Careful, that's close to becoming a catchphrase.

It's a reasonable point about the ref. He seemed to want to be the star but was hideously inconsistent. First try the touchy signalled in touch and he ignored him then within 10 mins decided that may have been a bad idea and listens but only after having made the decision he then reverses. It's no wonder it ended in an all in. He had no control or consistency at all.

Which is all nice but he never missed a tackle, dropped a ball or generally slacked off and let Swinton run through the middle like we did.

How many times were we held up over the line? Something we've become great at, but not yesterday. Just Michael Worrincy attempts at half a-rsed tackles.

We picked Swinton's pocket. Had Keyes's kick gone over it would have been a broad daylight mugging.

Having listened to Kear's post match interview he's obviously seething and rightly so. We came out with a real half d attitude and deserved to be 16-0 down. I find this attitude hard to fathom. As Kear said do the players want to achieve anything or are they just happy being mid table championship level players? To work so hard in the past two games then not turn up until half an hour has gone isn't good enough.

Even once we got back in the lead we let them run through our middle to score. That was weak defence. I dont know who it was but they should be in the reserves following that effort.

I was a bit mystified to see Wood left out too. We lacked his toughness up the middle at times. A few other things in defence concerned me such as the weak defending opposite Kibula and the way we allowed Ryan to be targeted when he was clearly injured. In attack we were poor too with players not backing up enough. Then there was Oakes's inexplicable dummy at the end and Wildie taking several eons to pass the ball out wide when Swinton were down to 11 men.

All very poor and totally avoidable. Well done to Swinton though who played it tough yet showed a lot of flair too. Had they kept their discipline a little better they would've kept Farrell out at the end but being down to 11 was too much to overcome.

As for the ref he's a young and inexperienced lad who had a tough game to cover. He made some mistakes but they all do and he will learn. Having a go at him detracts from our own shortfalls.

Mr Kear also said he would look at the players in yesterdays game, and the players in contention from the reserves game and make changes for the upcoming game against York (which, I hope, will be some payback for our defeat last year).

Or will he? Hasn't he said this before, and then changed nothing? Is it just an empty threat for the players?

I just referred to this on another forum. He has made this threat at least twice in recent weeks and then done absolutely nothing - picking the same 17 the following week.

I'm afraid he will actually need to follow through if he doesn't want the players to get wise to those empty threats!

But surely JK will be damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Suppose he makes a load of changes and we lose to York. Imagine the outcry on here. people saying "this was a must win game, lose this and our seasons over and Kear changes the team massively".

Moving on, I could see Evans coming in if he has no reaction to 80 mins in the reserves, that would shore up the middle a bit. Crossley to come back if fit, and surely Wood for his defence,

Very odd comment.

It's almost as if you think attendance of the game in question is a pre-requisite criteria for the right to have a point of view.

I was actually hoping people would clarify for people like me who weren't in attendance whether or not the referee was garbage or not, but whatever.

Was going to post at more length, but (as normal) John Kear has said it all and he is spot on.

The season now literally rests on winning at York.

Maybe that's enough to get back to putting a full shift in, or maybe not. I've frankly given up guessing, though I did predict that IF lacksadaisical Bulls turned up, Swinton could do us, and frankly they deserved to.

I can give them credit for almost climbing out of the hole, but some of the play in digging that hole was frankly embarrassing. Notably the candyfloss defence for the last Swinton try.

I suppose the squad we've got,
It would be easy to conclude that they don't all have enough mental toughness and resilience to keep on backing up the standard and the resolve and the determination week in Week Out, the best teams do that nearly always, and the challenging teams do that very often, and the mid-table teams blow frustratingly hot and cold because the mental toughness isn't there.

I don't know what else to put it down to as clearly they are not unfit, and they are not lazy, and they don't give up.

I should add that I have always said a strong upper mid table performance this season would be a reasonable achievement. I still think that. We are building for the future, and I've seen a lot of good and entertaining Rugby from us, but sadly not every week. So I'm not suicidal, frustrating though it was.

John Kears comments every week seem to be on the money, he's a far better coach than we were entitled to get, and can clearly see where the deficiencies lie. The question is, how, and how much, can we improve for next season. I remain reasonably optimistic just because some of the stuff we've played of late has been as good or better than anybody else's and I'd be more worried if we couldn't produce at those levels.

I'm still not as sold on JK as some others appear to be.
It's all well and good saying such things in the post match press conference, but he obviously didn't do a good enough job of motivating the players [ibefore[/i the match otherwise he'd never need to say those things once the dust had settled!
He also continues to make some selection choices that leave me scratching my head, I still don't think I've fully forgiven him for the complete balls up he made of our run in at the end of last season - the Workington match at home was a complete disaster because of his team selection.

Just watched the highlights and made me feel even worse than I did yesterday. Despite the fact we played like total crap, its gutting to see some of the decisions go against us.

First Swinton try he is clearly in touch (his hand is actually the first thing to touch the line before the rest of his body follows). Then Magrin grounds the ball under the posts but the try is disallowed. Minchella try can be disputed either way. In slow mo he looks to get downward pressure but can see why its not given live on the field.

Would be interested to see the Kirk sin bin and also the Oakes brainfart towards the end of the game too but either way, a day later can't help but think this might come back and haunt us come end of the season.

After watching those highlights I can’t believe the ref overruled the touchie for Swindon’s first try, bearing in mind the respective positions they held at point of grounding

i have also just watched the highlights the ref is absolutely in need of a visit to supersavers reference the first Swinton and Magrin's try

What was the attendance please?

Don't know if anybody else has mentioned it but how many times did we get caught in possession on the last tackle.

Why are people convinced the ref over ruled the touch judge? He didn’t raise his flag to signal the player was in touch. However the video clearly shows his hand is well over the line. I don’t think Minchella grounded the ball and the Magrin effort is inconclusive from the replay.

York have on paper the toughest run in but they have points in the bag so obviously are favourites to cling onto 5th spot as I expect them to drop down the table in the next few weeks. They are the team we have most chance of catching but we simply have to beat them on Sunday to stay in the race.