The Manly club doctor was showing a bit of concern about his condition so he was taken off as a precaution.

Whitehead 'we think' scored a good try and as a whole the team played as a team for the first time in a while, well worth the 10 or so hours travelling time to get there.

......and we won!!!!!!!

And Warrington smashing Salford didn't help either.....

Called that for a Wire win, although obviously we would have been happier with a Salford win. Today's Wakey/Cas game was one of the critical results which had/have to go our way especially since the normal Wire end of season collapse hardly looks on the cards...

The thing is, we shouldn't have to rely on other teams doing us a favour. We should be getting into the play-offs on our own merits.

If we don't make it we've no one else to blame

Not sure anyone is saying otherwise?

Two more wins for Cas and Wigan, 3 More wins for Wolves and Wakey and it's good night for us.

Disgraceful is the only word that can be used to describe our season.

Just got back. Solid win. The young lads played well, impressed with Donaldson, good passing & support play. Platt has now played 3 times at centre, yesterdays performance was more like his first attempt at centre. Crusaders broke through our Rt hand defence 3 times in the firsst half with ease - only good work from Halley & Sheriffe slowed their breaks down and allowed our defence to get sorted. We started with godwin who played very well, a lot of our 1st half attacks went straight through the centre.

The pessimistic Crusaders fan beside me was happy to be only 18-0 down at half time. I on the other hand was counting my blessings that the HT score was not 18-18.

The second half Alibert went to town and I would say that we just shaded the advantage from all his strange calls (for a change)

Everyone did well, Platt improved once he got back to FB although I think halley will still have that position for the next game. Edit - Newton did nt play well, our slack period coincided with him being on the pitch.

Thanks to the Crusdaders fan who we met at Bryngarw country park who reminded us that the reserves game was on at 2.30 at Maesteg. great fground, superb view. Game marred by serious looking injury to a Crusaders player which required ambulance. I think the crowd were thinking about leon Walker for the whole time he was down. Met Beaver at the match which gave the game away that he was not playing for the first team. rudd had a good & powerful game

You're starting to let it slip at last now...

In fact its not that simple - you have to look at who plays whom. That's why I built my spreadsheet. For example, its almost academic to us now what Wire and Wigan and Wakey do, provided they don't lose to Quins or Cas or Cats respectively. The one that it transpires really counts is Cas, since to have any realistic chance of getting into the 8 (at their expense) we need them to lose every remaining game - which is unlikely.

That said, this season has been so unpredictable that we will doubtless see some more shocks before the end of the season. The problem is that virtually every possibly shock is either irrelevant to us or makes our mountain even bigger to climb. Yes, we still have a very very slight chance of making the 8 - if we win ALL our remaining matches then that improves to a small chance. But the mix of the remaining fixtures for other clubs is not at all to our advantage. AT least I'll be able to identify when it is no longer mathematically possible for us to qualify - that could come pretty soon.

Certainly if/when 8 teams get to 28 its all over regardless - and reduce that by 2 for any games we lose from here on in. But that might only come last week of the season. But its a bit more complex, because you have to look at who plays whom and which results can influence our final placing - hence my little forecast matrix. We'd almost certainly know before that point, by looking at the remaining fixtures.

For instance (and I stress, its based on my guesses of who wins each match) if Wire were to lose at home to Wakey (had them down for winning all their home games and losing their away ones, but it would not help us one bit if they won any or all of the latter) then we (on my guesses otherwise) could conceivably pip THEM for 8th. But if they lost instead to Quins at home then we'd still be 9th.

I stress though, this is likely an academic exercise only UNLESS the most incredible conjugation of circumstances arises. The odds on that must be very very long.

The main worry was Halley's injury at last nights game, he sustained it with about ten minutes to go. Platt looked lost at centre but we looked much better at half back. Thought Godwin had a good game and Whitehead and Donaldson look two great prospects. Langley put in some great tackles, but has a loose forward does not create any breaks in the opposition. Morrison started like a house on fire, and showed how much we have missed him, and Nero played well and made a number of breaks which almost brought him tries. Second half we put in a lot of hard tackles, although we went through a period of silly mistakes which threatened to put Celtic back in the game.