Thanks Mick,

Likewise, I was stood bang in front of the incident with Thomas. Tackle was complete so Thomas and the other tackler relaxed before Morton seemed to flip out with the extra push and throw into the barrier. Thomas reacted and players piled in.

Fans all around the incident shouted but no fighting took place between the fans. Funnily enough a female dewsbury fan shouted at some bulls fans for bad language in front of children (bulls fans) but seemed oblivious to fellow dewsbury fans shouting the odds and swearing. Some bulls fans pointed this out, some more shouting and then it settled down. Certainly no fighting and stewards were in the corner watching the whole scene.

Keyes one looked bad but opposite end of the field so it's harder to comment on, although you clearly don't knock yourself unconscious!

Injuries didn't help but we lost that game ourselves by dropping too much ball, weak tackling and being lazy. 70% of the KR performance would have got us the points but nope we are staring relegation square in the face.

To be fair, I haven't seen many saying the ref cost them the game. More that the referee was bloody awful and the team were just as bad.

Sorry I should probably have been a bit clearer, it was more aimed at Bulls fans on social media than on here.

I can confirm that there were fisticuffs at Dewsbury. Apparently the Bulls fans were trying to leave but the turnstile operators wouldn't open the gates.

The t&a article this morning has a photo showing the exact moment of impact of Walshaw on Keyes. Look like he caught him right on the chin.

I have to say, reading some of the comments on here I was expecting some sort of sickening collision when I watched the match highlights back, but it looked like a fairly innocuous challenge to me. Obviously he's caught him high but I don't think it was particularly malicious or premeditated. And if you think that's one of the worst challenges you've seen in a while, then you can't have been watching much rugby this season because there are far worse challenges than that on a weekly basis in SL.

I feel like the club are using the Keyes thing as an excuse a bit here. All Beattie is going on about is the injury and the 'we had no bench' rubbish.
How about recognising the p!ss poor handling, completion rate and complete inability to work as a defensive unit?
The second Dewsbury try was an absolute embarrassment, you see better defending than that at amateur games. The Dewsbury tries in the second half were simply passes along the line and we looked like rabbits caught in headlights.

Having now seen the highlights myself, I don't disagree with any of that. As far as the challenge goes, Walshaw doesn't seem to hit him hard at all. It's certainly not an assault that the police should be looking at, as some sensationalist idiots would have you believe.

As far as "having no bench" and all that other guff, if you don't have a bench that can cover an injury, that's the coach's fault. There was nothing to stop him naming someone like Pickersgill on the bench and putting one of the forwards into the second row when Cameron Smith dropped out, but he chose not to. There were also three people on the field that could play hooker, so they could easily move Scott Moore into scrum half, a position he's not unfamiliar with, and have Hallas or Halafihi at dummy half. Yes, it disrupts, but the whole point of a bench is to be able to cover players being injured during the game, which is inevitable.

I generally have a lot of sympathy for Leigh Beattie who is in a terrible position that I don't think he's necessarily equipped for, and is doing the best he can. But he does come across very whingey in everything I've read from the Dewsbury game.

Low and behold though someone sets an account up to set this whole debate off with their only post. People seem to enjoy every minute thing that could be negative towards the bull

It looked worse where I was as I was right in line with it. The ball had gone - no attempt to get out of the way - quite the reverse. He doesn't even bother to wrap his arms around Keyes as he carries on with the challenge. Blatent shoulder charge that knocked him out as there was contact with the head.

I agree we were crap but the good things we did in attack came off Keyes and once he was off that was pretty much it.

Sure complain about Magrin's butter fingers or Halafihi's entire game but I think we were very hard done to over the Keyes incident.

Losing Smith was a blow whether you like it or not. Then losing Roche to a dislocated shoulder didn't help. We were left playing long minutes with Kirk (not up to this level yet) and Chapelhow (just not up to it) and Halafihi.

hmmmmm inspector closeau you are not... a quick look at my profile will tell you I registered in 2014, just never posted......

as you were, back to sniping

no problems

Correct.

You are under the referee's control at any time and can be sent off, or yellow carded, for an incident in the tunnel, never mind the running track. In the case of this particular match, I use the word "Control" in a technical sense, rather than an actual one, as the ref clearly had no actual control.