Slowly getting there............ : Fri Apr 17, 2009 10:33 pm  

Well surprised nobody has commented yet or are we all still a little frustrated?

First half an hour of the game was very good, players running great angles and some superb patterns of play controlled very well by our half backs. After the 30 minute point we seemed to go sleep apart from a burst midway through the second half which put the game to bed. We also seemed to lose the plot a little when Gannon and Ostick and Wildbore went from the pitch, Kavanagh again performed well but the jury is still out on Thompson. Lee Doran seems to have very little confidence at the moment and isnt running anywhere near his strength. Our defence seems to go awol when a team is camped on our line, why do we control the game fine in the midfield area only to crumble defending our red zone?

Ostick for MOM for me followed by Simm for his workrate.


A very slow improvement week by week at the minute.

Re: Slowly getting there............ : Fri Apr 17, 2009 10:37 pm  

-VIKINGMAN- wrote:

Well surprised nobody has commented yet .

You missed a classic tonight on Sky Sports. Bradford Bulls putting in a dire performance against Warrington. All that was missing was a huge tarpaulin over the stadium and you would have had a big top, complete with it's clowns.

Re: Slowly getting there............ : Fri Apr 17, 2009 10:42 pm  

littlerich wrote:

You missed a classic tonight on Sky Sports. Bradford Bulls putting in a dire performance against Warrington. All that was missing was a huge tarpaulin over the stadium and you would have had a big top, complete with it's clowns.

Why the love would any of us want to watch the W**e?

: Fri Apr 17, 2009 10:48 pm  

Sky plussed it and watched it when i got home from the match, wouldn't say classic, was more of a whitewash against a mickey poor Bradford side

Widnes IMO were poor tonight, defence was awful. Very good game for Kav, I think Thompsons getting more confident with every game he plays. Simm looked very strong. Gaskell was making some good runs. Webster is still failing to impress me. If we hadn't been lacking basic defensive rugby skills we would have put in a great performance.

Don't think the ref had a great game, few mistakes, mainly the Grady "knock-on" that led to a Batley try. It was a great take by Grady. Batley were offside at most plays of the ball but the ref didn't seem to mind.

Also noticed that we tapped on a couple of penalties, why were we not kicking for position? maybe Cullen has clocked on that we can't score whilst on the opponents line and would rather us break from 20-30 metres.

: Fri Apr 17, 2009 10:55 pm  

Also thought Thackeray had a good game and is now coming into his own in the stand off role. Crouthers try was shocking and Mark Smith of all people appeared to be the main one at fault with that one. As i said our goal defence was awful and we allowed Batley some real cheap scores but you can tell Cullen has been working on the offence and the dummy runners. The only question i have AGAIN is why didnt we finish them off good and proper when we had the chance, Cullen's use of Subs has to be questioned a little IMO.

: Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:12 pm  

We are slowly getting there. We need to start finishing off our chances. Countless times we didnt take them tonight. Also Wildbore is a greedy get, never fails to keep the ball to himself when theres a chance for someone else to score.

: Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:15 pm  

1 Widnes 6 4 0 2 184 90 2 14
2 Barrow 5 4 0 1 139 82 1 13
3 Halifax 4 4 0 0 146 56 0 12
4 Whitehaven 5 3 0 2 162 112 2 11
5 Leigh 5 3 0 2 101 107 2 11
6 Featherstone 4 3 0 1 103 74 0 9
7 Sheffield 6 1 0 5 130 147 5 8
8 Doncaster 4 1 0 3 73 104 2 5
9 Gateshead 5 1 1 3 95 157 0 5
10 Batley 6 1 1 4 102 254 0 5
11 Toulouse 4 1 0 3 98 150 1 4

: Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:37 pm  

agree about the subs, i think cullens still experimenting. He seems to have got the attacking right, lets hope he works on our poor defence.

: Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:54 pm  

Dare to Dream wrote:

agree about the subs, i think cullens still experimenting. He seems to have got the attacking right, lets hope he works on our poor defence.

Dont bank on it..

Expect many a 42-30 or 32-36 reverse style scores. Cullen seems to be a believer of the "well we'll just score more than you" strategy. The defence is just an after thought. It was this blindness that ultimately cost him his job at Warrington.

You'll certainly see some good attacking rugby though.

: Sat Apr 18, 2009 1:31 am  

-VIKINGMAN- wrote:

Also thought Thackeray had a good game and is now coming into his own in the stand off role. Crouthers try was shocking and Mark Smith of all people appeared to be the main one at fault with that one. As i said our goal defence was awful and we allowed Batley some real cheap scores but you can tell Cullen has been working on the offence and the dummy runners. The only question i have AGAIN is why didnt we finish them off good and proper when we had the chance, Cullen's use of Subs has to be questioned a little IMO.

You have agree that Mark Smith has been out of sorts for a few games in a row now. Not going to bag him or anything, but whether its an injury or tiredness or whatever - we're not really seeing a lot from him. Sheffield game he was class - 3 games in a row after that and we've not really seen him. IMO Smith's at his best when he's driving forward, I don't care if people would see it as selfish but if I was him, I'd be running from dummy half a lot more than he has been recently.