Its really quiet on the forum at present? no discussion about tonight's game? Catalans played well last week, be interesting.

as an outsider looking forward to it,

We won last week so not too much to complain about.

We really are struggling to score, aren't we? We offer almost no threat even close to the line. Desperately need some first-choice backs to return.

Interesting comments from KC after the game.

Rather than complain about our side, we,ve got to say how good this Catalan side is, best team I,ve seen so far this season. Big and rock solid if they don't have too many injuries they will win a lot of games.

Interesting in what sense? I'd be more inclined to use 'predictable' in as much that the current state of affairs is everyone's fault but his. The bloke is Teflon and is sullying both his own reputation and that of the club in general. He clearly doesn't possess the professionalism, integrity or basic intellect to be a coach. You don't bag your players in public - he does it all the time.

He's an utter laughing stock. I'm sick of listening to him.

Very interesting. Who is he going to whittle out? His most damning comment was when he said some thing about not knowing what was wrong (maybe not the exact words) but its admitting such things that costs coaches their jobs.
I only missed the last 10 minutes of the first half but in the 70 minutes I saw LMS died with the ball on every play he was involved in. It was noticeable that Carney on the touch screen seemed to be hinting at this when explaining their defensive structure. Can't fault his effort though.

They look good for sure and are clearly a better side then they've ever been but they're also a fit and healthy side currently. It's no fluke that the sides having the best seasons to date (Wire, Catalans and Hull) are also having decent runs with injuries.

If you get Percival, Makinson, Swift, Vea, Greenwood,Lomax etc in to that side Catalans face a totally different challenge. They were missing an experienced hooker but the young kid went pretty well for them.

It's been one heck of a year for injuries. It's that bad even Leeds have had more then a couple of colds.

I will hazard a guess which players he thought didn't turn up this week; Fages, Spedding, Knowles and Ashworth. Meanwhile, Wilkin was utter garbage once again and is apparently being offered a new deal? Looks like last week was the abhorration.

Nicky, I really don't know what you've been drinking but to say Wire have had a good run with injuries is like saying the Titanic only had a pin hole in its Hull.

Currently we have injured........
Sandow.
Laithwaite.
Harrison.
Bailey.
T King.
B Evans.
Dodds.
Patton.
Dwyer.
Cox.
Wheeler.

Thats 11 players out of our 25 man squad.


Playing on with injuries are.....
Ratchford.
Westwood
Gidley.
Clark

Only Sandow is a starting player in that list though. Dodds might be a bench prop and Dwyer also a possibility for the bench. The rest are squad players and I think most clubs in SL would take that. You also can't claim Gary Wheeler is injured, he's just being Gary Wheeler.

There will be plenty of post game chat.

As for our game tonight, I've no real problems with anything apart from the refereeing. Catalans are comfortably better than us in all departments and they thoroughly deserved to win that game. They game winning moment was the tackle on Theo Fages in the second half when we were mounting pressure on their line, it was an incredible effort. They are a good team and probably only the lack of discipline in their French players will hold them back. Their pack was much better than ours, they are bigger, stronger and fitter than we are. Their star players also make the McManus sympathisers look silly. While people on here bitch and moan about there being no players to sign in the whole world, Catalans have players like Taylor, Stewart, Inu and Carney running round, through and over us.

Whilst we had a brief flirtation with positivity after a good performance at Warrington, tonight is a massive return to earth. There has to be a realisation at the club that our current squad just isn't acceptable. McDonnell, Owens, Turner, Richards etc. They should not be at the club, never mind in the 17. They also need to look at the strength and conditioning side of things, our players aren't strong enough and aren't fit enough.

If McManus is determined to stick with KC, he needs to get an experienced NRL head coach in to help guide him. He also needs to find someone who can help with recruitment, it's farcical currently. The names being banded about as signings for both this season and next season are just not good enough. Time to think big McManus or the drop out of the 4 will soon become a drop out of the 8.

I can't leave this post without mentioning the referee tonight. I have never seen a worse showing from a match official. He didn't play the offside rule tonight, just completely ignored it altogether. Big Dave Taylor didn't get onside once all night and there were several occasions where they were 5 or 6 yards offside, he missed a knock on by Roby under our sticks because he couldn't see the play the ball because he had two men in his way. He also needed the touch judges coming on to give a penalty. His equipment clearly broke before the game, the two officials tried to fix it before the game but he waved them off, but then decides it needs fixing when Catalans are forced into a drop out. You can't do that, wait for a genuine break in play such as a try or an injury. He didn't affect the outcome as Catalans were so superior, but he made the game a mess. SL as a competition has to do better with referees. They need more of them and they need to be appraised properly and made to improve.

Where do I start?

I agree that the ref was poor and he only gave one off side - against us ironically. You are right, the Cats are fast off the line but not that fast.

Unlike you I thought our main Props did OK and Farges and Walsh did their best - but there was no movement or runners. Our second row were non existent and LMS, whilst I can't knock him for effort he hasn't a brain at least no rugby brain.
He cut inside all the time into the middle where our forwards had already had no joy. Why not go to the edge, why not try the left side for a change.?

Forward wise, we never really looked like we would score in the 2nd half and defensively you just knew when they got near our 20 that they would score. Only an off night by Richards kept the score to non embarrassing levels.

I thought Mc Donnell and Dawson played OK, but I have particular venom for Turner who was absolutely garbage in everything he did.
Did KC try him at SO for so long because he knew he was so poor in defence AND attack. I felt sorry for Spedding who was never going to get the ball from Turner and who was all over the place positionaly because Turner was wondering around. Get rid.

Did anyone see if Jack Owens was actually on the pitch?