This is key to the whole of this thread and highlights the importance of being able to take it all to the final day of the season. Plenty have done it before us - Hull KR, Salford, Castelford etc..... They dominated the league and eventually also took the spoils. We are the best team in the league at the moment. Can we hold a steady ship in knockout footy? I'm not so sure. We've got nine matches left to send out a message to other clubs about how serious we are. We have to make them fearful again and give us more of an advantage when it comes to the knockout stuff again. We didn't play well yesterday. We didn't play too well against Barrow either. It's in our own hands to turn it around. The club currently gloating at us at the moment have lost six league matches. Let's not get into that habit and let's finish this league sitting comfortably at the top.

Totally agree, The Dors, I'm actually looking forward to matchdays nowadays whereas about 3 or 4 years ago I was on the verge of giving up and not renewing my season ticket after god knows how many years. Now bit by bit those who did give up are coming back .... we're getting better and I'm not worried in the slightest, see .....

This.

As a fan who couldnt give 2 hoots or even thinks we have a chance of making SL, all i want to see is us playing great rugby, which we are, and competing as one of the best teams in the league, which we are.

We are quickly becoming the biggest bottlers of games like Leeds used to be. Always the case, massive important game, loads of fair weather fans come down and we lose.

Even so I still think we will be in the GF.

Christ almighty Haighy, and how do you work THAT one out??!! We bottled yesterday (ONE match!!). Did we bottle Barrow? FFS ... some of you lot will never be satisfied!!

To be honest SL is not the be all and end all. Even if we win the GF or whatever next year i do not expect us to be allowed to be in SL-Bradford and Huddersfield will not want us in for a start! Also do we want to become cannon fodder or do we want to be usually near the top playing a brand of Rugby thats exciting?
The RFL/Sky will change the rules to suit as Widnes , Keighley etc know . One side of me wants us to be in SL and the other not. The Championship is a great comp with teams who have real fans not bandwaggoners. The fans from Gateshead, Barrow, Widnes, Leigh etc are similar to us. They have been through usually some tough times and have been treated like crap from the people running the game. These fans are salt of the earth who support the team no matter what not just because Wigan, Leeds etc are coming to town.

I think that's a bit harsh. We've only really had one game where we've properly bottled it and that was Sunday. Even then, it can be argued that it was a freak result given what Blacky did. Bottlers usually get tonked in these matches. As for our other play-off games in the last few years - we weren't favourites to win those. The last really important game for us was the York game (albeit it was 5 year ago) and we didn't bottle that. Let's see how this season finishes before adding such labels. If we finish top, we've got at least 2 home games to get to the final - surely we're not going to blow that. We now have to knuckle down to make sure we do finish top of the pile. There's plenty of GF winners who've fallen short in the NRC.

Haven in the play offs last year, Haven in the NRC semi final 2 years ago. In those knock-out, do or die games, we do seem to fall short since we beat Hull KR in 05.

To be honest I'm not satisfied with yesterday, no Fax fan should be really.

In all fairness to haven last season, they were actually the in form team going into the game against us in the playoffs. They'd won quite a few on the bounce.

Plus in the semi which was at whitehaven, a place we hadn't won since coming back into this league. Whitehaven finished that season level on points with us in the league. So not exactly an easy game no matter what team goes up there.

Hardly a case of bottling it. Actually the form side won both of those games.

Just as a side note, we lost the first four games to whitehaven that year, twice in the league and semi of the rail cup. Then we beat them in the playoffs. So we won that crunch game in the same season you say wwe were bottling it.

Haven Results

Challenge Cup (A) Lost 8 -36
League (A) Lost 24-40
Semi NRC (A) Lost 19-34
League (H) Lost 20-26

Playoffs (H) Won 32-24

So I think you do us a little injustice to be fair.

Forget this game but learn from the mistakes. Lets get behind the team and create a positive vibe not a negatiive one. Our aim now is to win this League and enter the GF and show we are the best team overall this year-not just for a couple of games. Lets get behind Ben Black and the boys and give them the boost and the positive thoughts that they deserve. The season is not over!!

I'm not satisfied - but at least we have had to taste some bitter disappointment before the play-offs.

I am sure that Matt will change the way we play a little bit and make the team play the percentage football at the start of the match and be more patient - the gaps come eventually and we certainly have the fire power to capitalise them.