I've got one of those chocolate sponge cakes in a tin, t'is fantastic for times like this.


Back to Briers. I'm not sure what it is with Lee of late, he just seems to have really raised his own bar, which is what he needed. Too often I've felt Lee's been happy in his comfort zone, but it seems he's really up for it and he's pushing himself, which is excellent news.

Like a grubber out of our own 20 at Knowsley Rd a few years back - hugely successful decision that.

I think the last three weeks have begun to prove the type of player Bridge is - a potentially very good centre. He's not a half back, and certainly not a tactical kicker at this level. He made a decent centre in Whatuira look ordinary today, let him develop in the right centre role and he might just start to fulfil this potential.

Hope it was just a twinge and not a bad pull, he was tops again today really up for it and at the heart of everything.

When he has his hands on the ball you get the atmosphere and feeling that he can create something out of nothing, that something is about to happen and to be honest we aren't blessed with many players that can make it happen like he does.

Just on that point, Gleeson is a player that can make something out of nothing and today Bridge proved he can do this and be as good as Gleeson at right centre.

He directed play, got the ball out into the danger zones quickly and bossed the whole show for starters.

That's what Franklin and his crew said when looking for the North West Passage.

he pulled off some bone crunching tackles, especially considering his size, briers is at the moment too good to replace imo

As I said last week he is doing well, The angel on his right shoulder appears to be more of an influence than the devil on his other. If he can show the sort of maturity that he has in his last few games but for a consistent period then I will be over the moon. Our problem is playing without him. we sometimes look like we are playing with one arm tied behind our back.
The whole team has stepped up, One example was King making a tackle in the second half in their 20 where he just hung on to the player by his fingertips. that was typical of the determination to make the tackle shown by players like Grix and Briers.
I thought Monaghan was outstanding yesterday. It helps when you have willing runners as there is much more doubt in the defence.

The only problem that I could see was when Morley, Carvell and Monaghan came off we lost a bit of direction in defence. They nearly made us pay from a couple of gaps up the middle.

I remember Phil Clarke saying that to have any chance of competing in the play offs then your defence needs to leak no more than 20 points on average, encouraging to see that in the last couple of games we are heading in that direction

Hull KR will be a different proposition with a bit more creativity from Cooke and Dobson. It could be the game of the weekend this one and if we can keep them to 20 points i will be pleased, as long as we score 21 of course