completely? The latter would be a bold call. Lane also continues to be a problem. He's offering nothing and is a weak leak defensively. The amount of times Trueman bails him out is crazy, it should be the other way around! Thank god he's such a good defender for a half.
A win is a win, but it's given us some things to think about. The important thing is that we once again dug deep and found a way to grind out a result. On to Cas.
