Danny Addy with foot in protective boot but Donno back for next week

At 16-0 I really feared the worse, especially given the team we'd selected! As someone who called for Cummins to go, haven't changed that view yet, need a run of 4-5 games where the team play like that. One player I thought put himself about who I'd rarely seen it in the past was Addy, I thought his defense was brave, committed and effective. Also thought George carried ball really well. Finally Purtell ran hard all day, deserved his try.

Having sat through the game, after the first 3 Catalan tries i thought this was going to be a poor display. However, i think Catalan thought that as well and took their foot off the gas and it gave our lads time to regroup and and start to play as a team, with each try we grew in confidence and got better and better. even after the Catalan try early in the second half we looked like a team with purpose and the sniff of a win drove the whole team forward.
The team performed well today, very little dropped ball and giving away silly penalties, i thought Pitts looked good for his first runout for us.

COYB

After 15 minutes, the biggest difference for me was that the penalties stopped.

We gifted them so much field position which led to their tries. Once we had some possession in dangerous areas, I was surprised how good our attack looked.

If I wanted the team to take any lesson away from today, it would be that the needless penalties have to stop. When we stood toe to toe with the Catalan pack, we could compete. I'm optimistic the lads can do the same against other SL opposition.

Warrington have blown hot and cold this year, if we play like we did today then its possible we could surprise them next week.

Eh? I only paid £20 for a ticket, had money on the Bulls which more than paid for it, and spent on a beer or two. How is that a heavy financial loss for me?

As above, impressed with large aspects of our play. I thought Pitts had one of the best debuts vs SL opposition I've seen in a long time for us.

Diskin provided a lot of stability & direction for the forwards. He also had a word with the ref after about 15minutes and our discipline improved.

My main concern was that the period of Catalan response in the 2nd half coincided with Diskin being off the pitch and Henry being put into Left centre, which seemed to weaken our left side defence, enough that catalans had a couple of good breaks & a try down that side.

It'll be interesting to see missed tackles for Henry, seeing as he was only on the pitch for 20minutes or so. I think he'll be the one most at risk from Arundel coming into the squad.

But then with Arundel & Purts playing centre, who loses out at wing - with George,Kear & Foster to choose? And they all played well yesterday.

I agree that we lost a bit of direction with Diskin off. O’Brien relies on the forwards getting on the front foot so he can scoot. He almost always tries a scoot after Manu takes the ball up and it’s a bit easy to read. Diskin has more variation.

Agree about Henry’s defence which reminds me of Platt/Sykes in the centres. He’s better on the wing. As for who I’d pick on the wings it’s a tough one. Kear tries his nuts off but hardly makes a break, Foster has good skills but never looks like making a break, George is quick but doesn’t look busy enough (much better in the centres yesterday).

His work ethic is superb. He wants work and will take it up when the forwards are knackered. I hate bagging an out and out grafter like kear but he's not offering much as a winger imo.

Bit of an ainscough?

The main positive from yesterdays game was our forwards were running onto the ball at speed. Nas had his best game of the season in my opinion. It's a shame we may have lost him with a hamstring injury for the next few weeks.

A fully fit Jamal Fakir will add some serious power to the forward arm wrestle. Barring his first carry which resulted in a knock on, I thought Fakir played really well. Perhaps he had a personal vendetta with his old club but he smashed his way through the Dragons defence on a number of occasions.

As I said in my original post, backing that up this Sunday against the Wolves will be the real test.

Ainscough had pace to burn whereas kear is slow in winger terms so is foster tbh, I would pick him every day of the week for his work ethic, possible needs a good centre partnership to create the space for him.

On another note, was it just papering over the cracks? Or did we play well against a full strength Cats team? as that would give me hope for the future.

I felt all week that it was touch and go which way the Wigan defeat would effect the side, and for the first quarter hour it looked like the negative I feared. To come back after that start was an even bigger effort than ever.

Too many good performances to list, but Fakir, early lapse apart, was superb, Luke George was really excellent, Disko came back from his injury well, Danny Addy has finally managed to make his tackles 'stick', and Nas - where has he been hiding [ithat[/i form all season? Foster took his tries and goals with aplomb, Gaskell is looking to be the creative answer we need.

Difficult to say who played best where, what with players swapping full back for the halves and centres - you never knew who was playing where for more than a few minutes..or even the next set of six. Don't know where that performance came from but I'm hoping for more. COYB..