Quote: Bulliac "There was actually some improvement from last week but given the more limited nature of the opposition we really should have taken the points. Too many pointless penalties given away with at least two on the last tackle, and a number of 'hail Mary' passes going to ground, there really is little excuse for making the game harder than it should have been. The annoying thing is we were still in front after all that, and with a bit of steadyness could have run out winners.
With effectively just one fit player on the bench, we were always on a hiding in the second half to be fair and we, not unexpectedly, ran out of steam. '"
This.
Oh and if you now look at the stats KR actually made about twice as many errors, or you could view that as we made only half the mistakes they did. (But sadly none of their mistakes bounced straight into the hands of a man in loads of space with a clear run.)
Quote: Bulliac "It's easy to say some players need dropping [some certainly need a rest] but other than flooding the team with kids, there are no alternatives'"
I got the strong impression that as a unit, especially in the second half, if the team was an engine, we were only producing maybe 70% power, and I'm sure that's down to a shortage of 100% fit troops on the pitch. Sammut was apparently already struggling with an ankle injury, then got a deadleg in the first half. Cummins also said "“John Bateman had a really bad dead leg in the first half and Chev Walker had a bang on his knee and couldn’t come back on."
I suppose the key phrase he used to me was this:
“This is no excuse but all our half-backs were struggling beforehand,” he said."
We still should have won the game, and you can look at that two ways, but one thing is sure, Lady Luck ain't looking kindly on us at the moment.