Good signings count for little if they are poorly managed.

With the players we have did anybody expect us to be in the position we are in now? No disrespect to Cas but this was a must win and one we should have looked at for 2 points.

I'm almost becoming tired of the excuses and the same old messages coming out of the PR machine, the top eight is beginning to look further and further away

To be honest apart from Rangi Chase Castleford did'nt look nothing special, so it just shows how poor we play as a team, we have the players but it's all down to the coaching.

Let's be blunt.

Today was no different than several previosu occasions this season, where the team has let in one try, and then been as comprehensively unable to even attempt to defend as they would be if someone nailed their feet to the floor.

At half-time I said to my mate that I just prayed we wouldn't come out and have yet another 'walkabout' spell - where, let us stress, we concede points at alarming rates like one a minute or more - but walkabout we went.

Let's be more blunt. We had fat men repeatedly going 50, 60 or even 80 yards. Our "defence" wide out in that spell was truly atrocious, but it was same old, same old.

And the defence out wide in that spell was shockingm, but the defence in teh middle and on the line wasn't much better, with no defensive line, and people walking in for tries ANYWHERE on the field, didn't matter left, right, middle - you just KNEW they were going to score, and they did.

Walkabout over, we resumed where we had left off. Which was pretty much the same standard as Cas. Some decent tries, some good defence, some pish-poor unforced errors. A mixed bag. Nowhere near the standard that we needed to be.

Defensively our back 4 was shambolic today. It wasn't much better attack-wise either. Menzies was not a factor for one and even he dropped balls under no pressure.

Contributory factors to defeatover a season of consistently trying, applying themselves, or working off their balls when they need to. Sometimes they do, but too often, too many don't.

We should therefore take the opportunity for the rest of this dead-rubber season to play and blood as many of the young lads as is humanly possible, and hope that they in this way come on sufficiently that we can get rid of some of the players who have, over the season taken as a whole so far clearly shown that they are not worth a starting spot as they are to often not up to the job.

Yet again (and I get sick of repeating this- we have served up what is ultimately a marketing disaster for the long-suffering, dwindling and increasingly disillusioned home fans. Yet again we have been beaten at home by a team that we could and should have put away.

If I was Mac I really would start dropping people in large numbers.

My considered opinion...

rlhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Cowpat.jpgrl

Depressing. Same old capitulation costing us the game despite being on top for much of it. Same old shocking defence. Same old various players looking like they were not that interested (guess Newton is maybe understandable if the rumours are true?). Same old dodgy decisions of course, but we should not be in the position of having to point to them.

Big ask to scrape the playoffs now.

Maybe its getting near time to drop a few players and let some of the younger lads have some extended gametime? That's the first time I've said that, but the argument for it has gone past "strong" after today, and is tending perilously close to "irrefutable" I suggest?

Glad I'm not involved in Bulls' Marketing; that's looking an even bigger ask than making the playoffs.

Talking to two Cas guys after the match - I said was it that you were very good and we were poor? They replied both teams were a bit poor really. Sums it up. Just, again, we were a bit poorer. Edit: and sounds like Macca in his pre-match comments completely agrees

Deserved Win Cas, for that 11 mins after the break where we waved the white flag and they were hot.

Superb effort by Halley. Would that some others showed the same effort and enthusiasm. Thank God we hung onto him.

Disappointed with that performance, but at least Burgess is playing well again and Halley looked awesome. Tbf there were at least 4 Cas tries that would have gone to the video ref had it been on sky and some may have not stood. Their interception try was a clear offside, but that wasn't the worst, Tadulala was blatantly taken out in the air and then Cas were given a try . We can't just play well in patches, we need to do it for 80 minutes. Another thing is, Deacon may be improving his attacking again but he missed some tackles my grandmother would have made. Scruton played well aswell, but neither Newton or Godwin -the latter having a decent excuse- added anything to our game and lpayed poorly.

Not at all, he was taken out in the air twice which led to two Cas tries, unfortunately the ref was the only person that didn't spot this.

The linesmen aswell.

Couple of quick notes on the match from my pov.

The first 20 minutes of the second half were absolutely atrocious. The defending was schoolboy crap, especially from a certain centre who I'm sick of talking about with regards to poor defence. He needs dropping.

Deacon was once again rubbish. I really don't know what's happened to him. His defence used to be very good for someone of his size and now he's missing tackles everywhere.

Saying that, it wasn't just those two that were poor in defence, they just stood out a little more.

If it hadn't been for Halley, we'd have let in at least another 2, maybe 3 tries. He also seems to be one of the only players that can play for 80 minutes without blowing out of his a*se.

In attack, we sometimes look ok, but then other times are so predictable it's amazing. That pass to Deacon from dummy half, then to Jeffries, then cut out the dummy runner to give to Halley on the overlap. How many times are we going to try that in one game? Even good moves are easy to defend against if you do them every other bloody set!


As far as tries that shouldn't have been, there was only the one that I couldn't believe wasn't disallowed, when the Cas player just plowed into Semi in the air, with no attempt to get the ball, allowing Shenton to easily catch it and score. (the one in the second half). I thought the others were fine.

There's no sense in blaming officials though, it was our shocking defending that lost us that game.

The really depressing thing is, the last two games we lost, we still looked a decent side. You could come away from the game disappointed we lost, but with some pride that the team had played ok and didn't deserve to lose by as many as they did.

This week, they deserved to lose by a damned site more than 2.

Terry Matterson is not the only person who was rlbemusedrl this afternoon...