Of course. But we are comparing it to last season’s friendly (also our only hit out with the primary squad) and the team looks a world away from that. So hopefully this shows a lot of promise.

Heard Paul Vaughan played really well and played good minutes. I've got high hopes for him this season. McGuire getting sent off rings alarm bells, he's spent the past 2 years getting bans so i was hoping he would be better over here. Hoping it's just a one off slip.

Quote: Fantastic Mr Catpiss "Bit of broken play, they came back into the line where kasiano was having a rest and mikaele was blowing out of his booty despite having only been on for about 5 minutes, he doesn't look wrll conditioned,'" According to https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... -happened/ It was 9 minutes but I take your point.

Quote: Fantastic Mr Catpiss "Bit of broken play, they came back into the line where kasiano was having a rest and mikaele was blowing out of his booty despite having only been on for about 5 minutes, he doesn't look wrll conditioned,'" According to https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... -happened/ It was 9 minutes but I take your point.

Vaughan was very good, strong in both attack and defence. McGuire showed good leadership and had played well until the sending off. McGuire is clearly the pack leader and we’ll miss him if he’s banned

Green shoots of recovery.
A few mistakes, as you’d expect, but nobody had a shocker. Looking at the new lads you didn’t come away thinking ‘what have we bought here?’. McGuire was the pick of the bunch for me. Vaughan works hard and has a good engine, Kasiano looks to be a threat (but was clearly carrying a niggle), Dudson will be a solid interchange (although he could miss a few weeks due to a broken hand) and the Drinkwater / Williams combination should come together over the coming games. Ratchford looked solid at Centre and Mata’utia didn’t feel the need to run around like a headless chicken trying to make things happen. Dufty did nothing wrong but didn’t set the game alight as maybe we were expecting (he did chime into the line on a couple of occasions). Currie had one of his better games and he needs to carry this through the season. Harrison also looks to have a good engine and decent pace for a prop. Russell clearly has a point to prove and may turn out to be a good (re)signing if we pick up injuries.

Leigh, to their credit, are not in Super League to make up the numbers and it was nice to see that they’d brought a decent following with them.

After last season, a win was welcome, if it was only in a warm up game. The second half shut out was a positive, given the way we collapsed on too many occasions in 2022, but McGuire's red card was a blot on the evening.

Quite surprised at ppl saying ratch looked OK.

He dropped 2 or 3 horrendous balls in the first half, south west ish corner.

Crap passes, whatever you want to call it, but pretty much the stuff that was annoying me last year.

Russell using his ball carrying arm to bump/fend is going to annoy me greatly this year.

Drinkwater wasn't noticeable at all in th first half, George was doing all the kicking, however thar 40/20 was a beaut in the 2nd. Which also somehow lead to a skirmish as we ran up field.

Thewlis took a decent high ball, mainly unchallenged but that will be good for his confidence

Yes, Ratchford blew a couple of chances in that first half. That said, it was the first run out in slippery conditions, and the more he gets used to playing at centre the more he'll be ready for the ball. I think it was probably a case of him having one eye on the defender. His footwork did look useful when he caught the ball that one time .

A warm up game both teams wanted to win and a very disjointed penalty count gave very uneven tackle counts

Should have been more against leigh, the amount of times the fleet went up in the air during a tackle

Was the 2009 cup semi final.

Powell said he’s had a hip flexor issue all week. Maybe he shouldn’t have been risked, but it’s a friendly and that gives Powell the opportunity to see how he goes. I get the feeling Kasiano will thrive in warmer, drier conditions in the summer.