Quote Milly="Milly"It's got to be psychological!
'"
I don't agree with that. Like I said yesterday before the game - winning last night would have meant far more to us fans than the coaching staff and the players. This 'never won at KR' obsession is very much a fan-based obsession. It's us fans who have the long memories, half the players out there weren't even playing RL back at the start of SL. The players would have treated it as just another league game against a side that are tough to beat at home, like Huddersfield.
Quote Milly="Fatbelly"There was three reasons we lost tonight.
Reason One. The superb kicking of Kyle Eastmond
Reason Two. No Lee Briers.
Reason Three. Richard Silverwood. Odemwingie says we won the penalty count , but Silverwood gave two vital decisions, one was when two Saints players collided for the high ball and he gave a penalty against us !!!!!!!!!!!!!! and the other was when a Saints player knocked on right in front of his own line and Silverwood said it went back !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were 20 - 18 down and we had them on the ropes and I was Convinced we would go on and win the game and Silverwood came up with vital decisions which changed the game.'"
I completely agree with that. You've essentially just summed up what I came on here to post this morning.
I would combine points 1 & 2 - Eastmond's kicking gave them a much better positional advantage than ours did and we missed the in-game kicking that Briers offers, not to mention the goal kicking! Still though, even had we kicked all 4 goals we still would have lost. Which brings me to Silverwood.
I agree that those two (shocking) decisions changed the face of the game. Especially the knock-on that should have been at 20-18 down. That would have given us a scrum right on the try line and the talent and determination to score. Another instance was Gardner taking the ball over the dead ball line and instead of a drop out a re-start for Saints was given. Now I couldn't see the dead ball line, being only 5'3 and having some great big tall bloke stood in front of me, but from the crowd's reaction I wasn't the only one who thought he got it wrong. Anyone that cites the penalty count (Odemwingie) as a reason why Warrington weren't hard-done-to was obviously not at the game and is simply reading the statistics. The question isn't the amount of penalties but the timing and nature of those he did/didn't give. In fact if Saints had been penalised for every time their players were not square at marker the count would have been much higher in our favour.
Back to Briers - I don't think it's just his kicking we missed. I think we really could have done with his creative leadership out there. Too many times we were just driving the ball up the middle or trying that same move over and over again on King's wing. Saints will have planned to contain King and to keep trying down that wing after we'd already scored there twice was just flogging a dead horse. I appreciate he's on form at the moment but all we did was exactly what Saints expected us to do and for the most part they had no problem containing it. We needed Briers out there to create something a little different and shake our attack up a little. I don't think Myler has the experience or confidence to change an attack the way Briers does and to be honest I didn't even notice Monas on the pitch half the time. Whether he was mising Briers I don't know but it didn't stop us winning pretty convincingly over Bradford last week. We really need him back. I'm glad we've got over this 'can't win without Briers' mentality but I seriously think Myler needs some leadership and pressure taken off him.
