I know it has only been one game but do you think we miss Alker controlling the defensive line? For example telling them to move up in a line because last sunday they didn't do it atall! The Crusaders gained 5-10metres before even touching a Salford player.

Do we miss him giving the players a b*llocking and get it straight because i don't think Holdsworth will have a go at the players? and oviously McRae wont at half time, in attack were great just were missing that leadership in defence i think. I saw about the same 4 or 5 players doing tackle after tackle such as Wild, Godwin and Adamson.

Perhaps the combination of the uber quick play-the-ball system we have this year in addition to the dominant Crusaders props running over the top of our props caused most of the disarray and backtracking defense we witnessed.

I'm sure we miss his influence on the field. However, it's the sheer number of tackles he used to make in a game that we miss the most. In addition, our next best defensive player last season was Swain and we let him go too.

That leaves a big hole to fill in our defense, and form the evidence so far it doesn't look as though we've come to terms with this at all.

Our biggest problem however, as all regular speccies know, is that our forwards,(Props in particular) don't make enough go forward when they have the ball and are dominated physically when they don't have it. No matter how talented out back line is, we just can't operate under these circumstances.

Yeah some of our forwards do seem to be abit soft i think Sidlow should be doing alot better like you said our forwards do get bullied around the pitch. Do you think they'll finally realise how to use Paleaaesina properly? It was frustrating watching him just catch the ball and run does no-one tell him to get abit of a run up? Surely momentum will give us a few extra yards.

The defensive problem we had on Sunday i believe was more to do with the amount of possesion we allowed the Crusaders to have. For example we made 105 tackles more than them. Wild made 43 tackles, Adamson 38, Godwin 36 and Sidlow 35. They basically started to wear us down after about 55 minutes and we didn't have the energy to close them down quick enough after that. Our forwards made a lot of tackles even by Alker and Swain's high workrate standards. For instance Alker averaged 40 tackles a game last year and Swain averaged 33.

In a word no, for all the tackling Alker used to do it never stopped us getting thrashed and always being sh*t did it? The problem with us is that we never have the ball so we're always likely to have players that will make that number of tackles. If Alker played for any other super league team he wouldn't have made anywhere near as many tackles because he wouldn't have needed to. I feel sorry for Wild and Godwin because this year they're going to have to make just as many as Alker used to going off Sundays display.

I take it you've not seen much of Holdsworth as our captain yet, believe me he's laid into certain players and has spoken to the referee (as is captains Prerogative) more in the past couple of weeks that Malc ever did!

I never thought Alker was particularly good at the on field duties as a captain. For leading by example he was sublime but other than that I never actually thought he was captain material.

What I do think we need is an onfield pack leader, Cashmere would be the choice if it were based on talent but not sure he's vocal enough. Could be time for Adamson to step up to the plate and make a name for himself in that respect.

Ahh, nope just the one game saw him have a go at a few players to be fair.