Celtic Results
Leeds Rhinos Away L 6-28
Salford Reds Away L 16-28
Hull FC Home L 20-28
Saints Home L 0-4
Hull KR Away L 18-48
Warrington Wolves Away L 22-27
Apart from HKR & Leeds the results havent been runaway scores and the average loss is 13.5 points per game which isnt bad for newcomers

very predictable...one man rugby any one can read...they were good in fact half decent..but we did`nt help our selves..got to step up a gear for salford and cas...2 games we shud win on paper.............BUT

He can be as brave as he wants, it still doesn't hide the fact that he cant seem to run onto a pass at speed! How many times did he drop the ball? This guy isn't good enough to be our full back at the moment and IMO never will be in the future!

2 of his drops were from absolutely shocking passes to be fair.

why don't you leave it up to tony smith, who has proved he knows what he's doing, to decide if he is good enough to be full back and get behind him!

i thought he had a good game came up with some errors but other than losing it in tackle in first half they were normally results of poor passing and added to that he was absolutely solid under high ball and had a massive hand in try in 2nd half that swung game our way

I can accept the passes weren't the best but at the same time better players seem to be able to take these type of passes more often than not. Riley had one good run but the rest of his game was poor. His kick return is woeful and i have my heart in my mouth every time he's passed the ball.

his kick return that earned us about 60 yards? that was woeful?

his quick hands that created space for the try down our left side that was poor?

coping with numerous towering bombs without slip up? poor?

were you at game?

he's probably got single figures for starts at full back in 1st team and apart from some handling errors which he needs to cut out he is doing well try being a bit optimistic!

To be fair I have no option but to leave it to Tony Smith as he is the head of coaching at Warrington and I am merely a season ticket holder. Just making a comment on how I thought Riley played.

And it was Lee Briers who swung the game our way with his performance. If he wasn't on the pitch yesterday we wouldn't have won.

How many times has that been the case in the last 10 years?

He may cause unrest in the club but I doubt anyone else in the squad would have had the nerve or the ability to kick that goal yesterday. Until someone is brought in that has, he has to stay Im afraid.

Like I said his 60 yard run was the highlight of his game and he did well to create the space to get through. He then got caught by a prop forward and this is the guy who is supposedly claims to be as quick as Kevin Penny.

Almost every time Riley is tackled returning a kick he loses the collision against the opposition. More often than not he is driven back about 5 yards after being hit. I’m comparing the guy to Stuart Reardon (yes I can cast my memory back to a time when he was fit) who made numerous tackle bursts and could easily step players and gave the team momentum.

I was at the game yesterday and don’t remember ever thinking that Riley took a good catch of the ball under pressure. And how many times did he and Hicks mess when collecting a kick? A good full back should be commanding and look to take every ball.

I hope to be proved wrong and Riley turns into a top class full back especially because he is a local lad and always seems to put the effort in. But I think the guy is a Dean Gaskell-esque national league player.

Aye, Vinnie was trying to push the pass for to often and Highams pass was virtually at his head. The only one you could give any real blame for was the one in 1st 10 minutes, when the pass from Landerson was crap went behind Riley it looked as though he dropped it then. He did great to regain the ball only to lose it again in the tackle.

Thought it was a pretty life-less affair yesterday TBH. Certainly the lack of away fans didn't help, and thought that transferred itself to the players, certainly in the first half. It just never really got going.
Indeed it was only when Riley chased back in the 2nd half and caught the Celtic bloke, preventing a try, that the fans got into it more.
Not one of Wires worst performances this season but let's face it, had we been playing one of the better SL sides we would have been put to the sword.

just out of curiousity, why do people seem to excuse chris rileys handling mistakes but tear into kev penny for his? now i'm not bagging anyone, i for one hope both players go on to do well for the wire, but i would hazard a guess that both players make similar amounts of errors per game.
do you think it is because of the hype that came with penny because he exploded onto the scene, whereas riley has been more 'low key' ?

Absolutely, I was going mad at the time. Poor passing from Higham. Never happen with Clarke.

Good post. Probably because Penny went on this incredible run and was selected in the dream team and then has slowly regressed people feel the need to criticise his every mistake. The funny thing is Riley has never showed any of the form that Penny showed in his debut season and gets excused for every mistake he has ever made.

Its almost as if we say let riley off he’s rubbish anyway but criticise penny as he was once really good for the club and now shouldn’t ever make a mistake.

Very backward logic IMO!

Its all to do with expectations, Penny has been put on a pedestal at far to young an age.

to be fair i reckon the people who jump on penny's errors are probably the same people jumping on riley's and vice versa

i reckon both should be given the chance and both should be given plenty of patience and time to do things like make errors and learn from them, but i do think that riley is a far better all round player than penny and so if just 1 is to get a shot at the moment then it should be riley

I agree Riley is probably the better all round player compared to Penny in terms of defence positional sense etc. However, in what areas does Riley excel? Penny has the pace and ability to run with ball in hand which no other player has at the club. He offers a different dimension to our game and has scored some of the best tries I have seen as a Warrington fan. Games like Celtic (which we should be winning) should be used as a learning curve for Penny, so he can learn his trade because he has far more potential than Riley does. I think we should have hicks at full back and bring back Kev Penny and give him the chance to flourish.

yes kev penny has got that raw pace that riley possibly lacks and i really hope TS can somehow tap into that potential because we could have a star there

however, it seems to me that everyone is equating penny's pace to tries, which to some extent it does, but riley's scoring record is similar if not better than penny's so perhaps what he's got that penny hasn't more than makes up for the lack of electric pace

his confidence and willingness to be involved is awesome i think he's got massive potential

No Celtic were crap. They were unfit, had no shape & in attack some of them were actually stood in the wrong place. They were blowing after 10 minutes & no wonder the props were rotated twice in the first half.Their tries came from us gifting them position deep in our half due to stupid penalties.

We were poor too, never stuck to the basics & spend a good deal of the second half making errors through panicking. Paul Johnson played an absolute blinder though, however the sponsors only know one of our players names.

Funny that last week they didn't have a clue because they gave mom to hard working, two try scoring Paul Johnson.


As for Celtic Crusaders being "crap" your opinion obviously and everybody is entitled to one. I thought they were quite good in a Harlequins kind of structured way until they started to drop off towards the end of the game.

Anyone who denies Briers was worthy of the MOM is either seriously bigoted or didn't watch the game properly.

Personally, I thought it was a toss-up between Bryars and Wood.

Just to mention Rileys kick returns being poor according to a few on here, was it hicks who lost the ball on his 20-30metre line in a collision after returning it from a kick?

No player is perfect, even the one people they want to replaced a dropped Riley