And yet, 5 of them did (because we won 4 and drew 1). A curious fact.

Christ it must have been bad live, because the TV viewing was painful.

Indeed, but we did that with some players who are sadly out of action and with a willingness to tackle that's for some reason disappeared.

Well then, maybe it's time we started work on drawing up a list of those players who we, the fans, think do put it all in in defence, and those that don't. Or if we start to name names, will a super injunction follow?

It was awful live. Think the tv version after the watershed.

I think that the players do genuinely go out there to give 100% but as soon as things get tough it starts to fall apart. Every player is guilty of making poor decisions in defence or getting knocked off too easily, same as how when we beat Cas every player could claim to have worked hard and defended well.

The patacake we played versus Fax, Warrington and Salford looked to me like a team playing as a bunch of individuals. Versus Wire and Salford those individual seemed resigned to defeat and went through the motions. I don't think anyone can escape blame for that.

To name one player, L'Strange, makes an awful lot of attempted tackles and puts in a lot of effort. I do wonder sometimes though if that's misdirected sometimes or if either he or his teammates are capable of working together to do better in defence.

L'Estrange was the one that first sprung to mind too as the one always getting stuck in. It seems to me that the first 10 mins of each half we are there in numbers - 2/3 men in the tackle, then after that it drops off. Is it down to fitness? Surely not.
Technique seems to be off a lot of the time too. We found it nigh on impossible to put Worrincy down on Sunday, he was bouncing off tackles all over, but it looked like the defending players were all going in for the same tackle and getting in each others way. That must be down to the defensive coach.

Could be, but more likely it's some players are just better at it than others. Once we miss enough tackles and the score starts to blow out the heads then drop and we concede further and in the end we aren't in the tackle in numbers at all, everyone starts to play as an individual. The Salford game was a classic example. We started both halves ok with fairly solid defence but after a few mistakes it spiralled out of control and the defence went like Swiss cheese.



It probably does come down to coaching and looks to me again like the team not defending as a unit or communicating enough. A team that doesn't talk in defence is always asking for it. Whatever, the players don't seem to have confidence at the moment.

Would be interested in Worrincy's stats. He seemed to take 2 out of every 6 drives.

"Now this is the law of the Jungle-
as old and as true as the sky:
And the Wolf that shall keep it shall prosper,
but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk,
the Law runneth forward and back.
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."

Rudyard Kipling - Second Jungle Book.

When a team is pulling together, amazing things can happen.

Perhaps reading poetry to the team may help, it worked for Peter Fox!

L'Estrange isn't short on effort but his was the worst defensive error of the day.

That balls up was exactly what I had in mind. There was no communication, he just did his own thing.

what do you make of the shay thesedays bulls fans?

Looked good, nice little stadium, the pitch looked fantastic - would love to have a game on that!!

The Skircoat stand could do with some work, but I've been to worse stadia.

Would have been nice if Halifax fans turned up to watch the game, we must have outnumbered the fax fans 4-1