Has he convinced the team that they don't need Briers to play well?

Will the players take more responsibility in his absence? Monaghan obviously has.

It was strange to watch Monaghan; he looked much happier with the extra responsibility with Briers off the field. He is a crap from hand kicker though.

He isn't crap at all. He does tend to get under the ball when kicking it though, which loses direction.

REgardsless, he is the best kicker we have at the moment.

So he isn't crap 'but tends to get under the ball and loses direction'. Which sort of confirms my point.

Still seems much more comfortable taking it to the line like a 9.

I thought our attack was struggling until Briers came on, then suddenly we had options.

I tend to agree. The much maligned Briers strikes again.

thought Smith's use of subs was first class and had HKR struggling with our player positional rotation

a hard graft game and a hard worked result, well done the wire !!

hopefully a kick-on next week against Celtic

We have a run of very winnable games now

hopefully a good winning run comes from the back of that

Obviously been to the Mike Sullivan Acadamy for crap kickers.

Watch how much time people like Long, Deacon and Sinfield give themselves when kicking and compare to the guys that aimlessly boot the ball downfield, whilst running at full speed - technique is everything !!

Is that why we lost the second half.

Much improved performance. Why the negativity? Monaghan had his best game for a long time and Briers produced two great tries and stopped a HKR try with a superb cover tackle on Dobson.
Happy days.

Just bemuses me when we win the first half 16-0 and lose the second half 8-12, yet apparently Briers made a difference in attack.

It bemuses me how some people are never happy...Excellent performance all round i thought against an in form and well drilled Rovers side...
And i've been as negative as anyone lately i'll admit..

I think it was more around the structure of our attack that was better.

The first two tries were individual tries, and the third was a simple move out and a good effort from Johnson.

Once Briers came on, the pass selection improved, the width of the team improved, and the attacking kicks improved.

We did however continue to give too many penalties and allow KR to have lots of the ball. We had much of the ball in our own half.

I see no reason why Monas and Briers can't play together, with Monas controlling the early tackles and play close to the ruck, and Briers commanding the more expansive stuff. They are both different enough to be able to work together, yet Monas seems to struggle with the role more than Briers, so I'm not necessarily sure who is the bigger issue, howveer I have faith in Smith to sort that one.