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Ah OK!

So you are 1. A professional crowd counter and 2. Calling the Batley club cheats!

For what it's worth, as a spectator who attends Mount Pleasant every match, the published figure looked about right to me!

congratulations on the win

It was a very enjoyable match. No way was it a friendly. It was as tough as any Championship game I’ve seen.

Looking at our performance the main things that stood out for me were as follows. Our defence was superb. We withstood a heck of a lot of pressure on our line and scrambled really well. A couple of times when Batley wingers broke away we had the speed to get back and hold the line too. In attack we were patient and kicked well. It was always going to be close and so it proved. Quite a few times things got heated but we gave as good as we got and didn’t get distracted as we have done in years gone by even if Flanagan ended up in the bin twice.

I thought Lilley grew more influential as the game went on. The halfback partnership with Milnes wasn’t perhaps our best but in the first half they both kicked well and defended well. Milnes was withdrawn in the second half and Wildie moved to halfback with Flanagan as hooker but with Flanagan in the bin for 20mins it meant Lilley had to run things. He did very well considering.

I was impressed with Evans in defence again. He’s a tough bloke. Wildie’s service from dummy half is really good. Crossley looked the part when he came on and Green had a good game too (that was definitely a try under the sticks – I was directly opposite).

Batley were very good too. They will certainly be top half of the division this year. In the forwards they’ve got some big aggressive lads and their offloads caused us problems. Defensively they were very hard to break down and we only managed that a few times. If they have any room for improvement it’s in discipline and just being a bit more clinical when they move the ball.

As for us we play quite a conservative risk free sort of game. It was the right way to play when you consider the result but I think we have more to show in attack. We have a lot of flair on the wings and need to involve them more. I also think we could offload a bit more. I suspect the stats would show us miles behind in offloads.

Well , Thank you all for coming and making the game a pre season spectacle , I hope you all enjoyed your visit to the premier rugby league venue in Kirklees

It’s always a good atmosphere when we go to Batley. Those pies are the best I’ve had in a RL ground.

We’re 16-1 to win the Grand Final and Batley are 100-1 going by the odds on Betfred today. I’d say Batley are going to surprise a few this season. They had their share of tough blokes in the pack with the likes of Dickinson, Brown and Emmett. I imagine if Taira had played it would’ve been even more feisty.

We seemed to pick up a few knocks yesterday with Gibson going off after 2mins with his arm hanging loosely by his side which isn’t a good sign. Minchella strained a calf too. Crossley looked back to full fitness though. I reckon it’ll be a 19s with a sprinkling of reserves and 2nd string versus Toronto next week – I think we’re now battle hardened enough for the Fev game.

I think you're right there - Kear's post match interview implied that this would be the case.

What a great preseason it's been.

It’s been a great pre-season. Chalmers and the other club chairmen deserve credit for this concept. Yesterday both clubs had really bought into it and it was a great occasion. The match was as tough as any I’ve seen in the championship. We’re certainly battle hardened now. I don’t think anyone will have any complaints if the 2nd string play Toronto. Being honest we don’t really need to be playing them now at all. The injuries to Bustin and Gibson show that these games can be risky.

Could be mistaken as I didn't have one yesterday (early kick off and still being full from a late morning full English) but I think they get them from Haigh's Farm Shop... they are amazing and certainly puts us to shame with the Rollover slop we serve up.

The bravest person on show yesterday wasn't any of the players but the poor lass who had to try and get through the Bulls fans leaving the ground with a tray full of them. How she didn't get some nicked is beyond me!!!

It depends on your definition. If people are defining "friendly" as a pre-season game, then it was a friendly, albeit (as one fan said on twitter), a friendly with a posh dress on.

However I've always held the opinion that "friendly" is the wrong term in some sports and RL is certainly one of them. I don't recall watching any game at any level of RL that was friendly while the match was underway. Even kids games, fans games, amateur games, the whole lot, it's less than friendly from whistle to whistle. "Trial game" or "Pre-Season" game would be much more accurate, and I'm not just talking about the Yorkshire Cup matches, but all games that aren't a part of the official competitions.

Of course the one thing I do love about RL is how "friendly" it usually is before and after the game. Be it from players or fans. Yeah there's a few idiots, often fuelled by testosterone or beer they can't handle, but generally it's much more friendly than more popular sports we could name.

It was a “friendly” in terms of how the fixture is formally recognised. The appearances and scorers don’t count on official records.

I’ve seen a lot of pre season games in my life and they’re usually a kind of “low energy” version of the real thing with plenty of errors. You see heaps of substitutions and as such they’re not much of a guide to how teams will line up when the season starts formally. The Yorkshire Cup seems to have changed things a bit – at least as the competition got into the semis. The game versus Dewsbury was tough and didn’t have any of the usual characteristics of a pre season game. The final against Batley was as tough and intense as any league game, possibly more so. In that sense it wasn’t a friendly on the field – nor did it follow the pre season pattern. Both teams wanted to win and both coaches did. There was no talk of “performance being more important than the result”.

I noticed an interesting contrast actually to the final and the Leeds/Cas game that was going on at the same time. With the Leeds game, Cas were leading by 2 points towards the end when the Rhinos got a kickable penalty. They chose to run it, presumably know that the result really didn't matter and it's better for them to work on things other than kicking goals. In the Bulls game, when the scores were close, 2 points were kicked, because the result mattered to them.

In that sense, I think you're absolutely right. Although it still has the hallmarks of a trial game (I refuse to call them friendlies any more), i.e. more subs, some players left out, it does give the games a very different feel with some motivation that normal trial games are totally lacking.

On the subs I totally lost track of how many there were with all the sin bins that happened. The props swapped twice (4). Storton and Milton came on (2) and Hitchcox came on for Gibson (1). I think Milnes came off later in the game (1), Webster came on for Oakes and Flanagan came on for Wildie (1). I think there were ten but could be wrong.

I think it being a cup final of some sort added to the spice of the game. No one will care who won the Yorkshire Cup when we kick-off with Fev in just over a week. But that game had more in it than it would have if it had been a normal "friendly" It would have been interesting to see how many would have chased back Rettie & Campbell if it was just a friendly. As Bullseye said, we look battle hardened.

I certainly don't think we're going to get bullied like we did in 2017. Anyone who tries it, I think can expect some punishment back as we saw with the skirmishes in the game. We look a team ready to fight fire with fire. Bring it on.