The opening 30mins yesterday showed we've become too used to playing at a championship level of intensity.

I'm not sure why but we were far too tentative and our line speed was pathetic and we allowed far too much space around the ruck and for Smith.

Were the players nervous or lacking in confidence? If not then why the collective failure? The buck really does stop with the coach sometimes to judge the atmosphere in the dressing room and do something about it if necessary.

We played yesterday like many games this season where we underperformed but scraped a win. There's no way you can get away with that in the 8s.

It's hard enough when you lose key players like Gaskell, Pitts and Mullaney without the rest playing like individuals.

We probably blew it yesterday. Some players who look good at championship level were shown up. Others fell short of their usual levels.

Thankfully we've a chance to make amends on Sunday. I don't expect to win but I expect a better performance.

I disagree about "intensity". I didn't think it was a particularly intense game at all. I am sure the team as it ran onto the field was, psychologically, not ready and looked as if they really didn't want to be there. The frame of mind they were in, they were beat before they came on the field. Why that is, would be the question, but I'm sure of it.

The game as a whole wasn't top level SL high intensity but it was certainly a few levels higher than we've been used to in the first 30 mins. We were already 2 scores down when Gaskell went off but I do wonder if the players also lost some confidence seeing our main playmaker leave the field.

Salford look to be in fine form so it isn't going to get any easier anytime soon. We'll probably need to be somewhere near our best to get close to them on Sunday. I'd be surprised if Gaskell is fit for that one as well so I can't see us adding to our 2 points in that game.

The T and A match report and follow up with Lowes make interesting reading. Lowe' view we were awful whereas Ross says there's a gulf in class.

It's a weird contrast because Lowes is the more correct assessment yet he's the man responsible and some of his decisons re; recruitment and selection are unfathomable. Ross has had a bit stick off Lowes for raising perfectly reasonable issues in the presser with regards to how generally poor we've been all year but his view that Wakey are too good to go down is ridiculous.

Lowes is basically correct when he says our promotion prospects are still in tact. We can play a lot better than we did and it's entirely feasible we could go to BV and win the million pound game but his decision to sign X AN Other instead of Jarrod Sammutt when Siejka, Mullaney and Gaskell were all injured has made him a hostage to his own belligerence. The physical and mental preparedness of the Bulls also says something very deep about Lowes as a coach and his relationship to the players.

During the season Ross has been right in his assesmnet of the Bulls and Lowes has been wrong. A O'B looks like a 30 year old version of Brian Noble, making tackle after tackle. If we don't go up Lowes should go for this alone, and perhaps even if we do.What is extremely frustrating is all the idiots who have talked about the gulf between the Championship and SL are looking smug when the truth is that there is probably very little difference in relative spends between oursleves and Wakey and on Saturday they were there for the taking. Right now this looks like the biggest of missed opportunities.

The frustrating thing is that we ran HKR close for the best part of an hour when we played them in the cup. It would be hard for any journo to have watched that cup game and then come away thinking there was a 'gulf in class'.
I have no idea wtf happened to us on Saturday but we're better than that.

We leaked roughly the same points vs HKR & Wakey - which doesn't look like we learnt anything in the intervening months. I think if our attack structure hadn't been disrupted by injury we probably would have put a couple more tries on Wakey. Again, getting roughly the same score as we did vs HKR in the cup.

I hope this isn't the template for the next 3 games...

We weren't able to think quickly enough therefore we didn't react and organise quickly enough. That's down to the differences in how the game is played and refereed in the 2 leagues. A top SL team would have totally bamboozled us. A team full of players with SL experience have become a team of Championship quality. It's a big ask to get players to play at a higher level than they need to on a week by week basis. Maybe next year will raise the bar.

The breaking news at Leigh this morning is quite interesting, it's took a while for it to come out

Have they signed Keegan Hirst for next season?

Go watch the first 5 tries again. In 4 cases the defence is set and Smith passes to a man who runs through a huge gap. Molloy and Smith have taken a simple pass and walked in. We didn't move up or number off - that's not the difference between SL and Championship, it's the difference between under 14s and under 11s.

Second Leigh player to be banned soon

I hear he used to play for us

I think if there have been any Leigh players not available for selection due to injury over the past 3 months, and there's not been much in the way of injury updates, then people will assume the worst.

Why string this out? Leigh need to get all the bad news out there, one press release, it'll last a couple of news cycles and they can concentrate on their next game. This speculation is bad for everybody.

You've hit the problem in the first sentence. We were doomed however we played it, as it appears Leigh are proving.

It's the concept of play-offs [which this mini-league effectively is] between teams playing at different levels which is the problem. Our team is on a higher plane than the bulk of the championship, but the way rugby is played [imakes[/i the team lazy; why should they bother rushing back to make the ten when the ref is perfectly cool with letting them lie on? That is how standards slip and why the teams which have been playing at the higher level look so much quicker and stronger.

Certainly doesn't explain why we stood back and waved the Wakefield forwards towards the line though, that is a fact.

You sum it up well Bulliac. We've become accustomed to championship rugby and its different level of intensity.

Wakefield ran harder yesterday. Made more ground after the collision and in defence their line speed was way quicker than ours. In summary their level of play was at a much higher intensity than ours apart from 10 mins either side of halftime.

This has been coming for a while as we've looked increasingly unable to put in a consistently high tempo 80mins against any of our championship opposition.

You are right. I don't care. Especially not amongst the Wakefield fans who are so myopic that they think that they can pick faults in the views of fans of every other club yet "conveniently" miss the "abuse" that is handed out by their own fans.

Especially when you guys are switched-on enough to notice a random comment on page 21 of a thread yet cannot seem to notice an entire thread aimed at provoking people.

I must say that the collective Wakefield braincell is getting a bit overworked this week.