Lomax missed most of the second half didn't he? When he came back on they were a man down and there was more space.

Our backs looked clueless. A lot of head scratching was going on. Also its quick to blame the players for being lazy/predicable/un interested. However, does anyone else suspect they may be playing under orders. I suspect that come april they will start to turn it on...

Lomax was

I have no complaints at all re the pack today. I thought they muscled up quite well.
Joe Greenwood was immense when he came on. Made good yards with ball in hand even with three Widnes tacklers on him, and also wasnt afraid to put it about in defence. Did one absolute bellringer in the second half.

Thought the pack controlled the ruck area well, with some excellent wrestling technique reminiscent of Wigan.

The main issues were in our lack of creativity and pace. Saints game plan in attack was to do five drives then kick it in the corner and hope Widnes then made a mistake.
Something else we did which is useless with Wellens at fullback, is to use him on the arc round linking into the backline. Now this is fine if you have a quick agile fullback, but when you have an ageing and slowing fullback like Wello it just kills the play stone dead. Two or three times in the first half Saints had worked space for Meli, only for this to be squandered due to Wello getting the ball, which slowed the attacking line right down, and allowed Widnes to scramble across. Wello is best used coming through the middle off the shoulder of a forward. He should be kept well away from the three quarter line.

Thought Hohoia went well at hooker. his kicking game in particular was top notch.

Other negatives. The injuries to players eg Lance and Perry, along with another poor showing from Willie Manu.

Just got back from the game, another poor performance unfortunetly.

The forwards were much improved, and lade a decent platform, but the lack of speed and quality in the halves was evident today, and will cost us big time against the so called "top sides"

First half we dominated possession and field position (thanks to a series of penalties), but the lack of direction in the halves was frightning. I honestly can't remember Lomax and Gaskell combining on more than three occasions, and even then, the passing slow and precise.

Cross's sending off for the "tackle" on Wellens - who ran his blood to water today, was definitely the correct decision, and I honestly couldn't see us winning the game without them going down to 11 men.

Manu was awful again, and his errors could have cost us today.

Until we sign a natural, quality 7, we are going to continue to struggle, and we lacked serious pace in the key positions without Robes. Their were positives, Greenwood looked good when he came on, carried the ball forward often and effectively, and Flanagan had another decent game.

Still, a hard fought 2 points against a fired up Widnes side, and a much needed win.

Lomax has been off form for a good while, the blame has gone everywhere else before now

Not most of it no. He missed about half of it. And maybe space is the key here? If more space was created then that gave our halves chance to actually do something, which in turn built their confidence.

No getting away from the fact though that it was those two who had a hand in both our second half tries, and Gaskell scored half the points himself. In addition, Gaskell's defence was good today and Lomax put a couple of good shots in himself in his second stint.

Makinson had a good game I thought, especially in defence during those last 10 minutes when they were pounding our line. He executed great tackle technique and saved three tries (he was last line of defence each time).

I was impressed by Greenwood too. With Perry out injured maybe Jordan Hand will get a go in the first team proper. It's about time he did. We could do with some youthful umph up front IMO.

Let's not crib over a couple of minutes then. He is part of the problem in the lack of space being created though.



I'm not going to go overboard about tries created with the opposition down 2 and then 1 man. They weren't good enough for the other 60 minutes really. I've never had a problem with either players defence.



I'd agree with that, Makinson had a decent game given the small amount of ball he got.



I though Greenwood had a very good game. Perhaps Walmsley will come into the team rather than Hand?

You were utter e today you only turned up last fifteen minutes(wonder why that was)and had the ref in your back pocket!

I think you are too harsh and your expectations unrealistic at this point in the season given their disruption last year.


Maybe. I don't know what the arrangement is with Batley. So long as one of them gets the chance then that's fine by me.

We have no leadership or direction in our halves, simple as! We're missing a Long-style figure to get us around the pitch with a kicking game.

I will say it untill im blue in the face, Lomax would be a quality Full back.

We'll debate whether Lomax is a true 7 for years, i reckon.
I don't think he's a scrum half yet, but I do think he's a quality 1st receiver.

He's tough, so he's not a fraid to play close to the line.
Added to that he's a handful, so he's a genuine threat with the ball in hand, which will suck in defenders.
Once he's attracted the defence, he's capable of some very nice short passes to put the big guys through gaps.
These three factors are what won him YPOTY in 2011, but for him to be effective (as any half), he needs players to move around him, otherwise it just turns into him running into a brick wall, which won't have sucess, which will in turn lead to him "trying too hard" and forcing passes.

Two guys retired whilst we were looking for a half, Lockyer and Barrett. Either of these, with their playmaking and experince may well have won us trophies playing alongside Lomax.
That may sound like pie in the sky, but a more realistic player that we really should have picked up was Rhys Hanbury when the crusaders went pop. He may be of modest reputation, but he was available, wasn't snapped up straight away and has a good all round half backs game that could have guided our younger players.

Dux mentioned it may be worth looking at the Fetherstone Scrum half - Liam Finn. An experinced half back who has the desired organisational qualities and, one would imagine, should be available for a transfer to a Superleague club. He may not be a new superstar, but might be a decent glue to hold our team together.

Pfft, we can get another 5 years out of Wellens.

At least.