Surprised there hasn’t been a thread made yet! How would you guys go? Bustin, Magrin, Pickersgill and Roche are all included despite being left out or not in Kear’s plans. So minimum two will play. With Crossley out it will be tough for the forwards. I’d like to see us line up:

Ryan
Foggin-Johnston
Webster
Oakes
Grant
Pickersgill
Lilley
Kirk
Wildie
Bustin
Minchella
Farrell
Hallas

Flanagan
Wood
Peltier
Storton/Roche

If we need size to beat the Batley pack maybe drop Pickersgill. Wildie to SH, Hallas to Hooker, Wood to 13 with a bench of Flanagan, Peltier, Roche and Storton. Magrin gets nowhere near for now.

I thought everyone had gone on their jollys. I think after watching the Barrow game I'd like to see Pickersgill given a go in the halves just for the hell of it. Surely there's nothing to lose ?

That was my thinking. I think Roche needs to show up well today too. If he doesn’t I’d be tempted to play Gallagher/Scurr/Hodgson in the next game.

I think the big need is to show we are over the 'Challenge Cupitis' and are back on full power for the rest of the season. We have injuries, and a few mental scars from the big games, I know, but everyone has injuries at this stage of the season, if not the mental bits. JK says they look at games in blocks which is a reasonable way at do things - well that 'block' is over so let's get to it.

Big game this I feel. (to be fair, most games are big with the league being so close) but a loss today and then Leigh at their place followed by Fax, our season could really come off the rails.

I was confident of a win earlier in the week, but Batley got a good win against Fax and look to have a strong squad for this one. Interesting to see how Butterworth goes against us. With O'brien & Leeming both looking like long term options for the Giants, I just can't see how Reiss will progress there.

Well we struggled at times, completion rate in the first half must have been under 50% we dropped it that much. However our defence was really good and won us that game. To nil anybody in this game is a great achievement, I'm sure Kear will be thrilled to bits that we didn't concede.

Tough set of games coming up now though.

Great defensive effort.

We dropped the ball a lot, but there were some decent bits of play (even if few and far between).

Be interesting to see if we can improve when Keyes is back fit.

Pretty much what i was saying earlier in the week, you can sum us up asexpect[/i the ball to go to ground.

It was good that we kept going, stayed determined, and the defence was outstanding. I even quite enjoyed a lot of our rugby in the last quarter, and we can take away a lot from that performance. Wish we could take away the dropsy.

Don't think the conditions helped handling, to be fair, and both sides suffered through it. The defence was awesome though, a big fat zero in the against column is a big thing. Fortunately Batley seemed to suffer the same dis-inclination to give the ball any air (understandable, in the wet), kicks apart, so we were rarely troubled at the back as the kicks were dealt with very well. We'll miss Ethan next year in that department.
I heard Disko complaining that Batley wouldn't have scored if they'd still been playing (this was around 6 o'clock) and he wasn't wrong. Whilst we didn't create all that much more on attack we did take what chances we had pretty well. Two cracking finishes from DFJ.

I not sure that all the lost possession was due to us, Batley went for the ball a lot of the time and got the call.
We did look tired but the defence was great, still a bit wanting in attack.
The ref was blatantly bias towards Batley one instance on our line Batley just put the ball on the floor from a standing position and rolled it to the side and the ref called play on very poor.
well done team.

Ironically I thought we looked to do more with the ball in the first half than we had in weeks. Attempted offloads and everything. That seemed to contribute to the errors but it was better to watch.

Our first two tries were down to quick hands down the left as well. Makes a change.

Why didn't we do it in better conditions when the ball was easier to catch I don't know.

Thought that moving Mini to loose forward helped a great deal. Both halfbacks played better and Ryan was great defensively. It was the defensive effort that stood out. We had a lot of sets on our line and did well. Batley didn't offer much but kept at it. They look lacking in ideas and coming from seeing us that's saying something.

Thought Storton had one of his best games. Man of the match for me.

Wildie playing out of position was very good I thought; kept things moving and had a few good kicks too.

Thank god you said this! I was just reading this forum and wondering if I’d watched a different first half? In that first 20 minutes we played more attacking rugby than I have seen in the past 2-3 games. We actually used dummy runners and tested Batley’s inside defence. We tried offloading more as you stated.

The one thing I thought we didn’t do quite so well was play the conditions better. I’d have liked to have seen more kicks bouncing into touch than the up and under’s we were doing especially after Scott caught the first 2-3.

Agreed on the defensive effort. In relation to Ryan the only thing I think he lacks at FB is the poachers instinct of a Withers or McNally. But his positional play is great, as is his last man defence.

Roche actually played okay today and took the ball in well. Oakes showed why he was a wingers centre and reclaimed some form that he had in 2017. His reading of Batley’s attack was great too! DFG was brilliant today and finished well! There were one or two instances where I thought Farrell could have moved the ball on but he took the tackle, but tbf he made the right decision and played the conditions.

Overall a very pleasing performance. Great to get the 0 for Batley. But let’s not get excited. Still lots to improve on. But put’s us in a good position.

Looking forward to Keyes, Evans and Hitchcox returning to reserves duty next week!

Agree about Oakes. Interesting to see what happens when Evans is back fit.

With the youthful squad Kear is building, the disruption in the halves (partially self inflicted) and several key injuries, I think remaining well in the play off mix at this stage is a real positive.

We need to keep improving but I’m excited for the back end of the season, especially if Keyes and Jy are back fit and firing.

I think the team seemed more balanced today and I thought we did well under the conditions. The zero was the icing on the cake. Anyone else notice JK was up watching from the South bank and not in the dug out.