I thought Leigh had a very good game plan. Safe and sure in their own half and then expansive in our half. All you have to do against us is drive it to somewhere up to the 20 metre line and then get it wide and the players / structure just collapses. Its just not good enough that we make 2 mistakes (1 Thacks kicks it out on the full and 2 Doran Penalty for a ball steal) and the resulting possesion gives Leigh a 12-0 head start. You can pretty much predict now that the 1st chance an opposition team has to start a set in our half, the resulting possession will result in a try. Even given our appalling start, I felt we were going ok and building a bit of pressure. Well that was until a poor pass from Webbo to Thacks and guess what? We knock on and the resulting possession to Leigh leads to another try. 3 mistakes = 3 tries. Ford's knock on after we score? Try again = 4 mistakes 4 tries. We'd be some side without these mistakes wouldn't we?
Our defence is simply not good enough to cope with so many errors. I know we should be able to cope with a side having possession in our half but, we certainly shouldn't be inviting pressure when we know our defence is so poor. Most of the errors that lead to tries weren't even forced errors - it was simply our poor play and players playing to nowhere near to the standard they are capable of.
Going forward we weren't much better were we? 1 man rugby into a bigger pack was pretty dumb. I was only saying the other day about how important Webbo is to us - you wouldn't have thought so tonight. Mind you, I can't make my mind up as to whether Webbo wasn't playing well or was it just a total lack or options around him? Either way we looked clueless in attack for a lot of the game.
So where does that leave us? A game against Batley, a week off and then Barrow in the NRC. Stll plenty of time to turn things around but as each week passes, we are getting more and more desperate and were fast running out of chances. If I had to choose between the NRC and a good league finish, I'd take the league, but the way we're playing at the minute, a Blackpool appearance would be a welcome distraction away from the depressing league performances
