Its not the penalty count that bugs me with Stokes, but some of his decisions are baffling, and at key moments. Fevs 3rd try a classic example, he basically marched them over the line, no side can defend or counter that.
but..... the lads must be gutted, Fev were there for the taking and we were ultimately masters of our own downfall

I am not saying Stokes cost us the game we lost it through not taking our chances the point with Stokes is yer from your viewpoint he gave us more penalties but from ours two crucial decisions he made cost us big time, the sin binning which maybe was correct but could have gone ether way but that penalty to give you six more tackles on our 20 from which you scored basically in the end won you the match as your last try was a fluke come on. He is a poor Ref and for a Fev v Fax game we should not have to suffer him virtually every time is my point.

Fev were there for the taking today; yes the ref didnt have a great game but we had enough possession to win the game. Got to be smarter with the ball - poor passes , knock ons and unforced errors cost us in the end - we were masters of our own downfall - it is only early in the season and Fax did show glimpses of what they can do - but you cant play like we did and expect to beat Fev...

sum's it up perfectly.Kaye must have been injured in warm up as he was on the teamsheet in SSB.Great burst by Fairbank-but how did we manage to blow the 5 man overlap ? Kicking game and smartnness poor again,even our first half try was from a poor kick on a dumb 2nd tackle option.

agree, should have been a walk in try for one of them. they knew ball had to go that way but was so slow.

Thing is, we all know how George referees a game. We all know he's a pedant. So why on earth do we keep giving him an opportunity to penalise us. We all criticise the referee but players indiscipline doesn't come under anywhere near as much scutiny.
Murrel's indiscretion cost Fax the game at Fev last year and contributed a long way to the loss yesterday.
Murrel's and others discipline was costly - as was Fax poor execution and rank bad decision making. Ged Stokes did not influence the result.

I agree with that - fair review of yesterday - a game there to be won was lost by some poor execution and wasted possession- same in any sport really got to make the most of possession!!

Can't see anyone disagreeing with that.

That pitch aint gonna help you lot this season. It was terrible. Cant believe they play football on it.

looked like it had been ploughed

My thoughts on yesterday:-

Starting with the ref, I didnt think he was any worse than usual but a few things got me at crucial stages of the game. In the space of 5 first half minutes Fev conceded 4 penalties around the PTB but never got on a team warning, in my opinion he should have put them on a warning after 3 and that would have helped the game as the momentum had swung and you couldnt blame Fev for trying to slow us down. 2nd half I thought we were hard done by when we 'forced a drop out', in my eyes the Fev player grounded the ball behind the try line and then ended up back over it before been pushed back, next tackle we were done for offside. The only other decision I can think of was the Murrell one which I didnt think was a dirty tackle it was more a case that he couldnt get there in time and he did hit the kicker on his standing leg and deserved a yellow card for mine.

Fev looked crisper than us in attack at times especially early in the game but once we got a foot hold I think we dominated them in the forwards and they were struggling at times to make yards. That said they did enough to win the game once again.

On Fax I think if you watched the video but took the tries out and had to ask someone who won the game most people would say Fax probably won it by quite some distance but unfortunately sport does not work like that. We just bombed so many chances or took the wrong option too many times. Twice on the first tackle we lost the ball trying to force a pass that was not on, now we all want to see attacking rugby but there has to be some common sense behind it as well. If Moore catches that ball in the first half we would have gone in in front but again a missed opportunity and by the time we bombed the try in the second half I think most of us could see how it was going to end.

After the fairbank break all it would have taken was one killer ball instead the ball ended up in Tangata's hands after an awful pass when it needed a ball player with the ball to provide a quick pass and when that didnt happen it just slowed the whole thing down. I said last week if we were playing a better team we would have lost by bombing chances and it happened this week.

No need for the mass panic that seems to be happening though and there was plenty of pluses to take out of the game and even season so far. Saltonstall is one who looks the part and could do a great job while Greenwood recovers from his awful injury. Mannely was fantastic at hooker especially in the first half and is another who could potentially go on to be a really good player for us this season. The forwards I thought to a man got over their opposition numbers and our defence in the second half in the middle was very very good with some massive hits. I would be more worried about our lack of tries if we were not creating chances but that is not the case, take the Moore dropped ball, the fairbank fall, and Tyrer dropping the ball over the line and there is about 18 points there which would have more than won the game. When/if we can take our chances we will run up a big score against someone.

Dewsbury next week is massive though now and a real must win game against one of our main rivals. If we can beat the teams around us im pretty sure fev will slip up when they dont have all their loan players in and we can make ground up on them. The other thing is the club can not move forward on gates of 2k against one of our main rivals, we need more people down there getting behind the team.

Radio Leeds on Monday morning....Wakefield's Joe Arundel scored the winning try for Featherstone at Halifax. Says it all really.

Yer we did but having 4 players from a team in a higher league DOES help!
Jacob is on loan by the way not DR

Jacob is on loan by the way not DR'"

Yep was aware of that fact.'"