Not worth its own thread but here's a bit of neediness about the current state of things.



It takes no account of number of games played. But bearing in mind they've played one more than us they have conceded fewer, and against last year's top 4 (bar us, obvs).

Precisely. Yes the penalty looked soft, but if you're only winning by 2 at the end, you have yourself to primarily blame.

Had the game management been better, we'd have been up by more points. As we wouldn't have given the ball away so stupidly, allowing them a try, or we would have kicked a drop goal and they'd have had to run that penalty instead of kick it.

Yeah then put up a high ball which we wouldn't have dealt with, and we'd have lost !!

Been thinking about this a bit. TBH until batley game didn't think our last tackle kicks had been particularly poor this year. That combined with our seeming unwillingness to test batley with high bombs makes me wonder wether the slope at batley was an issue. Heard it mentioned numerous times that the angles are deceptive and its tricky to judge kicks if you aren't used to it. Obviously not something that would affect batley as they play on it every other week.

Yes, the challenges of playing Batley were too much for us. We need easier opposition.

Batley were practising bombs throughout the warm up and it struck me how accurate they were with their kicks during the game. This was in contrast to our last tackle kicks. I think we forced one drop out in the second half but my memory could be out. The Gaskell kick out on the full was bad as was the grubber straight into the defender's legs. I seem to remember Addy booting it into the head of a Batley player in the first half too.

You can't build pressure if your kicking game is bad. Thing is kicking skills can be honed by practice. It's not some sort of dark art. Addy is capable of kicking very well - he's just too inconsistent. Much like the rest of his game. On his day he can produce something top quality but it's usually provided along with a load of dross too. Do they need specialist help? Do they practice enough. Your guess is as good as mine.

The current side would be transformed with a playmaking scrum half added to it. The current side is fine in every department apart from this. It reminds me of Northern when Harkin was injured or before we signed Deryck Fox. More recently it's reminiscent of when Orford left us in the lurch and we relied on sub standard or makeshift halfbacks.