Because we insist on not starting with a genuine stand-off then we present to the opposition a wonderful single facetted attack. All they have to do is shut down gale and they win.

This approach by francis is imo insane. If gaskell is at 6 then he can sometimes kick, sometimes distribute. At least then we present a semblance of choice about our 5th tackle option, and in doing so make our opponents have to think!

Just out of interest, does anyone know what the penalty count was yesterday or where I might find it?

That's a fair comment, but in that case Cummins would have been better putting out an A team, as the Cougars did, & showing some spirit.

I can't really see the point in criticising Gaskell or Gale, we are conceding 50 points per match. We need to show more appetite to defend right across the field.

Gaskell has to be moved to stand off for the Salford game, put Kear or Foster(yes I know) at full back. Let's hope Kaufusi comes back,I think Nas was starting to play better with Kaufusi there.

Having seen you a few times now, I can not understand why you play a good stand off (which you are crying out for) at fullback (where he is absolutely gash).

You play a centre at prop forward, and a really crap player at centre who is big enough to play prop.

Then another at centre who was actually a back rower, another area you are crying out for some players in.

A lot of your problems, and although not alone, are down to team selections. You have had some bad breaks with injuries etc, but yesterday you could have easily picked a better side from the players available.

Gaskell started off at stand off but apparently he goes into his shell when it gets tough and becomes a liability in defence and is too quiet. Kearney took his place recently and it coincided with our wins versus Catalans and Warrington but unfortunately he’s out injured now. Cummins seems keener to play Addy at stand off. He’s a trier but nowhere near good enough. Gaskell seemed to disappear yesterday. Ideally he’d be creating things in partnership with Gale but he looks well out of form. A confident, enthusiastic Lee Gaskell is what we need but he doesn’t go well in a team that struggles.

We play Walker at prop because we only have 2 props in the squad and he’s put his hand up. Not sure who you think our really crap centre is. Purtell has had his best season with us so far and Blythe isn’t that bad. Both are better than Adam Henry who isn’t very good at all. After that we have nobody!

I’d say most of our problems are down to having a wafer thin squad and losing Carvell, Scruton (our player of the year in 2013) and Sammut (our best back) not to mention injuries. In most cases I’d say Cummins has his hands tied

Well done, a second standard ploy of the "attendances troll" - add a ludicrously exaggerated "away attendance" guesstimate, and claim it as FACT.

Think the centre referred to may have been Henry who has probably glimmered, rather than shone, for us so far.

To be fair, we had three props on the field yesterday, Nas, Fakir and Sidlow but couldn't make the same yardage as Wire. When you add in Kaufusi though, that should be enough 'go forward' to allow someone like Gaskell to make a bit of hay on the back of.

On the subject of Gaskell though, I don't buy the notion that he's "gash" at FB, for sure, he's not won man of the match but he does the basics and seems reliable under the high ball [except when AN Other calls for the ball and then doesn't go for it...] He does seem low on confidence though, but with our problems at half and FB it's hard to see what Franny can do except hope he plays his way back to form.

Have to agree with Bullseye though, losing Scrutes, Carvell and Sammutt was our [and of course Franny's] biggest blow.

Not so sure about Sammutt, but it's surely plain as the nose on anyone's face that ripping out two major impact forwards has ruined the balance of our squad. The lack of pack is top of the list of things that have got us regularly paggered.

Gale was disappointingly back in his wardrobe. I just don't know what it is with him. Maybe he plays very well for Narnia.

As for the rest - well I promised myself I'd give my "schoolboy errors" mantras a week off so ...

I would like to defend Gale's performance yesterday based on my attendance at the press conference on Wednesday for the Challenge Cup. Gale had a rocker on one foot which seems to indicate the damage he did to his ankle in last week's match against Wakefield was perhaps still troubling him and was a more serious injury. He may have been still struggling with it yesterday!.

You would have thought he would have taken it off to play though.

Like any halfback he’ll struggle behind a pack that is going backwards. Even the great Paul Deacon (steady tigertot!) used to get smashed when he was playing behind a weaker pack in the early days of McBanana’s rule.

Gale did throw an awful pass to Gaskell when we had an early chance to apply pressure. He was in acres of space so not sure why it went onto Gaskell’s bootlaces. Booting the ball dead three times was pants too and just doesn’t apply any pressure. Having said all that his huge hit wasn’t the actions of a man who’s injured. That’s not to say Gale was alone. I thought Addy was very poor and was doing his turnstile defence too.

I agree on the confidence factor. The team are brittle psychologically. You could see it in the body language after we conceded shortly after the bungled kick off. Heads dropped, people seemed to look like they’d rather be elsewhere. It showed in the tackling which lacked aggression and in the attack where we were tentative and hesitant. Again another factor making Gale look bad was the quality of his runners which at times were non existent.

It’s a bit “chicken and egg”. How do you get confidence? We need to get a run together of decent performances where we make the opposition have to work really hard and we need to get in “the arm wrestle”. A few look really reluctant to get stuck in and that’s disappointing. We seem to be lacking that killer instinct or even a bit of mongrel. The weak pack is a big factor in this. I really hope we keep Kaufusi.

Kaufusi has gone back to Hudds now apparently. Awesome.

Matty Smith, currently in the England training squad, is equally as completely lost as Deacon or Gale, but in a much better team. Without Green to dominate he is restricted to passing or kicking. There is only Brough & possibly Burrow who can create something from a team on the back foot at 7. Gale is no different to the majority of English scrum halves.