Oh here we go, you don't know Rugby league if you think Ratchford is not a good player nonsense. Arrogant and incorrect. I don't think he's a poor player, he just isn't a VERY good one. He's a good one in a few positions, he excels in NONE. Here's the rub, his supposed best position is FB yet he is not in with a shout to be in the top 4 consideration for the WC. He has also only made it onto the shortlist for the top 5 mom in the guardian ONCE this season....but you're an idiot if you think he's overrated.

Don’t worry Paul Youane will be on here tomorrow claiming Steve Price is the second coming of Daniel Anderson.

So approaching from the angle he did, to diffuse a situation that the winger should have dealt with, you expect a backhanded slap to knock the ball in the direction of his own try line - nope, that would be terrible decision making.

Our defensive structure as a collective was all over the place, a repeat of the 1st half against Huddersfield. Game was gone at HT for the second time this season.
Cas even scored with a man short in the second half. Too many players caught ball watching instead of doing a defensive job, and most of our problems started at the play the ball.

They scored 2 when they were down to 12 didn't they?

Do yourself a favour, read the sticky about provocative posting.

I know this won't go down well but I thought we missed Jason Clark in defence yesterday.
One of the reasons our right edge was torn to shred was that the middle players were not working hard enough to allow the edge defenders to push out. We were sometimes left with a situation where it was 6 against 4. That is also created because we lost the contact battle, their forwards were then able to play the ball quicker and our middles just couldn't get back into position and we were then constantly fightng fires.
When you watch the 1st try we had four players to the right of the posts and GOB had 6 players outside him when he dummied and went over all created by the middles losing the battle and not working hard enough

I don't quite get the talk of Trueman and Holmes coming here.
I know both our second rowers had shockers yesterday but I think the side that we need to concentrate on is our right edge. OK Holmes may be able to play on the right but Trueman is a left sided player. We know that Austin has been told to find another club but the 2 half backs we have been linked with have predominantly played on the left. Of course if Widdop is also going then I get it.
Please - no more square pegs in round holes

It was a shocking way to play in a semi final. It reminded me of the DVDV era where players would start to run around like maniacs when the game was gone to show the crowd that they were putting the effort in to avoid criticism. There was a lot of playing to the crowd in that performance.

So Cas absolutely tore us apart and really could have scored more tries. Huddersfield, first half, did the same. Catalan scored a total of 14 points against us in two games ... but have lost to no one else. What I would really like to know is what are Cas/Hudd doing that we cannot handle and that Catalan are not capable of? Cas for years (when Gale was with them) were brilliant on the left edge but this attacking performance was something else. Their performances in the last few weeks, mean beggar all, cos they have had so many injuries.

Right edge defence is woeful, unfortunately for us yesterday that also coincided with left edge brain farts in attack. Ratch and Currie didn't seem to click all match, plus the pass to touch 10m from our own line screamed of a set move that didn't go to plan (i still question Lineham's position on that, he's far too big to make up any distance between him and King when needed)

I've not watched the game back and I likely wont because I'm sulking but how can a 32 year old, ex stand off who's a bit chunkier than he was can score a hat-trick with only last gasp tackles to try and stop him.

Charnley likes the rush out but is he being forced by lack of comms from Hughes/Austin from the inside or is he just a very bad reader of attacking moves?

Both our wingers aren't used as traditional wingers anymore and it shows. Low tries, low mobility and low defence.

Powell's instructions were clear from the start, attack Charnley and it paid off.

We made Jordan Turner look like Josh Addo-Carr.

This has been baffling me also, something isn't stacking up.

It’s that inconsistency that does us - perform great against one team and pants against another. The squandered potential is what is hard to take.

Easy. Unable to handle the pressure of being favourites in games against sides with similarly equal ability.

For the 2 Catalan games, it's fair to say that defeat in either wouldn't have been seen as a surprise. No pressure = Decent performances (Similarly, it can be argued that Catalan have the same issue?).

Yesterday, the Hudds game, last year's semi, last 2 year's play off games - clear favourites, most fans & pundits making us strong favourites on paper - the side bottle it, not just getting beat, but putting in really sub standard performances.

I think, overall, that's the thing that grates. In these games, it's not like we are being beat by a fantastic opposition. We are simply bottling it and giving terrible displays, almost as if they freeze on the day.

The only positive yesterday, was seeing a team coached by our next coach, actually turn up in a big game and play some great flowing RL. I suspect if the coaches had been reversed yesterday, then so would the result.

Cas pasted us in the opening game & then again in the first half at the HJ. Our 60 points made our performance seem better than it actually was for most of the match.